Stagnating wages, delayed careers due to the 2001 and 2007 crashes and subsequent recessions, and increased debt all conspire to put people in a position where having kids in their 20s is simply not an option.
Great list, but there's a couple of important missing pieces:
6. Changing norms have greatly increased what is expected of a parent raising a child. Ignoring external cost increases, this has profoundly increased the cost and time investment to having a child.
7. Economic changes (e.g. 30 years of wage stagnation) all but force a family with both parents working, meaning parents have to work, and then thanks to #6, also do more at home.
So parents are expected to do far more with far less, with no support from family, community, or society.
This person has made their choice. They didn't ask to be offered an alternative perspective, and they've evidently thought it through. What do you gain by trying to convince them they're wrong or to change their mind?
And this goes both ways! I often see parents talk about how rewarding parenthood is, only to be replied to by folks who insist on pointing out how difficult it can be, even if those comments were entirely unsolicited.
I often wonder if comments like this are borne of defensiveness. The GP, in their comment, made mention of all the things they can do absent children, and that could be seen as an indictment of parenthood.
Unfortunately, this makes it impossible for folks with and without children to have a rational conversation, since it's all but impossible for each to speak of the advantages of their lifestyle without implicitly criticising the lifestyle of the other person.
BTW, this is what /r/childfree on Reddit should have been about: providing advice and support for people making this choice. It's a damn shame it's turned into such a toxic community (that, sadly, reinforces the idea that folks who choose not to have kids are "baby haters")... sigh
My wife and I have been married for a little over 14 years and, from the beginning, knew that neither of us wanted to have kids.
There's nothing at all selfish about being happy with your current life. The real question is why you'd feel selfish for not wanting to have children. It's simply a choice. It's neither selfish nor unselfish, it's just a decision based on a very real cost-benefit analysis.
As for old age, I'll point out a few things:
First, having children is no guarantee you'll be cared for in old age. My grandmother on my father's side was virtually abandoned by most of my family during her greatest years of decline. And she's unfortunately a datapoint in a much larger trend of neglected elderly. Heck, I read a story recently of elderly people in Japan dying in their homes and no one realizing it until the smell disturbed their neighbours...
Second, one can, and should, build an extended support network. The great irony is that having children makes that a lot harder--it's tough to build and maintain friendships when parenting is taking up most of your time--which means this will become more difficult as your own friends have kids. Be prepared to have to work harder to maintain those friendships and to build new ones. But don't neglect this. It'll be tempting to let your social network shrink to just you and your wife. Don't let that happen.
Third, you can plan for your own care. Being child-free means you're more likely to have funds to ensure you can retire healthy and get the necessary care needed as you become infirm.
In the end, though, it's unquestionably a tradeoff, and it's certainly the case that, by not having children, you're more likely to have less support during your declining years.
Personally, I choose to take that risk knowing my wife and I are doing what's right for us, today. We can't be living our lives, now, for an unknown future decades from now.
Stagnating wages, delayed careers due to the 2001 and 2007 crashes and subsequent recessions, and increased debt all conspire to put people in a position where having kids in their 20s is simply not an option.