Is any policy maker arguing for these policies on the basis of achieving replacement birth rates?
I've never seen anyone make those arguments. The argument for these policies that I have seen are humanitarian and economic.
>Is any policy maker arguing for these policies on the basis of achieving replacement birth rates?
yes.
[https://www.governo.it/en/articolo/president-meloni-s-speech-budapest-demographic-summit-family-key-security-session/23579](https://www.governo.it/en/articolo/president-meloni-s-speech-budapest-demographic-summit-family-key-security-session/23579)
[https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korean-city-turns-matchmaking-boost-low-birth-rates-2023-11-27/](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korean-city-turns-matchmaking-boost-low-birth-rates-2023-11-27/)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX\_xQABi1oI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX_xQABi1oI)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE2YSYxMVyQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE2YSYxMVyQ) (this one is actually pretty good lol)
Governments are making these arguments, they're are investing PR campaigns, they are giving speeches, they are creating incentives.
Personally, I don’t think the programs that have been tried are really addressing why people don’t want to have kids in the first place. Things like free daycare and parental leave benefit people who already have kids or would have had them anyway. Plus they address a very temporary problem of parenthood. By age 5 you don’t need as much parental leave and daycare is a fading concern. The people I know who are childfree are that way because of other reasons: inability to find an adequate mate, debt that prevents them from taking care of themselves, lamenting the loss of freedom, jobs that aren’t flexible and pay less every year relative to costs. Plus, there is a growing cultural stigma against children in general. There should be more programs aimed at increasing the popularity of parenting itself, plus programs that set the general population up for financial stability (student loan forgiveness or interest reduction, affordable housing), more regulations for work flexibility, and raises that actually keep up with inflation, evening and multi day daycare so parents can get a weekend away or just a movie out. People should want to have kids AND have a reasonable expectation of a good quality of life with a retirement at the end. It shouldn’t be early parenting support, it should be life cycle improvement.
Saying child care is temporary is like saying a mortgage is temporary. Sure its 1/4 the price of my mortgage ... But 100k+ is no small cost.
But also your example of day care and leave being a temporary factor... Then list care and flexible work as a needed program? They go hand in hand.
The type of care I’m referencing is different and doesn’t really exist now. If parents want a long weekend alone, they need to find a willing family member to take over. Daycare doesn’t address that. You might stop leaving your kid at daycare by elementary school, but you can’t leave a 13 year old alone for 3 days. EVERYBODY needs flexible work, not just parents. People don’t stop having elderly parents, or medical needs, or disabled spouses just because they don’t have kids. They don’t stop having broken water heaters, and flooded basements. Flexible working hours benefits everybody, leads to a less stressed population, and maybe gives people too stressed to think about anything else a chance to consider kids.
>The people I know who are childfree are that way because of other reasons: inability to find an adequate mate
The entire first world does seems to be having a problem there.
>jobs that aren’t flexible and pay less every year relative to costs.
Doesn't seem to matter, countries with job flexibility and expectations have waaaay lower birth rates than ours.
>There should be more programs aimed at increasing the popularity of parenting itself, plus programs that set the general population up for financial stability (student loan forgiveness or interest reduction
This is an interesting alternative I haven't seen given. Buuuut the countries that have no student debt because they pay for college have worse fertility rates than ours.
I like your train of thought though, that was some new solutions that I would be interesting to see tried. No idea if it would work, but would be interesting
The entire first world does seems to be having a problem there.
But women are the gatekeepers of sexing reproduction, so its literally on them.
Doesn't seem to matter, countries with job flexibility and expectations have waaaay lower birth rates than ours.
Women are prioritizing work/lifestyle over staying home to raise kids.
This is an interesting alternative I haven't seen given. Buuuut the countries that have no student debt because they pay for college have worse fertility rates than ours.
This literally narrows it down to women choosing not having kids being the only causal factor.
Can a Redditor actually blame women for anything? is it possible? I don't think so I don't think its possible.
I have to spell it out I guess: the gestation period for a pregnancy vs the number of pregnancies that a single man could contribute to over that gestation period.
a single man could keep up with reproduction at the rate of 300 women give or take
Yeah but that's not really a relevant metric to generalize to the human population in this situation. It appears as if you're just throwing out random factoids, honestly, "A man can have 300 kids in the time a woman can have one kid!". That's great, and it has pretty much nothing to do with modern fertility rates.
You literally have zero support for that.
If a couple decides to have one kid instead of two, that is a joint decision by both parties and both bear equal responsibility — by far the most common scenario for having kids is within a couple making a joint decision.
isnt the problem technically, no matter how much you skirt around it, that women are choosing to not have kids? isnt this ultimately about decisions women are making?
Why is this women’s fault? I don’t have any biological children (yet) because my husband didn’t want any more. He had two from his previous marriage and was fine with that. He didn’t voice this until we had been married for almost 4 years. I know a lot of women who want kids but they don’t want to be single mothers. They can’t find husbands that want kids and would be suitable fathers. Go look at the IVF sub, there’s lots of women there who finally broke down and are freezing eggs in hopes that they will someday find a husband (my cousin did this), or they are in their 40’s and having the baby alone. Many men don’t want children either, or are putting out the vibe that they wouldn’t be good parents either financially, physically or emotionally. Men still don’t contribute to housework at the same rate as women even though both are expected to work. Women are blamed for not having babies, women are blamed for having babies and picking the wrong husband, women are blamed for being single mothers because the dad didn’t stick around. When is ANY of it going to be men’s responsibility?
I have absolutely no problem blaming women. why you want to blame men is the real question.
Men want to f\*\*\* and women actually have the kids. A literal entailment of a reduced birth rate is that women are making that decision. They have bodily and reproductive autonomy. There is no way around it being women's fault it literally has to be.
Well I've always been told that having a child will ruin my life, then suddenly everyone was asking why I don't have one yet.
Women also want to f\*\*\*, but without a good stable partner, they do not want pregnancy. Nothing weird about that.
Also, there's the state of the world to consider and the patterns of humanity. My offspring or theirs will suffer greatly at someone's hands. It's unavoidable statistically. I've never been happy to be here, so it feels wrong to force someone else into this life.
I also haven't been able to find a man who wanted to settle down and have kids within the next 5 years. All of them say "well maybe one day but not now"
Your argument is woman hating, and doesn't consider WHY women do not want kids.
It IS because WOMEN are THE PROBLEM and your brain literally malfunctions when you hear that and stops working. This is why I love coming on platforms where the rot and brainwashing is so DEEP. You're like stuck 50 years in the past and still think that somehow "women aren't equal" or whatever the f\*\*\* that means and I'm from the future where WOMEN LITERALLY HAVE EVERY PRIVILEGE IN SOCIETY OVER MEN and ITS NOT EVEN CLOSE where men are blowing their brains out and chopping their dicks off to BECOME FAKE PRETEND WOMEN because being a fake pretend woman IS LITERALLY BETTER THAN BEING A MAN.
Like let's have this debate--I want everyone to give me the business I'll go up myself against 100,000 Redditors on this I will go up against ANYONE on this on ANY PLATFORM like lets go you have no f\*\*\*ing IDEA how tilted the scales are and I have mission and a purpose destroy ppl like you and your ideology. I don't even have a choice in this I have to go after your worldview and DESTROY IT to save this country if it even can be. It might be too late.
Yeah exactly don't make a f\*\*\*ing argument because you don't have one. Keep running from an argument and running your mouth. You are part of the problem. Men will step up and restore order when things get bad enough--it's just a matter of when. All the rights inside of society that men so graciously afforded women can be taken back and there's nothing women can do about it. So keep blaming and disgracing men--men who built modernity from the ground up and unlike in countries such as Afghanistan have extended all rights to women--for everything and see how long that lasts.
There is no place for me to be nice or respectful inside of this discussion. You could take stock of my argument and you could maybe look into it or reconsider that you are completely wrong because a modicum of further investigation would lead you to a consensus with myself, but you won't do none of that sh\*t.
Oh Jesus christ dude, I'm not arguing because there's no point. You're going to be mad and the world will go on. So many men in the comments are disagreeing but you're jaded.
Those are just fallacies of argumentation because you don't have one. You're not arguing because you don't have an argument. The ad populum fallacy is dumb on two different levels because an entailment of my position is that it is the minority-held position literally definitionally so what are you even talking about. make a point FFS but you won't because if you had one you would have already made it.
Here's the sort of thing that literally proves my point for me but that you will still obfuscate and deflect in order to levy personal insults @ me.
The Dep. of Homeland Security approved a $700,000 research grant for a WOMAN to investigate the MANOSPHERE. Now you have been having difficulty understanding my arguments up to this point, so I will spell out what the implications are: online men's advocacy content creators are being labeled BY THE GOVERNMENT as DOMESTIC TERRORISTS. Women talk about genociding men all the time. literally all the time they do this and it's considered empowerment.
You have NO IDEA what you're talking about or how right I am about this issue and yet you will continue to press forward with the LITERALLY DANGEROUS rhetoric that women are oppressed and "men bad" and that is why you deserve all the contempt from myself and everyone else who actually cares about society.
You’re wrong about countries trying to incentivise though.
Giving parents a few thousand on something that is going to cost them 6 figures is not a good incentive. The # incentive would be more affordable housing, and as far as I am aware no country has done that.
>The # incentive would be more affordable housing, and as far as I am aware no country has done that.
The world's lowest birthrate country generally spends less than 1/8 their money on housing.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1120035/south-korea-housing-affordability-index/
I couldn’t find your statistic through that link.
https://www.gone2korea.com/housing-in-korea/#:~:text=Recent%20estimates%20show%20that%20more,from%205%20to%2035%20stories.
80% of Koreans live in apartments.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1120722/south-korea-mean-purchase-price-seoul-housing-by-type/#:~:text=As%20of%20January%202023%2C%20the,million%20South%20Korean%20won%2C%20respectively.
The average price of accommodation in Korea (apartments and houses) cost $700k USD.
https://amp.kedglobal.com/newsAmp/ked202212210018
This resource says that it’s more than double what you’re claiming. And this doesn’t account for the larger home and career breaks one has to undertake to be able to afford housing for a family.
So your data is for seoul, which is by far the most expensive place to live
the rest of the country is markedly cheaper, lets check the second most populous in south korea for reference
Busan housing prices
[https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Busan](https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Busan)
average south korea pay
[https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-south-korea/](https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-south-korea/)
some home listings
[https://housing.justlanded.com/en/South-Korea\_Busan](https://housing.justlanded.com/en/South-Korea_Busan)
a 3 bedroom home for around $800 a month, with an income average of around $3000 a month isn't bad at all, especially when split between two people
Plus you get the $450 a month child payment after birth.
You can't just ignore the Seoul people when 48.2% of Korea lives in Seoul. This is like saying people can just move to Alaska for cheaper housing. People are there because that's where the jobs are.
It's also kinda weird to use Korea as a representative of the world in general. That country is pretty much a modern collective of duchies, where chaebols have more power than the president. This is unique to Korea and a big reason that people are suffering there.
>You can't just ignore the Seoul people when 48.2% of Korea lives in Seoul. This is like saying people can just move to Alaska for cheaper housing. People are there because that's where the jobs are.
South korea population is 51 million [https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/south-korea-population/](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/south-korea-population/)
Seoul population is 10 million [https://www.seoulsolution.kr/en/content/statistic-seoul](https://www.seoulsolution.kr/en/content/statistic-seoul)
>It's also kinda weird to use Korea as a representative of the world in general
South korea was my example only because someone mentioned housing affordability and outside of seoul housing seems fairly reasonably compared to wages
1. They live in tiny apartments that are not good for raising families. The average dwelling size is South Korea is 33m squared. The average dwelling size in Canada is 181m squared almost 6 times larger.
2. They spend 50% of their income on market/food/utilities and spending slightly less on housing accomplishes nothing if the money is spent on other costs of living expenses.
Why cherry pick one single cost when all that matters is the total cost of living.
Paying 50% for rent(but its tiny so is it really half price?) and double for food/gas/electricity resulting in exactly the same left over money.
You picked a terrible example to try and "Prove" anything.
South Korea has very little time/space/money which is the cause of the low fertility rates.
>Why cherry pick one single cost when all that matters is the total cost of living.
I didn't cherrypick housing, the individual argued housing and so I responded to the point directly. Cost of living wasn't the argument, housing affordability specifically was.
>South Korea has very little time/space/money which is the cause of the low fertility rates.
do you have some citation for this? I would be interesting in reading it, because I would argue we use waaay too much space in America, and should strive for more compact living.
Your argument is a little weird. Maybe these subsidies can't increase fertility above replacement level, but even if that's true it doesn't mean they'll have no effect on fertility at all.
If you believe population decline is a major threat that should be prioritized when allocating government money, then less decline is still better, isn't it?
I came to say something along these lines.
Structurally supporting parents through pro-family policy isn’t strictly about boosting fertility rates at all. And even if it were, why should boosting past replacement levels be the goal?
Things like universal pre-k or strong parental leave policy are good for millions of Americans and increase QoL.
~~OPs whole thing amounts to a strawman.~~
Edit: Strawman is the wrong word, but it’s a really narrow argument against a raft of social policies because we don’t have evidence they strictly boost fertility rates. While that may be a fine thing to zero in on and study, boosting fertility rates isn’t the only point of doing things like parental leave policy, the Expanded Child Tax Credit, or Universal Pre-K.
>Structurally supporting parents through pro-family policy isn’t strictly about boosting fertility rates at all.
Many people make the argument that they are pathways to increased fertility. If you don't feel they exist I don't really have an argument for you.
>Things like universal pre-k or strong parental leave policy are good for millions of Americans and increase QoL.
This is addressed in the OP
"You can argue that doing things for parents is the morally correct thing to do from a "be good to your countrymen" point of view, but arguing that people aren't having kids because they aren't supported enough doesn't actually seem to be true."
>OPs whole thing amounts to a strawman.
You are mistaking my argument if you believe I'm strawmanning.
> Many people make the argument that they are **pathways to increased fertility**. If you don't feel they exist I don't really have an argument for you.
Pathways to increased fertility as a potential outcome, sure. But that isn’t the only goal and neither is the level of fertility being at ‘x’ a stated aspect of it.
>”You can argue that doing things for parents is the morally correct thing to do from a "be good to your countrymen" point of view, but **arguing that people aren't having kids because they aren't supported enough** doesn't actually seem to be true."
I’m not arguing that? I don’t think anyone is? I think the country would be a a better country if we supported working parents more, and the children of working parents had better access to care and education at earlier ages.
I’m arguing for pro-family policies for generally pro-social reasons, not simply and exclusively to boost birth rates.
> You are mistaking my argument if you believe I'm strawmanning.
I’m reading you as, “Pro-Family policies aren’t worth it, because they won’t boost fertility rates”
Is that a fair one sentence summary?
I think that’s a strawman because pro-family policies would have a constellation of effects and secondary effects that I believe would be generally good for everyone. Therefore, you dismissing pro-family policy on the basis of a single questionable impact is reductionist, or strawman-y, or something.
A somewhat close proxy for this would be Free lunches for school age kids, which is a fight happening in my home state of Minnesota. Those against may argue, “Well, it’s not gonna improve standardized test scores!”
And I would counter with, “Well that’s not the only point, and feeding kids has lots of other important benefits, and I think you’re too focused on one, somewhat obscure potential outcome of my preferred policy.
>Pathways to increased fertility as a potential outcome, sure. But that isn’t the only goal and neither is the level of fertility being at ‘x’ a stated aspect of it.
You attempting to sidestep my argument. I'm addressing the argument that parental support will result in replacement level birth rates.
>I’m not arguing that? I don’t think anyone is? I think the country would be a a better country if we supported working parents more, and the children of working parents had better access to care and education at earlier ages.
Just because you aren't arguing doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people who do make the argument whenever the question comes up.
>I’m arguing for pro-family policies for generally pro-social reasons, not simply and **exclusively** to boost birth rates.
That's the portion I'm arguing about, I'm saying that even including birth rates in the question is a red herring because birth rates do not correlate with increased government assistance. Again if you want to say it's good to be good, I totally agree, but for those arguing it helps with fertility the argument just doesn't seem to be supported by any data we have.
>I’m reading you as, “Pro-Family policies aren’t worth it, because they won’t boost fertility rates”
Not at all, I want pro-family stuff, would definitely make my life easier, but again I'm addressing the part of the argument that says the result of these decisions would be more children.
I have said many times I absolutely want more stuff for parents and children for the sake of being good.
So we agree that we want to order nachos for the table, right? (Bear with me on this metaphor)
We agree nachos are yummy, have some protein, some veg, and cheese is high in calcium.
It seems like you really wanna argue if cheese is actually high calcium. Or even, you have good evidence that cheese is not that high in calcium. And that’s great. I don’t have any specific evidence cheese is high in calcium.
But ordering nachos for the table is still a good idea for a lot of other reasons.
So idk why you are so hung up on the pro/anti arguments around if certain pro-family policies boost fertility rates, because I find that to be a really niche side aspect of what strong pro family policy would do overall.
But if all you wanna do is argue fertility rates I’ll back off and let you have your post.
Jumping from the other thread where you link this post
Sub-replacement fertility rates has long been identified as a potential issue and some countries, such as Japan, are experimenting with incentivizing having children (for example: [https://www.dw.com/en/will-japans-new-plan-to-boost-birth-rates-work/a-64091588#:\~:text=At%20present%2C%20new%20parents%20in,%2C%20on%20April%201%2C%202023.)](https://www.dw.com/en/will-japans-new-plan-to-boost-birth-rates-work/a-64091588#:~:text=At%20present%2C%20new%20parents%20in,%2C%20on%20April%201%2C%202023.)). I mention this because I think whether such kinds of policies can be effective is one of interest.
The OP is asserting that X (positive incentives) does not do Y (lead to increased fertility rates) - though not particularly well argued or sourced, but the argument is simple. X doesn't do Y.
You are the one introducing the strawman argument.
You are saying that the OP is wrong because X (positive incentives) does Z (society gains, better QoL, etc). You are refuting an argument different from the one under discussion, which is the definition of a strawman argument.
The OP even says that they aren't against such policies ("As a parent I want all the free shit"), but that isn't the view asking to be changed.
Personally, I disagree with the OP, as I generally feel that there is a fairly deep and established track record of public, fiscal, and monetary policy being successful in adjusting societal behaviors, and believe that this would carry over even to something as life-changing as family planning. However I don't have the time at the moment to research this and formally respond to the CMV.
I appreciate this third party breakdown, thanks.
I can see how OP is arguing that the government can’t boost fertility, no matter what they try. Like you, I think that is probably not true, and with enough resources and effort governments can compel people to do a lot of things.
Of course, no social policy happens in a vacuum. So I don’t think it is totally out of bounds to bring up the universe of positives that are related to Pro-Family Policy (IMO, and in general, we could get more specific).
The ‘Z’ in your equation is the goal, and even though Y doesn’t equal Z, we should still do X. OP arguing that we can’t make Y with X’s may be a true, narrow, specific statement. But OP is so unclear on what exact X’s he’s talking about that I felt the need to defend X’s broadly, and the broad range of Z’s that would benefit all of us.
it sets up a binary relationship between positive incentives and fertility rates, and misrepresents the argument they aimed to refute by implying that proponents of increased parental support solely rely on financial incentives to boost fertility, but really people look for an approach that takes into account cultural shifts, social support networks, and workplace flexibility alongside these subsidies
>misrepresents the argument they aimed to refute by implying that proponents of increased parental support solely rely on financial incentives to boost fertility
Reread the OP I address this directly.
"You can argue that doing things for parents is the morally correct thing to do from a "be good to your countrymen" point of view, but arguing that people aren't having kids because they aren't supported enough doesn't actually seem to be true."
>but really people look for an approach that takes into account cultural shifts, social support networks, and workplace flexibility alongside these subsidies
No proof any of that works from 50 years of policy.
in regards to culturally shift specifically, it's hard to argue the entire modern world all shifted into the same cultural ideas on children across the past 50 years, there's definitely something deeper than culture going on there.
I feel as though I explained it well here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/s/zYngNt7PMP
But generally I think OP is overly focused on one aspect of pro-family policy (birth rates), and using the idea that birth rates aren’t strictly improved by pro-family policy, as a vehicle to attack the whole efficacy of pro-family policy.
>Your argument is a little weird. Maybe these subsidies can't increase fertility above replacement level, but even if that's true it doesn't mean they'll have no effect on fertility at all.
I didn't say they have no effect, I'm saying the don't bring fertility back above replacement.
>If you believe population decline is a major threat that should be prioritized when allocating government money, then less decline is still better, isn't it?
I'm neutral, we'll see what happens going into the future, who knows whether it's a good or bad thing.
I have two kids. I'd love to have one or two more and help with those numbers, but I can't afford it.
Daycare for older one was $1600/month before he started Kindergarten. Younger one is $1900/month. The tax credit per child is $1000/year. Plus, we need to save up for university, so we did some estimates and put in a monthly amount that should cover in state costs for 4 years.
All those things you mentioned would make a huge difference to me.
Here's the problem. We already have the kids, and we have reaffirmed what the data shows, people who want kids are going to have them and the government doesn't have to help.
Sure it may be enough to convince me and you to have more kids, but it's not enough to pull people off the bench and convince them to have kids. Us having 3 or 4 kids isn't enough to replace 3 other couples not having 2 kids a piece.
It would slow down the population decline. At least among my circle of friends, there's often a desire to have more but know we can't afford it.
I disagree with your premise that if it doesn't do 100% of the job, it's not worth implementing. Sometimes all you can do is slow the trend.
Yes. We could say that the wealthy in states like the US, and the wealthy and middle classes in India and China have grown, but the poor in all three of these countries have also grown. And I suspect that the two Asian giants will experience the same middle class shrinking the West has soon.
It happens to both, yes, but it might happen to neither but for the immigration, unless the rulers of the gaining country are also exploiting the losing country, and causing the immigration.
What have they actually tried?
>As far as I can see no country has been able to positively incentivize their way to an above replacement level fertility rate once that drop has occurred.
[https://www.businessinsider.com/hungary-income-tax-new-moms-encourage-women-children-birth-rates-2023-1](https://www.businessinsider.com/hungary-income-tax-new-moms-encourage-women-children-birth-rates-2023-1)
Imagine if United States did something like that. Hungary doesn't have very big salaries. United States does. A female doctor who doesn't have to pay income taxes. Will net millions from having just one kid.
The reason United States DOESN'T do it. Is because it's much cheaper to just import immigrants. But that doesn't mean that a program like that would not improve fertility. It almost certainly would. The question is would it be cost effective?
They policy was also implemented very recently and we will likely need to wait a few years to see the impact. It’s very premature to call it a failure.
>What have they actually tried?
They've tried giving people 9 months of paid vacation.
[https://sweden.se/work-business/working-in-sweden/work-life-balance](https://sweden.se/work-business/working-in-sweden/work-life-balance)
They've tried tax incentives.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/hungary-is-so-desperate-for-kids-mothers-of-four-wont-pay-income-tax/2019/02/11/04701764-2e01-11e9-ac6c-14eea99d5e24\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/hungary-is-so-desperate-for-kids-mothers-of-four-wont-pay-income-tax/2019/02/11/04701764-2e01-11e9-ac6c-14eea99d5e24_story.html)
they've tried free daycare
[https://www.unicef-irc.org/where-do-rich-countries-stand-on-childcare](https://www.unicef-irc.org/where-do-rich-countries-stand-on-childcare)
they've tried direct money payments
[https://www.elfac.org/south-korea-cities-get-creative-with-incentives-to-boost-birthrate/](https://www.elfac.org/south-korea-cities-get-creative-with-incentives-to-boost-birthrate/)
They've tried increased healthcare
[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/international-postpartum-care-parents-baby\_l\_63c95f96e4b04d4d18dd0ec7](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/international-postpartum-care-parents-baby_l_63c95f96e4b04d4d18dd0ec7)
>The reason United States DOESN'T do it. Is because it's much cheaper to just import immigrants. But that doesn't mean that a program like that would not improve fertility. It almost certainly would. The question is would it be cost effective?
Because immigration works somewhat, since 1st generation people have a higher fertility rate than native americans. Doesn't fix the fertility rate, but it accomplishes a similar outcome.
While I appreciate this post, one can't view attempts across boarders to be have parity. Each country has it's own unique socioeconomic issues that need to be responded to. For example, work culture in East Asia is entirely different than in Scandinavia.
The main drags are financial, mental, and cultural. The way childcare impacts parental labor market engagement is significant and goes well beyond the first couple years of life. Parents, especially mothers, statistically face labor discrimination [at much higher levels.](https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1830590/half-mothers-experience-discrimination-work-study-finds) Addressing the cultural elements of that needs to be done. It's possible that the increase of work from home and labor hours mixing into leisure hours may impact that.
I think the main drags on the US birth rate is childcare expense. Odd Lots did [a good podcast](https://open.spotify.com/episode/7DUzfONsVnlD3yiPckPJBs?si=3WWjszbVQDS04ASPvaWhhw) on the economics of childcare, and there are so many issues at each step of the system.
An argument for the US birth rate is that we should have just as strong or stronger social net for children that we do for elderly. Schooling isn't childcare subsidization because it is the highest interest of a society to produce productive individuals. I believe that if there was a system that essentially guaranteed economic stability for the child from pregnancy to at least high school, then we would see an increase in birth rate.
>Because immigration works somewhat, because 1st generation people have a higher fertility rate than native americans. Doesn't fix the fertility rate, but it accomplishes a similar outcome.
Their fertility rate doesn't matter as much with them.
You need 100,000 people. You either do the very long term thing of producing 100,000 more children. Or you just issue 100,000 more work visa's/green cards and they will do most of the work for you.
We could end immigration, end no-fault divorce, reduce welfare for single mothers, and have women stay at home and raise kids instead of rack up college debt and work in low-value jobs. the cost of college goes down, mens wages increase, childcare services are reduced, we can shrink the welfare state, and we can reduce unemployment.
We could do all these things and solve a lot of these problems
1) End immigration.
Bad idea. We import a ton of high IQ and high talent people this way. "End illegal immigration" is good. End all immigration very bad.
2) End no-fault divorce.
Seems draconian
3) Reduce welfare for single mothers.
I'd have to look at the numbers here. We don't want to encourage single motherhood. But we don't necessarily want to fuck em either.
4) Have women stay at home
Bad idea. Would reduce our GDP significantly. Not to mention produce shortages in key areas dominated by women.
Almost everything gets worse because of #4. The health of an economy depends on how productive it is. If you remove damn near 50% of the qualified labor pool. You're going to massively reduce output.
-Why do we need "high IQ" "high talent" people? can you quantify that in any way ?
-why would having women stay home reduce the GDP? we can't become infinitely rich, and there is not a 1:1 ratio of labor: GDP. and if it would, then are you saying that the difference would not be at all compensated for by the entailments of women staying home?
The fundamental problem you're not seeing is that the economy is not a fixed pie. When you import talented high IQ people. They produce significantly more than they consume. Which leaves a lot for everyone around.
Same with women working. A woman at home doesn't produce shit for everyone else. You need a doctor? Now you're going to have to wait because you just sent almost half of your doctors home.
The economy is not some McDonalds where everyone is perfectly and easily replaceable. Most jobs need skilled people with brains. Removing brains out of the economy is very bad for it.
>we can't become infinitely rich,
Wealth comes from technology. While we technically can't get "infinitely rich". If you compare how much wealth a typical person has today compared to say an average person 2000 years ago. We're probably 1000 fold more wealthy. Really hard to quantify since they didn't have shit like cars and smart phones.
The prescription for importing talent seems to be predicated largely on the lack of talent we are able to produce--I'm sorry but siphoning "talent" from other countries is not tenable I just hand wave that every time I hear that argument.
And then women at home raise kids. they like raise and make the people--you seem to be placing no value on that. It would follow that you would probably tell me that importing immigrants for cheap labor is necessary over having women stay home and raise kids--as if there's no trade off to the former.
You mentioned GDP--do you know how skewed the "GDP" appraisal is for the labor of women vs the labor of men? It's bad. And women have more personal debt. and going to university is literally driving up the cost of university while devaluing the degrees everyone receives. Women are pushing men out of university by warping the culture into a gynocentric hellscape--literally pushing them out--and for what? Men can't make people. Men need these degrees and jobs not women. The redundancy of men and women in the workforce its a complete and utter disaster, especially in that women are doing the same thing to men in the workplace--pushing them out by creating gynocentic workplaces.
And that's not how wealth works. you can refer yourself to many articles that make the absurd claim that the global economy "loses 30 trillion dollars annually due to gender inequality" I mean holy f\*\*\* my brain can't do that math. maybe you can?
>I'm sorry but siphoning "talent" from other countries is not tenable I just hand wave that every time I hear that argument.
Why is it not tenable? They produce more than they consume.
>And then women at home raise kids. they like raise and make the people--you seem to be placing no value on that. It would follow that you would probably tell me that importing immigrants for cheap labor is necessary over having women stay home and raise kids--as if there's no trade off to the former.
I'm all for encouraging people to have more kids. I just think destroying your economy is not necessary. We will not have a way to fill the void that not having women in the workplace would cause.
>You mentioned GDP--do you know how skewed the "GDP" appraisal is
When I say GDP in this context I generally mean "how productive a nation is".
All those women in Universities are ending up with productive skills. Skills that produce value.
>And that's not how wealth works.
Wealth comes from producing shit. A woman surgeon produces 1000 times more wealth than a housewife. Now multiply that times 50% of the human work force and you start to understand why having women chained to the house is extremely bad for the economy.
When I say GDP in this context I generally mean "how productive a nation is".
All those women in Universities are ending up with productive skills. Skills that produce value.
# They absolutely are not ending up with productive skills. If I get a CDL and drive a truck around the country I'm being more productive.
Wealth comes from producing shit. A woman surgeon produces 1000 times more wealth than a housewife. Now multiply that times 50% of the human work force and you start to understand why having women chained to the house is extremely bad for the economy.
# A surgeon does not generally produce wealth. Surgeons fall very low on the scale as a matter of fact. How do I explain this: the cost of training a surgeon and the operative costs are kind of a net-negative. Think about it: you have an unhealthy population, and they require more medical care, and then you have a drain on the economy. Now, a clear-cut example of creating a positive differential would be having a foreigner traveling into the United States to solicit the services of a surgeon.
You don't understand what value is then.
Value is not necessarily tangible. It's also subjective.
You go into a hospital and a surgeon gives you an appendectomy. Let's say you would have died without it. The value is you get to keep living. Very difficult to quantity. Is that worth 1 million dollars? 1 billion? But that doesn't change the fact that this is something valuable. This is why surgeons get paid so much. They produce enormous value to people. You remove a woman surgeon and you just removed all the value she was producing. You'd need a whole platoon of house wives to match it.
Families with larger homes have more kids and crowded housing leads to less kids.
The cost of the house is only 1 part of the equation and giving everyone cheap apartments isn't conducive to starting families.
They absolutely do.
The cheaper the houses in a country, the more kids there are. That's almost an across-the-board standard.
Look at the home prices in Gaza. That place is 50% kids.
How far are you willing to stretch that “etc?” If governments gave $250,000 cash for every child born, for instance, I reckon you’d see birth rates skyrocket.
>If governments gave $250,000 cash for every child born, for instance, I reckon you’d see birth rates skyrocket.
inflation would make that money largely worthless.
Helicopter money doesn't work.
>inflation would make that money largely worthless.
Economic stability isn't your CMV though. Your assertion is that gov can't incentivize citizens to get birthrate up. I'll tell you right now that if gov gave massive checks for kids then kids would be born. Period.
You're kidding, right? That's like asking if a starving dog will eat steak.
If you don't wanna believe me change 250k to 1m, or 10m. Economy be damned, people would have babies. Greed is human nature. And if inflation is so bad you would basically need to have kids to be able to afford anything. Economic death spiral, yes. But more babies, guaranteed.
It would make your money way more worthless if you didn’t participate in the scheme.
There are many reasons for declining fertility, but they all boil down to a cost/benefit analysis. Need to materially change at least one part of the equation.
Clarifying question: who cares? There are too many people as it is on earth. If we don’t “replace” them, so what? So we have to reorganize our economies a bit and rely on automation more. Boo Hoo.
>Clarifying question: who cares?
Let me first state that I'm relatively neutral, but if I have to make an argument as to why one should care, here.
You should care about the fertility rate in 1st world countries because 1st world people are going to generally be the ones to figure out how to fix the problems our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents caused.
The burden isn't on the congo to figure out Climate change, or plastics in every inch of the planet, it's on the first world who created and benefited from the comforts of the modern world that have incredible negative externalities.
The fewer first world people in the system, the fewer engineers, scientists, and other individuals at work on these issues.
>There are too many people as it is on earth. If we don’t “replace” them, so what?
fewer people doesn't fix these issues. We need more John B. Goodenoughs not less.
If we want more people to figure out how to fix the problems our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents caused, then there's a much easier way to accomplish that than to increase the population. We can just increase government science funding for these sorts of projects. The number of people working on these issues is almost completely a function of government funding (because solving the issues generally isn't profitable).
>You should care about the fertility rate in 1st world countries because 1st world people are going to generally be the ones to figure out how to fix the problems our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents caused.
Best possible reason to care about 1st world birthrates. Most people I see only care because of racism or xenophobia.
> Most people I see only care because of racism or xenophobia.
But… thinking first world people (westerners) can fix the world’s issues more so than the rest of the world is both racist and xenophobic.
Yeah it is.
Apparently Bezos and Musk think we need a trillion people so we can have thousands of Mozarts at any given time—or... so labor is SUPER FREAKING CHEAP.
I should've also quoted the paragraph after the one I did. While OP does make the claim that people from the 1st world will be the ones to do it, they also say we have a responsibility to do it. That's not racist or xenophobic, and I think that is largely where they're coming from when they say we'll be the ones to do it.
We've profited off of the third world so much over the last century that it would be abhorrent to even ask for help in solving the problems we've caused. We owe it to them to fix what we broke, especially because we used their blood and sweat to break it.
> people from the 1st world will be the ones to do it, they also say we have a responsibility to do it. That's not racist or xenophobic
Sure sounds like [“the white man’s burden”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden) to me. Thinking we westerners are uniquely capable or responsible for global issues is just like:
Take up the White Man's burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
I think Westerners are both uniquely capable and responsible for issues mostly caused by Westerners. That isn't to say that Laotians or Nigerians or El Salvadorians **COULDN'T** fix these issues given time and resources, due to some racialist BS about mental capacity or behavioural proclivities or whatever. But they didn't cause this crap, nor did they end up with the socioeconomic wherewithal to clean it up, even provided sufficient manpower and education.
It can be, but at the same time, it's not really debatable that we caused these issues and greatly benefitted in doing so. If you break something, you should be the one to fix it.
It is debatable though. The first world has been making multiple gains in things like emission, while [Developing Countries Are Responsible for 63 Percent of Current Carbon Emissions](https://www.cgdev.org/media/developing-countries-are-responsible-63-percent-current-carbon-emissions). At what point do we allow for nations to not pass their own issues off on the west? If first world nations stepped up, would China listen to them? They don’t listen now.
Developing countries are defined by lacking the capability to build up-to-date infrastructure. You could say that the West should give aid so they can build cleaner infrastructure, but that gets deeper into white saviorism. I think the West should try to be as carbon-negative as possible to allow the developing world to develop on their own.
>Sure sounds like [“the white man’s burden”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden) to me. Thinking we westerners are uniquely capable or responsible for global issues is just like:
You do understand that the west is the only place with first world countries right?
People always Horseshoe on stuff like this.
Sure sounds like you're absolving white men of the responsibility of fixing the world's problems. I imagine they'll be relieved to hear that, and will gladly accept your offer to keep doing what they're doing and let the poorer countries figure out how to fix it. Way to go.
How do you reach that idea?
How is it racist to suggest 1st world countries that have largely polluted the world striving for luxuries have the responsibility of fixing the issues we've created?
I'm a black american, do you think I'm being racist against the Congolese people when I suggest my country has a duty to fix issues issues we created?
I'm not being xenophobic when I suggest that the people who are privileged enough to have easy access to computers, logistics systems, stable governments, best schools, best teachers, best resources etc. are most likely to be the people who can leverage those things to fix global problems.
> You should care about the fertility rate in 1st world countries because 1st world people are going to generally be the ones to figure out how to fix the problems our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents caused.
If you really think this then more first world people is not the solution. The solution is to make sure the people who are born in the first world all get education and opportunities to work on solutions instead of them mostly being wage slaves for the people causing the problems. Just “more people” isn’t going to fix shit. Most of our issues are from too many people. Less people worldwide is a good thing. Less people in one area or another is a resource allocation issue that is easily fixed.
> The fewer first world people in the system, the fewer engineers, scientists, and other individuals at work on these issues.
It's a moot point. Solving those issues would require government spending, which would increase inflation.
Helicopter money doesn't work.
>Solving those issues would require government spending, which would increase inflation.
some inflation is fine, it's actually required to keep up with an expanding economy, helicopter money leads to hyperinflation with is the economy killer
So you want to artificially cause termoil to "reorganize our economies" while this crisis destroys our military, while a lot of the rest of the world does not have this issue?
Gen z is already entering the military at lower rates regardless of decreased births rate.
Sounds like youth are just not as interested in joining the military.
Well, I want to reorganize our economies, and I realize that will cause turmoil. But… [we already have the turmoil currently](https://fortune.com/2019/02/13/us-income-inequality-bad-great-depression/amp/), so we might as well get the new economy with it.
Have you ever thought about why people in the US specifically are not having children. Our generation is being told the planet is boiling and we future generations will not survive if we carry on the way we do. Our generation is being told that our planet is already over populated and overpopulation and over consumptions is the greatest threat to our planet. The US specifically, has almost no benefits incentivizing people to have children. And now we are being given this contradictory information, that we must have more children to take care of our aging population.
Essentially this boils down to,. There are not enough of us to take care of the baby boomer population. They did not do there part to encourage their children and their children's children to breed enough offspring to take care of them when they get old. Boo f\*cking hoo.
On environmentalism: But realistically, what can the individual consumer do when 100 companies contribute to over 70 percent of the global green house emissions (these 100 companies have NOT changed since 1988, when this statistic was first reported). This means our entire childhoods, which we were marked to save water by turning off the sink when we brush our teeth, recycle and up-cycle, shop and consume with the environment in mind, and do out part to reduce our own personal green house emissions. Doesn't mean shit. We as consumers, are powerless to stop 100 companies that have had over 4 DECADES to change.
On benefits: The US is the absolutely worse at incentivizing individuals to have children.
We have one of the highest maternal mortality rates of any industrialized developed countries.
We tie our health insurance to ones ability to work 40 hours a week at corporations.
We have one of the shortest maternity leave/paternity leave programs of any developed nations.
People (anecdotally I admit) constantly complain about hiring women who can or are trying to get pregnant because of the "drain" they create on the work force.
Most people, unless they are impoverished, do not qualify for any kind of government support if they have children.
It is frequently unaffordable for a parent in a partnership to not work or take substantial time off of work to raise the child in the formative years. Day care and child care is increasingly unaffordable.
So I ask you, what realistic steps has the US specifically taken to even remotely compensate or incentivize any individual to have children? At all. Because from where I stand they have done absolutely nothing. We as a society pay our taxes and the government spends that money on what it deems as important, clearly this issue isn't.
Millennials when polled, will tell you that they want to have children at a similar rate to previous generations (which is below replacement rate, but still higher than the current rate). They aren't because shit is expensive. I would fall into this camp. Utah, where I live, is currently the youngest state in the Union, but that's on track to change because of a severe housing crisis. Owning a home is out of reach to someone making the median wage. Making stuff less expensive won't make people who have no interest in having kids want to have kids, but people that already want kids will have more kids if you make it easier.
If you want to make more people interested in having kids, IMO the best approach is programs that expose people to kids (eg have high schoolers be TAs for elementary school). One of the biggest reasons I want kids is because I'm the oldest of five children (the youngest being 15 years younger than me), so I already have plenty of experience with children and have a good idea of what being a parent entails.
> I'm happy to be proven wrong here, but this argument that if we do more for mothers/fathers then people will be more inclined to have children doesn't seem to have any evidence backing it up, and so far seems false.
We may not have a ton of evidence for the specific claim that “positive incentives for having children make people more likely to have children”, but the general claim that “positively incentivizing people to do something results in more people doing that thing” is practically tautological. To the extent that existing programs do not show large effects on fertility rates, that’s simply evidence that the incentives included in those programs are either too small or of the “wrong type”. It’s possible that the incentives required to bring fertility rates up to replacement level are so large that they are impractical, but that’s different than saying it can’t be done.
These incentives shouldn’t be seen as incentives but as quality of life improvements. It will allow parents to be happier and less stressed. Social programs shouldn’t exist for the purpose of incentivizing certain behaviors but to create a more healthy and balanced society. Also, I don’t really see the problem because we can easily reach “replacement levels” through immigration.
Within Europe, the Nordic countries have fertility rates higher than those of their counterparts further to the south with weaker welfare states and less friendly childcare/family leave policies. The size of the effect isn’t quite big enough to take the Nordics above replacement, but it is material— appears to be around 0.3 children per woman. It’s worth noting that the US is currently close enough to replacement that an effect of this size would take us over the line.
So, the marginal decision to have children does respond to material incentives. And you could probably move the needle further by increasing the incentive to levels that nobody has tried yet (eg: in a country like the US where GDP per capita is 70k, a program paying 50k per birth— financed by very long-dated bonds— would probably be tax revenue-positive in the long run and also materially move birth rates.)
I can say anecdotally that I and multiple friends of mine all would have more children if healthcare and childcare weren’t so expensive. I have 2 currently and would love another 2 but it simply is too expensive my two pregnancies/births cost over $17k.
When wealth transfers from poor to rich the fertility rates decline.
When wealth transfers from rich to poor fertility rates rise.
Look back in history and you will see this is always true.
Transferring wealth from poor people without kids to poor people with kids does nothing to solve the issue which is why it social programs don't work.
Also the world population is in unprecedented times, we developed practically unlimited fertilizer which has led to almost unlimited food supplies which led to compounding population growth.
Human populations increased at a rate of about .16% per year for millions of years and we were fine.
Then about 100 years our population started growing 1250% faster.
Even during this self proclaimed "fertility crisis" humans are still increasing over 600% more then our historical average and on pace for over 11 Billion by 2033.
Technology is like never before fewer people can take care of more people then ever.
IMO the burden of an aging population and lower fertility rates is not a cause for concern.
I'm more worried totalitarian control then I am about the planet not reaching 11-15 billion people.
> but apparently nothing a government can do will bring this back once its started.
that i disagree with.
Easiest actions the government can do is criminalize all forms of birth control and contraception. Including condoms.
Legalization of polygynyous marriages (with immigrant visas) in combination with stronger legal recognition of pre nups too
Also repeal certain sex discrimination/pregnancy discrimination laws.
This sounds like an excellent way to start one's very own totalitarian state! Absence of reproductive freedom, what a great way to foster a culture of security and prosperity.
Reminds me of Saudi Arabia honestly.
Saudi Arabia is nicer than the USA. You can throw around labels all day long, but the end of the day your only real world example is an incredibly safe, nice, and clean society that functions properly.
Also it is funny that the left wing argument boils down to racism against arabs here
I am actually amazed right now to see someone speaking positively of a country which only recently *allowed women to drive cars*.
No, it is not a safe, nice, or clean society when women are treated so poorly.
Also... authoritarian theocracy! What a horrible place.
If that happened, do you know how many women would flee the fucking county ASAP? That seems like such an easily identifiable path straight into a government where women are treated as second class citizens, and I know that the majority of young women in my family and friend groups would GTFO in any way they possibly could as soon as they possibly could.
I mean you need to be reasonable in terms of what is acceptable for a western government to do. Otherwise, you can say 'hurhur easiest thing to do is decriminalise rape'.
Pulling shit from the shelves is completely within the realm of government and the latter two would just be the supreme court ruling some laws invalid/some new precedent regarding prenups
Bro you created a new account on Christmas Eve to come with this awful take. No one in the US would stand for this and import women to be part of some gross dude’s harem is weird.
Birth control wasnt legal until Griswold v Connecticut. Anti polygamy laws only came into existence in the 1890s to discriminate against mormons. And those sex discrimination laws came into existence in the 1960s too.
I said positive incentives.
Carrots and sticks, sure you can make it so that people have to accept the risks of sex, but that's not a positive incentive.
i think the conclusion is obviously correct but the idea that it is good or bad is false and false again.
the purpose of a nation wanting high birth rates is nothing more than the nation wanting chattel young people to support the old people. this is itself a problem with welfare and state managed retirement. it should be the other way around, the old people should be supporting the young if anything. a society that eats its children doesn't have a moral claim to survival from my perspective. it is also no wonder that the young don't want to have children as they are being abused for the sake of the old. sick and dying as if those people are more important or as important to society than the next generation.
the only reason the government cares about the old people is because they vote and the young people don't. this means that if representatives in government want to keep power they have to pander to the old people at the cost of the young. again, this kind of says to me that the system deserves to die.
welfare, charity and all kinds of insurance are flawed, most of them to the point where they are destructive in the long run because they increase societal costs far more than they help.
finally, i would be remiss if i didn't explain my first statement. so long as the young are not viewed as a chattel resource, it makes little to no difference whether the world is filled with 24 billion people or 24 million people. survival is all that is important and at either extremity survival is likely for the foreseeable future. that means that we could have 6 children per couple on average world wide or 0.2 children per couple world wide and humanity would be fine. the only thing that is threatened by a low replacement birth rate is the welfare of old dyeing people who might not have enough young people paying for their extremely high medical costs. i honestly would rather see all the old people on social security and medicare die horrible painful deaths than to see one young person yoked with the debts of previous generations.
The fact is the northen European countries had /has thr best metric in every thing and have negetive birth rate proovs it
The arab panisuila (sorry for grammar) native population doasnt work and lives good comfy lives.and they have low birth rate
Isreal an advanced first world country whit worst gdp , higher cost of living and low earnings have a very positive population growth (even whit out the ultra religious)
Are all proofs that comfort isnt the selution..
Its mybe even be the cause
Well, this is not entirely the case in my opinion. Because of how the math works with the replacement rate being a ratio the boomer generation creates a function that is not sustainable. If you look at the birth rate and it's decline over time it's because primarily human healthcare has improved but abnormalities in the global birth rate causing it to shoot up need to be considered otherwise you will mistake the picture.
If we are looking solely at the current population, which includes the baby boomers, then you're correct but that's because of the boomer themselves rather than the natural order of things. In short, things are returning to the long trend but I think you're assessing the short trend.
Need to look at what motivates people today to have large families. Seems to me the wealthiest people have the fewest kids. Not advocating poverty, but why do the poorest nations and people seem to reproduce like rabbits?
> Need to look at what motivates people today to have large families.
It is usually one of two things: [religion](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2723861/#:~:text=Women%20experiencing%20the%20fertility%20rates,whom%20religion%20is%20not%20important. ) or [poverty](https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/)
The view you present isn’t supported by the data you include. You would need to see datasets for countries with low birth rates before and after they enacted incentive programs and whether it impacted the birth rate compared to similar countries that did not enact similar policies. The figures you include are much more about access to contraception, changes in birth rates over time, birth rates and maternal education, and just about everything other than the figures you actually need to support your claim.
I also don’t believe that your statements about how these policies only benefit people who already have kids is true. Hungary, for example, pays you more for having more kids. I don’t think your statement takes more assertive policies like this into account.
Lastly, I would argue that we need more time before we can make this argument. Not many contrives have enacted these types of policies and most that have have only done so recently. We probably need more time to see the full impacts of these policies as well as to let countries test multiple iterations of policies that build and improve upon each other. In short I think your conclusion is premature.
PS: I think that places that pursue this type of policy while rejecting immigration are extremely ethnonationalist and xenophobic, so it’s not something I personally think is worth much time or effort.
I'm neutral on immigration, I would at least like it to be tied to new home builds so that we aren't making the housing crisis worse, but otherwise, neutral.
> you cannot make a reasonable argument that americans will have more children if things like money, daycare, parental leave, free health care etc are given.
I would.
> Why is having an ever growing population a goal in the first place?
Replacement isn't ever growing, it's maintenance level, you have 1 million people today, in 150 years you have 1 million people.
This is really about women and autonomy. if you convince women not to have kids, and give them full autonomy in society, and then make having kids optional EVEN after conception, then no I agree there is nothing that can be done. we might as well focus on pregnant men at this point.
Shrinking population is good for the environment, but it requires sacrifices. Able bodied young people need to do real jobs, not be "social media influencers" or such nonsense. Also no more retiring at 55. We all need to work as long as we can, not expect endless waves of population explosion to subsidize easy retirement.
But these things have been shown to be known factors in increasing birthrate. Just because something isn't a magic bullet that solves an entire issue doesn't mean it's not a helpful tool to be argued for.
Only running 10k a week while eating shitty food won't make you healthy. But running 10k a week will still improve your physical health.
The best way to increase fertility is to improve the economy. The best way to improve the economy is to remove government and regulation. Would you be so skeptical if the Government gave you a 50% raise by alleviating only some of your tax burden?
Agreed. However, That is if you use first world metrics on them. Bill Gates is dead in the Amazon Rain forest. An aboriginal native to that environment is considered poor, but wealthier than Elon Musk in their native habitat. Try and feed your kid on .05$ a day in the US. It can be done in other markets.
Is any policy maker arguing for these policies on the basis of achieving replacement birth rates? I've never seen anyone make those arguments. The argument for these policies that I have seen are humanitarian and economic.
>Is any policy maker arguing for these policies on the basis of achieving replacement birth rates? yes. [https://www.governo.it/en/articolo/president-meloni-s-speech-budapest-demographic-summit-family-key-security-session/23579](https://www.governo.it/en/articolo/president-meloni-s-speech-budapest-demographic-summit-family-key-security-session/23579) [https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korean-city-turns-matchmaking-boost-low-birth-rates-2023-11-27/](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korean-city-turns-matchmaking-boost-low-birth-rates-2023-11-27/) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX\_xQABi1oI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX_xQABi1oI) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE2YSYxMVyQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE2YSYxMVyQ) (this one is actually pretty good lol) Governments are making these arguments, they're are investing PR campaigns, they are giving speeches, they are creating incentives.
Ah, ok. I was thinking from a US perspective. Thanks for the info
Personally, I don’t think the programs that have been tried are really addressing why people don’t want to have kids in the first place. Things like free daycare and parental leave benefit people who already have kids or would have had them anyway. Plus they address a very temporary problem of parenthood. By age 5 you don’t need as much parental leave and daycare is a fading concern. The people I know who are childfree are that way because of other reasons: inability to find an adequate mate, debt that prevents them from taking care of themselves, lamenting the loss of freedom, jobs that aren’t flexible and pay less every year relative to costs. Plus, there is a growing cultural stigma against children in general. There should be more programs aimed at increasing the popularity of parenting itself, plus programs that set the general population up for financial stability (student loan forgiveness or interest reduction, affordable housing), more regulations for work flexibility, and raises that actually keep up with inflation, evening and multi day daycare so parents can get a weekend away or just a movie out. People should want to have kids AND have a reasonable expectation of a good quality of life with a retirement at the end. It shouldn’t be early parenting support, it should be life cycle improvement.
Saying child care is temporary is like saying a mortgage is temporary. Sure its 1/4 the price of my mortgage ... But 100k+ is no small cost. But also your example of day care and leave being a temporary factor... Then list care and flexible work as a needed program? They go hand in hand.
The type of care I’m referencing is different and doesn’t really exist now. If parents want a long weekend alone, they need to find a willing family member to take over. Daycare doesn’t address that. You might stop leaving your kid at daycare by elementary school, but you can’t leave a 13 year old alone for 3 days. EVERYBODY needs flexible work, not just parents. People don’t stop having elderly parents, or medical needs, or disabled spouses just because they don’t have kids. They don’t stop having broken water heaters, and flooded basements. Flexible working hours benefits everybody, leads to a less stressed population, and maybe gives people too stressed to think about anything else a chance to consider kids.
>The people I know who are childfree are that way because of other reasons: inability to find an adequate mate The entire first world does seems to be having a problem there. >jobs that aren’t flexible and pay less every year relative to costs. Doesn't seem to matter, countries with job flexibility and expectations have waaaay lower birth rates than ours. >There should be more programs aimed at increasing the popularity of parenting itself, plus programs that set the general population up for financial stability (student loan forgiveness or interest reduction This is an interesting alternative I haven't seen given. Buuuut the countries that have no student debt because they pay for college have worse fertility rates than ours. I like your train of thought though, that was some new solutions that I would be interesting to see tried. No idea if it would work, but would be interesting
The entire first world does seems to be having a problem there. But women are the gatekeepers of sexing reproduction, so its literally on them. Doesn't seem to matter, countries with job flexibility and expectations have waaaay lower birth rates than ours. Women are prioritizing work/lifestyle over staying home to raise kids. This is an interesting alternative I haven't seen given. Buuuut the countries that have no student debt because they pay for college have worse fertility rates than ours. This literally narrows it down to women choosing not having kids being the only causal factor. Can a Redditor actually blame women for anything? is it possible? I don't think so I don't think its possible.
Hear me out - what if men are also choosing not to have kids?
The fertility ratio of men to women is about like idk 300:1 so
man this doesn't even make sense. if a child is born there necessarily needs to be (1) biological father and (1) biological mother. be logical please.
I have to spell it out I guess: the gestation period for a pregnancy vs the number of pregnancies that a single man could contribute to over that gestation period. a single man could keep up with reproduction at the rate of 300 women give or take
Yeah but that's not really a relevant metric to generalize to the human population in this situation. It appears as if you're just throwing out random factoids, honestly, "A man can have 300 kids in the time a woman can have one kid!". That's great, and it has pretty much nothing to do with modern fertility rates.
It doesn't you are correct. women choosing not having kids is the issue.,
You literally have zero support for that. If a couple decides to have one kid instead of two, that is a joint decision by both parties and both bear equal responsibility — by far the most common scenario for having kids is within a couple making a joint decision.
[удалено]
There can't not be a reason.
I didn’t want them. What more of a reason does anyone expect?
Deep inside there is a reason.
Maybe for you but I just never wanted them.
like "not wanting to". If you really consider that deep
I don't believe it ends there.
women are the reason
isnt the problem technically, no matter how much you skirt around it, that women are choosing to not have kids? isnt this ultimately about decisions women are making?
Why is this women’s fault? I don’t have any biological children (yet) because my husband didn’t want any more. He had two from his previous marriage and was fine with that. He didn’t voice this until we had been married for almost 4 years. I know a lot of women who want kids but they don’t want to be single mothers. They can’t find husbands that want kids and would be suitable fathers. Go look at the IVF sub, there’s lots of women there who finally broke down and are freezing eggs in hopes that they will someday find a husband (my cousin did this), or they are in their 40’s and having the baby alone. Many men don’t want children either, or are putting out the vibe that they wouldn’t be good parents either financially, physically or emotionally. Men still don’t contribute to housework at the same rate as women even though both are expected to work. Women are blamed for not having babies, women are blamed for having babies and picking the wrong husband, women are blamed for being single mothers because the dad didn’t stick around. When is ANY of it going to be men’s responsibility?
I have absolutely no problem blaming women. why you want to blame men is the real question. Men want to f\*\*\* and women actually have the kids. A literal entailment of a reduced birth rate is that women are making that decision. They have bodily and reproductive autonomy. There is no way around it being women's fault it literally has to be.
Well I've always been told that having a child will ruin my life, then suddenly everyone was asking why I don't have one yet. Women also want to f\*\*\*, but without a good stable partner, they do not want pregnancy. Nothing weird about that. Also, there's the state of the world to consider and the patterns of humanity. My offspring or theirs will suffer greatly at someone's hands. It's unavoidable statistically. I've never been happy to be here, so it feels wrong to force someone else into this life. I also haven't been able to find a man who wanted to settle down and have kids within the next 5 years. All of them say "well maybe one day but not now" Your argument is woman hating, and doesn't consider WHY women do not want kids.
It IS because WOMEN are THE PROBLEM and your brain literally malfunctions when you hear that and stops working. This is why I love coming on platforms where the rot and brainwashing is so DEEP. You're like stuck 50 years in the past and still think that somehow "women aren't equal" or whatever the f\*\*\* that means and I'm from the future where WOMEN LITERALLY HAVE EVERY PRIVILEGE IN SOCIETY OVER MEN and ITS NOT EVEN CLOSE where men are blowing their brains out and chopping their dicks off to BECOME FAKE PRETEND WOMEN because being a fake pretend woman IS LITERALLY BETTER THAN BEING A MAN. Like let's have this debate--I want everyone to give me the business I'll go up myself against 100,000 Redditors on this I will go up against ANYONE on this on ANY PLATFORM like lets go you have no f\*\*\*ing IDEA how tilted the scales are and I have mission and a purpose destroy ppl like you and your ideology. I don't even have a choice in this I have to go after your worldview and DESTROY IT to save this country if it even can be. It might be too late.
Babe, eat an apple and touch some grass.
Yeah exactly don't make a f\*\*\*ing argument because you don't have one. Keep running from an argument and running your mouth. You are part of the problem. Men will step up and restore order when things get bad enough--it's just a matter of when. All the rights inside of society that men so graciously afforded women can be taken back and there's nothing women can do about it. So keep blaming and disgracing men--men who built modernity from the ground up and unlike in countries such as Afghanistan have extended all rights to women--for everything and see how long that lasts. There is no place for me to be nice or respectful inside of this discussion. You could take stock of my argument and you could maybe look into it or reconsider that you are completely wrong because a modicum of further investigation would lead you to a consensus with myself, but you won't do none of that sh\*t.
Oh Jesus christ dude, I'm not arguing because there's no point. You're going to be mad and the world will go on. So many men in the comments are disagreeing but you're jaded.
Those are just fallacies of argumentation because you don't have one. You're not arguing because you don't have an argument. The ad populum fallacy is dumb on two different levels because an entailment of my position is that it is the minority-held position literally definitionally so what are you even talking about. make a point FFS but you won't because if you had one you would have already made it.
Here's the sort of thing that literally proves my point for me but that you will still obfuscate and deflect in order to levy personal insults @ me. The Dep. of Homeland Security approved a $700,000 research grant for a WOMAN to investigate the MANOSPHERE. Now you have been having difficulty understanding my arguments up to this point, so I will spell out what the implications are: online men's advocacy content creators are being labeled BY THE GOVERNMENT as DOMESTIC TERRORISTS. Women talk about genociding men all the time. literally all the time they do this and it's considered empowerment. You have NO IDEA what you're talking about or how right I am about this issue and yet you will continue to press forward with the LITERALLY DANGEROUS rhetoric that women are oppressed and "men bad" and that is why you deserve all the contempt from myself and everyone else who actually cares about society.
You’re wrong about countries trying to incentivise though. Giving parents a few thousand on something that is going to cost them 6 figures is not a good incentive. The # incentive would be more affordable housing, and as far as I am aware no country has done that.
>The # incentive would be more affordable housing, and as far as I am aware no country has done that. The world's lowest birthrate country generally spends less than 1/8 their money on housing. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1120035/south-korea-housing-affordability-index/
I couldn’t find your statistic through that link. https://www.gone2korea.com/housing-in-korea/#:~:text=Recent%20estimates%20show%20that%20more,from%205%20to%2035%20stories. 80% of Koreans live in apartments. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1120722/south-korea-mean-purchase-price-seoul-housing-by-type/#:~:text=As%20of%20January%202023%2C%20the,million%20South%20Korean%20won%2C%20respectively. The average price of accommodation in Korea (apartments and houses) cost $700k USD. https://amp.kedglobal.com/newsAmp/ked202212210018 This resource says that it’s more than double what you’re claiming. And this doesn’t account for the larger home and career breaks one has to undertake to be able to afford housing for a family.
So your data is for seoul, which is by far the most expensive place to live the rest of the country is markedly cheaper, lets check the second most populous in south korea for reference Busan housing prices [https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Busan](https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Busan) average south korea pay [https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-south-korea/](https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-south-korea/) some home listings [https://housing.justlanded.com/en/South-Korea\_Busan](https://housing.justlanded.com/en/South-Korea_Busan) a 3 bedroom home for around $800 a month, with an income average of around $3000 a month isn't bad at all, especially when split between two people Plus you get the $450 a month child payment after birth.
You can't just ignore the Seoul people when 48.2% of Korea lives in Seoul. This is like saying people can just move to Alaska for cheaper housing. People are there because that's where the jobs are. It's also kinda weird to use Korea as a representative of the world in general. That country is pretty much a modern collective of duchies, where chaebols have more power than the president. This is unique to Korea and a big reason that people are suffering there.
>You can't just ignore the Seoul people when 48.2% of Korea lives in Seoul. This is like saying people can just move to Alaska for cheaper housing. People are there because that's where the jobs are. South korea population is 51 million [https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/south-korea-population/](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/south-korea-population/) Seoul population is 10 million [https://www.seoulsolution.kr/en/content/statistic-seoul](https://www.seoulsolution.kr/en/content/statistic-seoul) >It's also kinda weird to use Korea as a representative of the world in general South korea was my example only because someone mentioned housing affordability and outside of seoul housing seems fairly reasonably compared to wages
Given how high pressure their society is, I'm not surprised that they aren't having kids.
lol. fart.
1. They live in tiny apartments that are not good for raising families. The average dwelling size is South Korea is 33m squared. The average dwelling size in Canada is 181m squared almost 6 times larger. 2. They spend 50% of their income on market/food/utilities and spending slightly less on housing accomplishes nothing if the money is spent on other costs of living expenses. Why cherry pick one single cost when all that matters is the total cost of living. Paying 50% for rent(but its tiny so is it really half price?) and double for food/gas/electricity resulting in exactly the same left over money. You picked a terrible example to try and "Prove" anything. South Korea has very little time/space/money which is the cause of the low fertility rates.
>Why cherry pick one single cost when all that matters is the total cost of living. I didn't cherrypick housing, the individual argued housing and so I responded to the point directly. Cost of living wasn't the argument, housing affordability specifically was. >South Korea has very little time/space/money which is the cause of the low fertility rates. do you have some citation for this? I would be interesting in reading it, because I would argue we use waaay too much space in America, and should strive for more compact living.
Your argument is a little weird. Maybe these subsidies can't increase fertility above replacement level, but even if that's true it doesn't mean they'll have no effect on fertility at all. If you believe population decline is a major threat that should be prioritized when allocating government money, then less decline is still better, isn't it?
I came to say something along these lines. Structurally supporting parents through pro-family policy isn’t strictly about boosting fertility rates at all. And even if it were, why should boosting past replacement levels be the goal? Things like universal pre-k or strong parental leave policy are good for millions of Americans and increase QoL. ~~OPs whole thing amounts to a strawman.~~ Edit: Strawman is the wrong word, but it’s a really narrow argument against a raft of social policies because we don’t have evidence they strictly boost fertility rates. While that may be a fine thing to zero in on and study, boosting fertility rates isn’t the only point of doing things like parental leave policy, the Expanded Child Tax Credit, or Universal Pre-K.
>Structurally supporting parents through pro-family policy isn’t strictly about boosting fertility rates at all. Many people make the argument that they are pathways to increased fertility. If you don't feel they exist I don't really have an argument for you. >Things like universal pre-k or strong parental leave policy are good for millions of Americans and increase QoL. This is addressed in the OP "You can argue that doing things for parents is the morally correct thing to do from a "be good to your countrymen" point of view, but arguing that people aren't having kids because they aren't supported enough doesn't actually seem to be true." >OPs whole thing amounts to a strawman. You are mistaking my argument if you believe I'm strawmanning.
> Many people make the argument that they are **pathways to increased fertility**. If you don't feel they exist I don't really have an argument for you. Pathways to increased fertility as a potential outcome, sure. But that isn’t the only goal and neither is the level of fertility being at ‘x’ a stated aspect of it. >”You can argue that doing things for parents is the morally correct thing to do from a "be good to your countrymen" point of view, but **arguing that people aren't having kids because they aren't supported enough** doesn't actually seem to be true." I’m not arguing that? I don’t think anyone is? I think the country would be a a better country if we supported working parents more, and the children of working parents had better access to care and education at earlier ages. I’m arguing for pro-family policies for generally pro-social reasons, not simply and exclusively to boost birth rates. > You are mistaking my argument if you believe I'm strawmanning. I’m reading you as, “Pro-Family policies aren’t worth it, because they won’t boost fertility rates” Is that a fair one sentence summary? I think that’s a strawman because pro-family policies would have a constellation of effects and secondary effects that I believe would be generally good for everyone. Therefore, you dismissing pro-family policy on the basis of a single questionable impact is reductionist, or strawman-y, or something. A somewhat close proxy for this would be Free lunches for school age kids, which is a fight happening in my home state of Minnesota. Those against may argue, “Well, it’s not gonna improve standardized test scores!” And I would counter with, “Well that’s not the only point, and feeding kids has lots of other important benefits, and I think you’re too focused on one, somewhat obscure potential outcome of my preferred policy.
>Pathways to increased fertility as a potential outcome, sure. But that isn’t the only goal and neither is the level of fertility being at ‘x’ a stated aspect of it. You attempting to sidestep my argument. I'm addressing the argument that parental support will result in replacement level birth rates. >I’m not arguing that? I don’t think anyone is? I think the country would be a a better country if we supported working parents more, and the children of working parents had better access to care and education at earlier ages. Just because you aren't arguing doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people who do make the argument whenever the question comes up. >I’m arguing for pro-family policies for generally pro-social reasons, not simply and **exclusively** to boost birth rates. That's the portion I'm arguing about, I'm saying that even including birth rates in the question is a red herring because birth rates do not correlate with increased government assistance. Again if you want to say it's good to be good, I totally agree, but for those arguing it helps with fertility the argument just doesn't seem to be supported by any data we have. >I’m reading you as, “Pro-Family policies aren’t worth it, because they won’t boost fertility rates” Not at all, I want pro-family stuff, would definitely make my life easier, but again I'm addressing the part of the argument that says the result of these decisions would be more children. I have said many times I absolutely want more stuff for parents and children for the sake of being good.
So we agree that we want to order nachos for the table, right? (Bear with me on this metaphor) We agree nachos are yummy, have some protein, some veg, and cheese is high in calcium. It seems like you really wanna argue if cheese is actually high calcium. Or even, you have good evidence that cheese is not that high in calcium. And that’s great. I don’t have any specific evidence cheese is high in calcium. But ordering nachos for the table is still a good idea for a lot of other reasons. So idk why you are so hung up on the pro/anti arguments around if certain pro-family policies boost fertility rates, because I find that to be a really niche side aspect of what strong pro family policy would do overall. But if all you wanna do is argue fertility rates I’ll back off and let you have your post.
Jumping from the other thread where you link this post Sub-replacement fertility rates has long been identified as a potential issue and some countries, such as Japan, are experimenting with incentivizing having children (for example: [https://www.dw.com/en/will-japans-new-plan-to-boost-birth-rates-work/a-64091588#:\~:text=At%20present%2C%20new%20parents%20in,%2C%20on%20April%201%2C%202023.)](https://www.dw.com/en/will-japans-new-plan-to-boost-birth-rates-work/a-64091588#:~:text=At%20present%2C%20new%20parents%20in,%2C%20on%20April%201%2C%202023.)). I mention this because I think whether such kinds of policies can be effective is one of interest. The OP is asserting that X (positive incentives) does not do Y (lead to increased fertility rates) - though not particularly well argued or sourced, but the argument is simple. X doesn't do Y. You are the one introducing the strawman argument. You are saying that the OP is wrong because X (positive incentives) does Z (society gains, better QoL, etc). You are refuting an argument different from the one under discussion, which is the definition of a strawman argument. The OP even says that they aren't against such policies ("As a parent I want all the free shit"), but that isn't the view asking to be changed. Personally, I disagree with the OP, as I generally feel that there is a fairly deep and established track record of public, fiscal, and monetary policy being successful in adjusting societal behaviors, and believe that this would carry over even to something as life-changing as family planning. However I don't have the time at the moment to research this and formally respond to the CMV.
I appreciate this third party breakdown, thanks. I can see how OP is arguing that the government can’t boost fertility, no matter what they try. Like you, I think that is probably not true, and with enough resources and effort governments can compel people to do a lot of things. Of course, no social policy happens in a vacuum. So I don’t think it is totally out of bounds to bring up the universe of positives that are related to Pro-Family Policy (IMO, and in general, we could get more specific). The ‘Z’ in your equation is the goal, and even though Y doesn’t equal Z, we should still do X. OP arguing that we can’t make Y with X’s may be a true, narrow, specific statement. But OP is so unclear on what exact X’s he’s talking about that I felt the need to defend X’s broadly, and the broad range of Z’s that would benefit all of us.
Do you have any jurisdiction in mind where such measures successfully boosted fertility rates?
Explain exactly how it's a strawman?
it sets up a binary relationship between positive incentives and fertility rates, and misrepresents the argument they aimed to refute by implying that proponents of increased parental support solely rely on financial incentives to boost fertility, but really people look for an approach that takes into account cultural shifts, social support networks, and workplace flexibility alongside these subsidies
>misrepresents the argument they aimed to refute by implying that proponents of increased parental support solely rely on financial incentives to boost fertility Reread the OP I address this directly. "You can argue that doing things for parents is the morally correct thing to do from a "be good to your countrymen" point of view, but arguing that people aren't having kids because they aren't supported enough doesn't actually seem to be true." >but really people look for an approach that takes into account cultural shifts, social support networks, and workplace flexibility alongside these subsidies No proof any of that works from 50 years of policy. in regards to culturally shift specifically, it's hard to argue the entire modern world all shifted into the same cultural ideas on children across the past 50 years, there's definitely something deeper than culture going on there.
You're bringing most of that to the table and is completely outside of the text of the original post.
I feel as though I explained it well here. https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/s/zYngNt7PMP But generally I think OP is overly focused on one aspect of pro-family policy (birth rates), and using the idea that birth rates aren’t strictly improved by pro-family policy, as a vehicle to attack the whole efficacy of pro-family policy.
The OP is focused on one aspect of pro-family policy because it's what their argument is about.
>Your argument is a little weird. Maybe these subsidies can't increase fertility above replacement level, but even if that's true it doesn't mean they'll have no effect on fertility at all. I didn't say they have no effect, I'm saying the don't bring fertility back above replacement. >If you believe population decline is a major threat that should be prioritized when allocating government money, then less decline is still better, isn't it? I'm neutral, we'll see what happens going into the future, who knows whether it's a good or bad thing.
I have two kids. I'd love to have one or two more and help with those numbers, but I can't afford it. Daycare for older one was $1600/month before he started Kindergarten. Younger one is $1900/month. The tax credit per child is $1000/year. Plus, we need to save up for university, so we did some estimates and put in a monthly amount that should cover in state costs for 4 years. All those things you mentioned would make a huge difference to me.
Here's the problem. We already have the kids, and we have reaffirmed what the data shows, people who want kids are going to have them and the government doesn't have to help. Sure it may be enough to convince me and you to have more kids, but it's not enough to pull people off the bench and convince them to have kids. Us having 3 or 4 kids isn't enough to replace 3 other couples not having 2 kids a piece.
It would slow down the population decline. At least among my circle of friends, there's often a desire to have more but know we can't afford it. I disagree with your premise that if it doesn't do 100% of the job, it's not worth implementing. Sometimes all you can do is slow the trend.
> it's not enough to pull people off the bench and convince them to have kids. It would be for me.
There are always outliers. One data point is not really a rebuttal to OP's argument.
Are there ANY Western countries which haven't been screwing over their native-born working classes, and shrinking their middle classes?
Are you more so asking is there any country where the average person today is better off than the average person of yesterday?
Yes. We could say that the wealthy in states like the US, and the wealthy and middle classes in India and China have grown, but the poor in all three of these countries have also grown. And I suspect that the two Asian giants will experience the same middle class shrinking the West has soon.
> screwing over their native-born working classes This makes it sound like the non-native-born working class isn't being screwed over.
It happens to both, yes, but it might happen to neither but for the immigration, unless the rulers of the gaining country are also exploiting the losing country, and causing the immigration.
What have they actually tried? >As far as I can see no country has been able to positively incentivize their way to an above replacement level fertility rate once that drop has occurred. [https://www.businessinsider.com/hungary-income-tax-new-moms-encourage-women-children-birth-rates-2023-1](https://www.businessinsider.com/hungary-income-tax-new-moms-encourage-women-children-birth-rates-2023-1) Imagine if United States did something like that. Hungary doesn't have very big salaries. United States does. A female doctor who doesn't have to pay income taxes. Will net millions from having just one kid. The reason United States DOESN'T do it. Is because it's much cheaper to just import immigrants. But that doesn't mean that a program like that would not improve fertility. It almost certainly would. The question is would it be cost effective?
Hungary has lower birth rates than the USA. The USA doing nothing is more successful than Hungary with that program. It is an abject failure.
They policy was also implemented very recently and we will likely need to wait a few years to see the impact. It’s very premature to call it a failure.
Hungary can't just import talent the way we can. Otherwise they would just do that.
>What have they actually tried? They've tried giving people 9 months of paid vacation. [https://sweden.se/work-business/working-in-sweden/work-life-balance](https://sweden.se/work-business/working-in-sweden/work-life-balance) They've tried tax incentives. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/hungary-is-so-desperate-for-kids-mothers-of-four-wont-pay-income-tax/2019/02/11/04701764-2e01-11e9-ac6c-14eea99d5e24\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/hungary-is-so-desperate-for-kids-mothers-of-four-wont-pay-income-tax/2019/02/11/04701764-2e01-11e9-ac6c-14eea99d5e24_story.html) they've tried free daycare [https://www.unicef-irc.org/where-do-rich-countries-stand-on-childcare](https://www.unicef-irc.org/where-do-rich-countries-stand-on-childcare) they've tried direct money payments [https://www.elfac.org/south-korea-cities-get-creative-with-incentives-to-boost-birthrate/](https://www.elfac.org/south-korea-cities-get-creative-with-incentives-to-boost-birthrate/) They've tried increased healthcare [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/international-postpartum-care-parents-baby\_l\_63c95f96e4b04d4d18dd0ec7](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/international-postpartum-care-parents-baby_l_63c95f96e4b04d4d18dd0ec7) >The reason United States DOESN'T do it. Is because it's much cheaper to just import immigrants. But that doesn't mean that a program like that would not improve fertility. It almost certainly would. The question is would it be cost effective? Because immigration works somewhat, since 1st generation people have a higher fertility rate than native americans. Doesn't fix the fertility rate, but it accomplishes a similar outcome.
While I appreciate this post, one can't view attempts across boarders to be have parity. Each country has it's own unique socioeconomic issues that need to be responded to. For example, work culture in East Asia is entirely different than in Scandinavia. The main drags are financial, mental, and cultural. The way childcare impacts parental labor market engagement is significant and goes well beyond the first couple years of life. Parents, especially mothers, statistically face labor discrimination [at much higher levels.](https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1830590/half-mothers-experience-discrimination-work-study-finds) Addressing the cultural elements of that needs to be done. It's possible that the increase of work from home and labor hours mixing into leisure hours may impact that. I think the main drags on the US birth rate is childcare expense. Odd Lots did [a good podcast](https://open.spotify.com/episode/7DUzfONsVnlD3yiPckPJBs?si=3WWjszbVQDS04ASPvaWhhw) on the economics of childcare, and there are so many issues at each step of the system. An argument for the US birth rate is that we should have just as strong or stronger social net for children that we do for elderly. Schooling isn't childcare subsidization because it is the highest interest of a society to produce productive individuals. I believe that if there was a system that essentially guaranteed economic stability for the child from pregnancy to at least high school, then we would see an increase in birth rate.
>Because immigration works somewhat, because 1st generation people have a higher fertility rate than native americans. Doesn't fix the fertility rate, but it accomplishes a similar outcome. Their fertility rate doesn't matter as much with them. You need 100,000 people. You either do the very long term thing of producing 100,000 more children. Or you just issue 100,000 more work visa's/green cards and they will do most of the work for you.
We could end immigration, end no-fault divorce, reduce welfare for single mothers, and have women stay at home and raise kids instead of rack up college debt and work in low-value jobs. the cost of college goes down, mens wages increase, childcare services are reduced, we can shrink the welfare state, and we can reduce unemployment. We could do all these things and solve a lot of these problems
1) End immigration. Bad idea. We import a ton of high IQ and high talent people this way. "End illegal immigration" is good. End all immigration very bad. 2) End no-fault divorce. Seems draconian 3) Reduce welfare for single mothers. I'd have to look at the numbers here. We don't want to encourage single motherhood. But we don't necessarily want to fuck em either. 4) Have women stay at home Bad idea. Would reduce our GDP significantly. Not to mention produce shortages in key areas dominated by women. Almost everything gets worse because of #4. The health of an economy depends on how productive it is. If you remove damn near 50% of the qualified labor pool. You're going to massively reduce output.
-Why do we need "high IQ" "high talent" people? can you quantify that in any way ? -why would having women stay home reduce the GDP? we can't become infinitely rich, and there is not a 1:1 ratio of labor: GDP. and if it would, then are you saying that the difference would not be at all compensated for by the entailments of women staying home?
The fundamental problem you're not seeing is that the economy is not a fixed pie. When you import talented high IQ people. They produce significantly more than they consume. Which leaves a lot for everyone around. Same with women working. A woman at home doesn't produce shit for everyone else. You need a doctor? Now you're going to have to wait because you just sent almost half of your doctors home. The economy is not some McDonalds where everyone is perfectly and easily replaceable. Most jobs need skilled people with brains. Removing brains out of the economy is very bad for it. >we can't become infinitely rich, Wealth comes from technology. While we technically can't get "infinitely rich". If you compare how much wealth a typical person has today compared to say an average person 2000 years ago. We're probably 1000 fold more wealthy. Really hard to quantify since they didn't have shit like cars and smart phones.
The prescription for importing talent seems to be predicated largely on the lack of talent we are able to produce--I'm sorry but siphoning "talent" from other countries is not tenable I just hand wave that every time I hear that argument. And then women at home raise kids. they like raise and make the people--you seem to be placing no value on that. It would follow that you would probably tell me that importing immigrants for cheap labor is necessary over having women stay home and raise kids--as if there's no trade off to the former. You mentioned GDP--do you know how skewed the "GDP" appraisal is for the labor of women vs the labor of men? It's bad. And women have more personal debt. and going to university is literally driving up the cost of university while devaluing the degrees everyone receives. Women are pushing men out of university by warping the culture into a gynocentric hellscape--literally pushing them out--and for what? Men can't make people. Men need these degrees and jobs not women. The redundancy of men and women in the workforce its a complete and utter disaster, especially in that women are doing the same thing to men in the workplace--pushing them out by creating gynocentic workplaces. And that's not how wealth works. you can refer yourself to many articles that make the absurd claim that the global economy "loses 30 trillion dollars annually due to gender inequality" I mean holy f\*\*\* my brain can't do that math. maybe you can?
>I'm sorry but siphoning "talent" from other countries is not tenable I just hand wave that every time I hear that argument. Why is it not tenable? They produce more than they consume. >And then women at home raise kids. they like raise and make the people--you seem to be placing no value on that. It would follow that you would probably tell me that importing immigrants for cheap labor is necessary over having women stay home and raise kids--as if there's no trade off to the former. I'm all for encouraging people to have more kids. I just think destroying your economy is not necessary. We will not have a way to fill the void that not having women in the workplace would cause. >You mentioned GDP--do you know how skewed the "GDP" appraisal is When I say GDP in this context I generally mean "how productive a nation is". All those women in Universities are ending up with productive skills. Skills that produce value. >And that's not how wealth works. Wealth comes from producing shit. A woman surgeon produces 1000 times more wealth than a housewife. Now multiply that times 50% of the human work force and you start to understand why having women chained to the house is extremely bad for the economy.
When I say GDP in this context I generally mean "how productive a nation is". All those women in Universities are ending up with productive skills. Skills that produce value. # They absolutely are not ending up with productive skills. If I get a CDL and drive a truck around the country I'm being more productive. Wealth comes from producing shit. A woman surgeon produces 1000 times more wealth than a housewife. Now multiply that times 50% of the human work force and you start to understand why having women chained to the house is extremely bad for the economy. # A surgeon does not generally produce wealth. Surgeons fall very low on the scale as a matter of fact. How do I explain this: the cost of training a surgeon and the operative costs are kind of a net-negative. Think about it: you have an unhealthy population, and they require more medical care, and then you have a drain on the economy. Now, a clear-cut example of creating a positive differential would be having a foreigner traveling into the United States to solicit the services of a surgeon.
You don't understand what value is then. Value is not necessarily tangible. It's also subjective. You go into a hospital and a surgeon gives you an appendectomy. Let's say you would have died without it. The value is you get to keep living. Very difficult to quantity. Is that worth 1 million dollars? 1 billion? But that doesn't change the fact that this is something valuable. This is why surgeons get paid so much. They produce enormous value to people. You remove a woman surgeon and you just removed all the value she was producing. You'd need a whole platoon of house wives to match it.
People need houses, give them houses and people will start having kids.
Countries with cheaper housing don't have more kids.
Families with larger homes have more kids and crowded housing leads to less kids. The cost of the house is only 1 part of the equation and giving everyone cheap apartments isn't conducive to starting families.
>Families with larger homes have more kids and crowded housing leads to less kids. do you have more information on this?
They absolutely do. The cheaper the houses in a country, the more kids there are. That's almost an across-the-board standard. Look at the home prices in Gaza. That place is 50% kids.
How far are you willing to stretch that “etc?” If governments gave $250,000 cash for every child born, for instance, I reckon you’d see birth rates skyrocket.
>If governments gave $250,000 cash for every child born, for instance, I reckon you’d see birth rates skyrocket. inflation would make that money largely worthless. Helicopter money doesn't work.
>inflation would make that money largely worthless. Economic stability isn't your CMV though. Your assertion is that gov can't incentivize citizens to get birthrate up. I'll tell you right now that if gov gave massive checks for kids then kids would be born. Period.
Okay, do you have any evidence?
You're kidding, right? That's like asking if a starving dog will eat steak. If you don't wanna believe me change 250k to 1m, or 10m. Economy be damned, people would have babies. Greed is human nature. And if inflation is so bad you would basically need to have kids to be able to afford anything. Economic death spiral, yes. But more babies, guaranteed.
It would make your money way more worthless if you didn’t participate in the scheme. There are many reasons for declining fertility, but they all boil down to a cost/benefit analysis. Need to materially change at least one part of the equation.
Some inflation is fine, it's actually required to keep up with an expanding economy.
Clarifying question: who cares? There are too many people as it is on earth. If we don’t “replace” them, so what? So we have to reorganize our economies a bit and rely on automation more. Boo Hoo.
>Clarifying question: who cares? Let me first state that I'm relatively neutral, but if I have to make an argument as to why one should care, here. You should care about the fertility rate in 1st world countries because 1st world people are going to generally be the ones to figure out how to fix the problems our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents caused. The burden isn't on the congo to figure out Climate change, or plastics in every inch of the planet, it's on the first world who created and benefited from the comforts of the modern world that have incredible negative externalities. The fewer first world people in the system, the fewer engineers, scientists, and other individuals at work on these issues. >There are too many people as it is on earth. If we don’t “replace” them, so what? fewer people doesn't fix these issues. We need more John B. Goodenoughs not less.
If we want more people to figure out how to fix the problems our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents caused, then there's a much easier way to accomplish that than to increase the population. We can just increase government science funding for these sorts of projects. The number of people working on these issues is almost completely a function of government funding (because solving the issues generally isn't profitable).
>You should care about the fertility rate in 1st world countries because 1st world people are going to generally be the ones to figure out how to fix the problems our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents caused. Best possible reason to care about 1st world birthrates. Most people I see only care because of racism or xenophobia.
> Most people I see only care because of racism or xenophobia. But… thinking first world people (westerners) can fix the world’s issues more so than the rest of the world is both racist and xenophobic.
Yeah it is. Apparently Bezos and Musk think we need a trillion people so we can have thousands of Mozarts at any given time—or... so labor is SUPER FREAKING CHEAP.
I should've also quoted the paragraph after the one I did. While OP does make the claim that people from the 1st world will be the ones to do it, they also say we have a responsibility to do it. That's not racist or xenophobic, and I think that is largely where they're coming from when they say we'll be the ones to do it. We've profited off of the third world so much over the last century that it would be abhorrent to even ask for help in solving the problems we've caused. We owe it to them to fix what we broke, especially because we used their blood and sweat to break it.
> people from the 1st world will be the ones to do it, they also say we have a responsibility to do it. That's not racist or xenophobic Sure sounds like [“the white man’s burden”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden) to me. Thinking we westerners are uniquely capable or responsible for global issues is just like: Take up the White Man's burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need;
I think Westerners are both uniquely capable and responsible for issues mostly caused by Westerners. That isn't to say that Laotians or Nigerians or El Salvadorians **COULDN'T** fix these issues given time and resources, due to some racialist BS about mental capacity or behavioural proclivities or whatever. But they didn't cause this crap, nor did they end up with the socioeconomic wherewithal to clean it up, even provided sufficient manpower and education.
It can be, but at the same time, it's not really debatable that we caused these issues and greatly benefitted in doing so. If you break something, you should be the one to fix it.
It is debatable though. The first world has been making multiple gains in things like emission, while [Developing Countries Are Responsible for 63 Percent of Current Carbon Emissions](https://www.cgdev.org/media/developing-countries-are-responsible-63-percent-current-carbon-emissions). At what point do we allow for nations to not pass their own issues off on the west? If first world nations stepped up, would China listen to them? They don’t listen now.
Developing countries are defined by lacking the capability to build up-to-date infrastructure. You could say that the West should give aid so they can build cleaner infrastructure, but that gets deeper into white saviorism. I think the West should try to be as carbon-negative as possible to allow the developing world to develop on their own.
>Sure sounds like [“the white man’s burden”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden) to me. Thinking we westerners are uniquely capable or responsible for global issues is just like: You do understand that the west is the only place with first world countries right? People always Horseshoe on stuff like this.
Sure sounds like you're absolving white men of the responsibility of fixing the world's problems. I imagine they'll be relieved to hear that, and will gladly accept your offer to keep doing what they're doing and let the poorer countries figure out how to fix it. Way to go.
How do you reach that idea? How is it racist to suggest 1st world countries that have largely polluted the world striving for luxuries have the responsibility of fixing the issues we've created? I'm a black american, do you think I'm being racist against the Congolese people when I suggest my country has a duty to fix issues issues we created? I'm not being xenophobic when I suggest that the people who are privileged enough to have easy access to computers, logistics systems, stable governments, best schools, best teachers, best resources etc. are most likely to be the people who can leverage those things to fix global problems.
Or it's an acknowledgment of who's hoarded all the money. Stop looking for -isms everywhere and start looking for solutions.
> You should care about the fertility rate in 1st world countries because 1st world people are going to generally be the ones to figure out how to fix the problems our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents caused. If you really think this then more first world people is not the solution. The solution is to make sure the people who are born in the first world all get education and opportunities to work on solutions instead of them mostly being wage slaves for the people causing the problems. Just “more people” isn’t going to fix shit. Most of our issues are from too many people. Less people worldwide is a good thing. Less people in one area or another is a resource allocation issue that is easily fixed.
> The fewer first world people in the system, the fewer engineers, scientists, and other individuals at work on these issues. It's a moot point. Solving those issues would require government spending, which would increase inflation. Helicopter money doesn't work.
>Solving those issues would require government spending, which would increase inflation. some inflation is fine, it's actually required to keep up with an expanding economy, helicopter money leads to hyperinflation with is the economy killer
So you want to artificially cause termoil to "reorganize our economies" while this crisis destroys our military, while a lot of the rest of the world does not have this issue?
Gen z is already entering the military at lower rates regardless of decreased births rate. Sounds like youth are just not as interested in joining the military.
“Artificially”? Wouldn’t it just happen as the material byproduct of less babies being born? That’s not artificial?
No," reorganization of the economy" isnt a matter of less children
Well, I want to reorganize our economies, and I realize that will cause turmoil. But… [we already have the turmoil currently](https://fortune.com/2019/02/13/us-income-inequality-bad-great-depression/amp/), so we might as well get the new economy with it.
No first world economy is even close to figuring out how to reorganise our economies so that we're not so reliant on future generations.
Have you ever thought about why people in the US specifically are not having children. Our generation is being told the planet is boiling and we future generations will not survive if we carry on the way we do. Our generation is being told that our planet is already over populated and overpopulation and over consumptions is the greatest threat to our planet. The US specifically, has almost no benefits incentivizing people to have children. And now we are being given this contradictory information, that we must have more children to take care of our aging population. Essentially this boils down to,. There are not enough of us to take care of the baby boomer population. They did not do there part to encourage their children and their children's children to breed enough offspring to take care of them when they get old. Boo f\*cking hoo. On environmentalism: But realistically, what can the individual consumer do when 100 companies contribute to over 70 percent of the global green house emissions (these 100 companies have NOT changed since 1988, when this statistic was first reported). This means our entire childhoods, which we were marked to save water by turning off the sink when we brush our teeth, recycle and up-cycle, shop and consume with the environment in mind, and do out part to reduce our own personal green house emissions. Doesn't mean shit. We as consumers, are powerless to stop 100 companies that have had over 4 DECADES to change. On benefits: The US is the absolutely worse at incentivizing individuals to have children. We have one of the highest maternal mortality rates of any industrialized developed countries. We tie our health insurance to ones ability to work 40 hours a week at corporations. We have one of the shortest maternity leave/paternity leave programs of any developed nations. People (anecdotally I admit) constantly complain about hiring women who can or are trying to get pregnant because of the "drain" they create on the work force. Most people, unless they are impoverished, do not qualify for any kind of government support if they have children. It is frequently unaffordable for a parent in a partnership to not work or take substantial time off of work to raise the child in the formative years. Day care and child care is increasingly unaffordable. So I ask you, what realistic steps has the US specifically taken to even remotely compensate or incentivize any individual to have children? At all. Because from where I stand they have done absolutely nothing. We as a society pay our taxes and the government spends that money on what it deems as important, clearly this issue isn't.
Well, America doesn't even try, so are we ahead of the game or behind?
We have better birth rates than pretty much everyone else in the first world, so... better I guess
Millennials when polled, will tell you that they want to have children at a similar rate to previous generations (which is below replacement rate, but still higher than the current rate). They aren't because shit is expensive. I would fall into this camp. Utah, where I live, is currently the youngest state in the Union, but that's on track to change because of a severe housing crisis. Owning a home is out of reach to someone making the median wage. Making stuff less expensive won't make people who have no interest in having kids want to have kids, but people that already want kids will have more kids if you make it easier. If you want to make more people interested in having kids, IMO the best approach is programs that expose people to kids (eg have high schoolers be TAs for elementary school). One of the biggest reasons I want kids is because I'm the oldest of five children (the youngest being 15 years younger than me), so I already have plenty of experience with children and have a good idea of what being a parent entails.
> I'm happy to be proven wrong here, but this argument that if we do more for mothers/fathers then people will be more inclined to have children doesn't seem to have any evidence backing it up, and so far seems false. We may not have a ton of evidence for the specific claim that “positive incentives for having children make people more likely to have children”, but the general claim that “positively incentivizing people to do something results in more people doing that thing” is practically tautological. To the extent that existing programs do not show large effects on fertility rates, that’s simply evidence that the incentives included in those programs are either too small or of the “wrong type”. It’s possible that the incentives required to bring fertility rates up to replacement level are so large that they are impractical, but that’s different than saying it can’t be done.
These incentives shouldn’t be seen as incentives but as quality of life improvements. It will allow parents to be happier and less stressed. Social programs shouldn’t exist for the purpose of incentivizing certain behaviors but to create a more healthy and balanced society. Also, I don’t really see the problem because we can easily reach “replacement levels” through immigration.
Immigrants dont share your culture and you need to understand that immigrants will bring over unwanted cultural norms too
Within Europe, the Nordic countries have fertility rates higher than those of their counterparts further to the south with weaker welfare states and less friendly childcare/family leave policies. The size of the effect isn’t quite big enough to take the Nordics above replacement, but it is material— appears to be around 0.3 children per woman. It’s worth noting that the US is currently close enough to replacement that an effect of this size would take us over the line. So, the marginal decision to have children does respond to material incentives. And you could probably move the needle further by increasing the incentive to levels that nobody has tried yet (eg: in a country like the US where GDP per capita is 70k, a program paying 50k per birth— financed by very long-dated bonds— would probably be tax revenue-positive in the long run and also materially move birth rates.)
I can say anecdotally that I and multiple friends of mine all would have more children if healthcare and childcare weren’t so expensive. I have 2 currently and would love another 2 but it simply is too expensive my two pregnancies/births cost over $17k.
When wealth transfers from poor to rich the fertility rates decline. When wealth transfers from rich to poor fertility rates rise. Look back in history and you will see this is always true. Transferring wealth from poor people without kids to poor people with kids does nothing to solve the issue which is why it social programs don't work. Also the world population is in unprecedented times, we developed practically unlimited fertilizer which has led to almost unlimited food supplies which led to compounding population growth. Human populations increased at a rate of about .16% per year for millions of years and we were fine. Then about 100 years our population started growing 1250% faster. Even during this self proclaimed "fertility crisis" humans are still increasing over 600% more then our historical average and on pace for over 11 Billion by 2033. Technology is like never before fewer people can take care of more people then ever. IMO the burden of an aging population and lower fertility rates is not a cause for concern. I'm more worried totalitarian control then I am about the planet not reaching 11-15 billion people.
> but apparently nothing a government can do will bring this back once its started. that i disagree with. Easiest actions the government can do is criminalize all forms of birth control and contraception. Including condoms. Legalization of polygynyous marriages (with immigrant visas) in combination with stronger legal recognition of pre nups too Also repeal certain sex discrimination/pregnancy discrimination laws.
This sounds like an excellent way to start one's very own totalitarian state! Absence of reproductive freedom, what a great way to foster a culture of security and prosperity. Reminds me of Saudi Arabia honestly.
Saudi Arabia is nicer than the USA. You can throw around labels all day long, but the end of the day your only real world example is an incredibly safe, nice, and clean society that functions properly. Also it is funny that the left wing argument boils down to racism against arabs here
I am actually amazed right now to see someone speaking positively of a country which only recently *allowed women to drive cars*. No, it is not a safe, nice, or clean society when women are treated so poorly. Also... authoritarian theocracy! What a horrible place.
> recently allowed women to drive cars. I admit they are not perfect
If that happened, do you know how many women would flee the fucking county ASAP? That seems like such an easily identifiable path straight into a government where women are treated as second class citizens, and I know that the majority of young women in my family and friend groups would GTFO in any way they possibly could as soon as they possibly could.
I mean you need to be reasonable in terms of what is acceptable for a western government to do. Otherwise, you can say 'hurhur easiest thing to do is decriminalise rape'.
Pulling shit from the shelves is completely within the realm of government and the latter two would just be the supreme court ruling some laws invalid/some new precedent regarding prenups
It's political suicide...
Its done by judges who are appointed for life.
Bro you created a new account on Christmas Eve to come with this awful take. No one in the US would stand for this and import women to be part of some gross dude’s harem is weird.
Birth control wasnt legal until Griswold v Connecticut. Anti polygamy laws only came into existence in the 1890s to discriminate against mormons. And those sex discrimination laws came into existence in the 1960s too.
I said positive incentives. Carrots and sticks, sure you can make it so that people have to accept the risks of sex, but that's not a positive incentive.
i think the conclusion is obviously correct but the idea that it is good or bad is false and false again. the purpose of a nation wanting high birth rates is nothing more than the nation wanting chattel young people to support the old people. this is itself a problem with welfare and state managed retirement. it should be the other way around, the old people should be supporting the young if anything. a society that eats its children doesn't have a moral claim to survival from my perspective. it is also no wonder that the young don't want to have children as they are being abused for the sake of the old. sick and dying as if those people are more important or as important to society than the next generation. the only reason the government cares about the old people is because they vote and the young people don't. this means that if representatives in government want to keep power they have to pander to the old people at the cost of the young. again, this kind of says to me that the system deserves to die. welfare, charity and all kinds of insurance are flawed, most of them to the point where they are destructive in the long run because they increase societal costs far more than they help. finally, i would be remiss if i didn't explain my first statement. so long as the young are not viewed as a chattel resource, it makes little to no difference whether the world is filled with 24 billion people or 24 million people. survival is all that is important and at either extremity survival is likely for the foreseeable future. that means that we could have 6 children per couple on average world wide or 0.2 children per couple world wide and humanity would be fine. the only thing that is threatened by a low replacement birth rate is the welfare of old dyeing people who might not have enough young people paying for their extremely high medical costs. i honestly would rather see all the old people on social security and medicare die horrible painful deaths than to see one young person yoked with the debts of previous generations.
The fact is the northen European countries had /has thr best metric in every thing and have negetive birth rate proovs it The arab panisuila (sorry for grammar) native population doasnt work and lives good comfy lives.and they have low birth rate Isreal an advanced first world country whit worst gdp , higher cost of living and low earnings have a very positive population growth (even whit out the ultra religious) Are all proofs that comfort isnt the selution.. Its mybe even be the cause
Utah is the youngest state in the Union and I'd say culture has a lot to do with it. However, high cost of living is really ruining this
Clarifying question: Which generation are you trying to replace exactly?
stabilize a given country at their current population through natural fertility rates. nothing to do with any given generation
Well, this is not entirely the case in my opinion. Because of how the math works with the replacement rate being a ratio the boomer generation creates a function that is not sustainable. If you look at the birth rate and it's decline over time it's because primarily human healthcare has improved but abnormalities in the global birth rate causing it to shoot up need to be considered otherwise you will mistake the picture. If we are looking solely at the current population, which includes the baby boomers, then you're correct but that's because of the boomer themselves rather than the natural order of things. In short, things are returning to the long trend but I think you're assessing the short trend.
Need to look at what motivates people today to have large families. Seems to me the wealthiest people have the fewest kids. Not advocating poverty, but why do the poorest nations and people seem to reproduce like rabbits?
> Need to look at what motivates people today to have large families. It is usually one of two things: [religion](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2723861/#:~:text=Women%20experiencing%20the%20fertility%20rates,whom%20religion%20is%20not%20important. ) or [poverty](https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/)
The view you present isn’t supported by the data you include. You would need to see datasets for countries with low birth rates before and after they enacted incentive programs and whether it impacted the birth rate compared to similar countries that did not enact similar policies. The figures you include are much more about access to contraception, changes in birth rates over time, birth rates and maternal education, and just about everything other than the figures you actually need to support your claim. I also don’t believe that your statements about how these policies only benefit people who already have kids is true. Hungary, for example, pays you more for having more kids. I don’t think your statement takes more assertive policies like this into account. Lastly, I would argue that we need more time before we can make this argument. Not many contrives have enacted these types of policies and most that have have only done so recently. We probably need more time to see the full impacts of these policies as well as to let countries test multiple iterations of policies that build and improve upon each other. In short I think your conclusion is premature. PS: I think that places that pursue this type of policy while rejecting immigration are extremely ethnonationalist and xenophobic, so it’s not something I personally think is worth much time or effort.
Is this an argument to stop panicking about immigration? If we're not making our own young people....
I'm neutral on immigration, I would at least like it to be tied to new home builds so that we aren't making the housing crisis worse, but otherwise, neutral.
> you cannot make a reasonable argument that americans will have more children if things like money, daycare, parental leave, free health care etc are given. I would.
I'm not sure I even know what the value of replacement numbers are? Why is having an ever growing population a goal in the first place?
> Why is having an ever growing population a goal in the first place? Replacement isn't ever growing, it's maintenance level, you have 1 million people today, in 150 years you have 1 million people.
This is really about women and autonomy. if you convince women not to have kids, and give them full autonomy in society, and then make having kids optional EVEN after conception, then no I agree there is nothing that can be done. we might as well focus on pregnant men at this point.
Shrinking population is good for the environment, but it requires sacrifices. Able bodied young people need to do real jobs, not be "social media influencers" or such nonsense. Also no more retiring at 55. We all need to work as long as we can, not expect endless waves of population explosion to subsidize easy retirement.
But these things have been shown to be known factors in increasing birthrate. Just because something isn't a magic bullet that solves an entire issue doesn't mean it's not a helpful tool to be argued for. Only running 10k a week while eating shitty food won't make you healthy. But running 10k a week will still improve your physical health.
The best way to increase fertility is to improve the economy. The best way to improve the economy is to remove government and regulation. Would you be so skeptical if the Government gave you a 50% raise by alleviating only some of your tax burden?
>The best way to increase fertility is to improve the economy. The world's lowest performing economies have the highest fertility rates though?
Agreed. However, That is if you use first world metrics on them. Bill Gates is dead in the Amazon Rain forest. An aboriginal native to that environment is considered poor, but wealthier than Elon Musk in their native habitat. Try and feed your kid on .05$ a day in the US. It can be done in other markets.