Financially speaking, kids are an asset in non-industrialized societies, especially farming societies. But they are a liability in industrialized ones. I think that transition from asset to liability for nations undergoing industrialization might explain this phenomenon.
I really hope when people have kids they don't look at them as an asset or a liability, aside from when considering the financial impact. They're not a great fit for our lifestyle, but if my wife and I did end up having a kid I wouldn't think of them as a liability.
I think you're stuffing more meaning into my statement than I intended: I intentionally qualified the statement to the financial perspective only in which case it's appropriate to talk about assets and liabilities.
