These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.
…
If history is any guide, none of this will work: No matter what governments do to convince them to procreate, people around the world are having fewer and fewer kids.
In the US, the birth rate has been falling since the Great Recession, dropping almost 23 percent between 2007 and 2022. Today, the average American woman has about 1.6 children, down from three in 1950, and significantly below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children needed to sustain a stable population. In Italy, 12 people now die for every seven babies born. In South Korea, the birth rate is down to 0.81 children per woman. In China, after decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, the population is shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. In Taiwan, the birth rate stands at 0.87.
You must log in or register to comment.
I grew up lower middle class or more likely upper lower class, my parents both worked and owned a house but it was tough to make ends meet when they were getting older and my dad couldn’t move as easily because of injuries.
I still grew up with parents that were home from work everyday, good food, lights, heat and internet were never cut off. I couldn’t do what my parents did for me. I have a great job, my partner is much better educated has the opportunity to get much more important jobs and we earn more than 135k a year but it would be impossible to raise kids, even just one as well as my parents raised me and my sister.
Why would I want to raise a child in a worse environment than I grew up in? I can see why immigrants come in and have a family. Their next generation will likely have a far better life in Canada than in their home countries. I welcome others to have a better life here than back in their home countries and have kids here.
Authorities have hosted several singles mixers in an effort to get young people to pair up.
And who wouldn’t want to go to a singles mixer hosted by “the authorities”. Sounds fun.
Ensuring families have access to Child Healthcare, parents have time to parent their kids, kids have capable and loving parents and communities have programs to ensure the wellbeing of the children is SOCIALISM!
-Pro Life Republicans trying to Save The Children
Rightoids: we need to boost our population
Also rightoids: best we can do is make abortion illegal and encourage teen pregnancy
Two things:
-
Life sucks for a lot of people. Younger Gen X, Millenials, Gen Z all have had really hard times. Why would someone want to make their life harder?
-
The “declining” birth rates are actually returning to pre-Baby Boom levels. This is a fully natural thing.
It may or may not be natural, but it doesn’t change the economic reality - if there are more people who can’t work (the olds) than who can, the economy is fucked.
It seems like lots if boomers are retiring older - I have no data for that but that’s the vibe - but that’s not going to last forever, they can’t (shouldn’t) work until they literally die. The burden on the young (paired with pretty reckless tactics from the capitalists) - the olds are going to get left in the street.
-
As someone who doesn’t have and never wanted kids, I’d hate this but…
If a country really wants a sustainable birth rate, it needs to make it painful to not be a parent. Already, non-parents have to pay for public schools they’ll never use, and so-on. But, that’s a minor expense compared to raising a kid. A country that made it a true priority to keep the population up could do so much more.
Jobs could be required to give 3 weeks additional vacation to parents every year so they could spend it with their children, while non-parents didn’t get that time. Taxes could be significantly higher for non-parents vs. parents. Workplaces could get tax breaks based on the number of parents they employ. There could be tax incentives for workplaces that hire new parents. Retirement benefits could be based on the number of kids you raised, capping out at max benefits for 3 kids.
Of course, if any modern country tried that, a lot of people who never want kids would emigrate. But, if you ran an authoritarian country like China or North Korea and could control immigration, you’d definitely get people opting into having kids instead of enjoying a child-free life.
Already, non-parents have to pay for public schools they’ll never use, and so-on.
Alternatively, you’re paying for the schooling that you did use so that the people following you still have the same access you did. Whether you spawned them or not is irrelevant, unless you plan to just close the door behind you.
Also (in theory) paying to educate those that will be voting for your government. And like, a thousand other reasons. Public school is good for society regardless of if you have kids
You don’t need to penalize the non-parents to entice people to have kids.
But it needs incredible systemic change to do that. The first one would be climate change policies and programs that will at the minimum stop the current trajectory we are in, and at best reverse it.
Second, we need to reign in the extremely greedy corps and make them pay their fair share. In a not so distant past, when the economy wasn’t doing well, companies would cut their profits before raising prices. Today, this is practically unheard of. The margins must be kept at all cost, the rest be damned.
Third, create decent safety nets. Right now, our social policies are eroding pretty much everywhere. Some countries more than the others.
Then, we can start thinking about policies that favor the patents.
We have enough resources and technologies to solve all of our problems, but since society is lead by greedy conmans in the pocket of corporations, until that changes, people won’t be comfortable having kids.
You don’t need to penalize the non-parents to entice people to have kids.
Maybe, maybe not. In the past there were enough people who wanted to have kids that if you just made it easy, they’d do it. But, it could be that the modern world is different enough that you really do need to incentivize people to become parents and even punish them if they don’t. Especially in a place like South Korea, it sounds like it’s going to be very hard to convince anybody that they should become parents.
the extremely greedy corps
Extremely greedy corps are run by people, and their profits flow to people. It’s really not about corporations, it’s about people.
society is lead by greedy conmans in the pocket of corporations
Society is led by rich people who own corporations or massive amounts of shares in corporations. Again, corporations aren’t the problem, it’s people.
The current system is controlled by a handful of people. The vast majority of the people only try to survive in the current system. It is extremely hard to take a risk and go against the grain because if you fail against people with lots of resources, you are destitute.
It is not the person on the floor that tries to survive that is responsible for the decision of the corporation and ultimately the damage that it does. It’s easy to say that they should stick to their convictions, but the threat of starvation and homelessness is an extremely dissuasive.
So I disagree, corporations are the problem because they cannot be separated from the handful of C-suites controlling them.
Corporations are largely controlled by their shareholders. In many cases, Blackrock, State Street or Vanguard control those shares on behalf of their investors. They’re the ones who control who is on the boards, and the boards control who is in the C-suites.
The reason that so many corporations focus on maximizing profits over everything else is that it’s what’s demanded by the boards, who are appointed by the shareholders, who are largely represented by Blackrock, State Street and Vanguard. Any human impulse to have a company care about the environment or about its employees is basically nullified by this process where the institutional investors only want the key numbers to go up. In some cases the shares are owned by pension funds who represent teachers who care a lot about the world, enough that they take a relatively low paying job that requires a lot of work. But, those teachers want to be able to retire some day, and so they want their pensions to grow big, so they want the companies in those pensions to make profits. By the time an individual kindergarten teacher’s desires filter up from herself to her union to her pension to the institutional investor to the board to the CEO, the only message that gets through is “more profits”. Alongside those teachers are a lot of very rich people who treat money like a high score, and just want the number to go up.
It’s true that a lot of people in C-suites lack empathy. But, they’re kept in place by boards who are appointed by huge institutional investment firms who represent shareholders who care only about profit. But, also, the current system doesn’t really allow for messages other than “more profits” to filter through to these companies.
The corporation isn’t a sentient creature, it’s just a group of people, and those people respond to the stimulus that comes from their owners. The only real message getting through is “more profits”, so that’s the focus of the corporations.
Ah so let’s have people having kids stuffing them in the basement just to get benefits like foster parents do now. Lol nah kids should not be used to get free shit and having kids should not get yoy free shit.
We want kids, but we can’t biologically conceive, as much as we’ve tried. Surrogacy starts at like, $30k. Start paying for that, a year of paid parental leave for both parents, and real universal Healthcare, and we have a solid start.
Or perhaps fund adoptions? Those are just as expensive!
We’re also in a same sex relationship, so that strikes a lot of adoptions right off… Even so, just for legal reasons, I’d prefer surrogacy. I just want a happy little family someday :)
I meant as a generality rather than for you specifically
People are generally depressed and struggling with little help, barely making ends meet, and then they get bitched at for not creating more people to thrust into this thankless meatgrinder. If people felt better about the world that they were bringing people into then maybe they would be more inclined.
We live in a world with an aging population that is happy to reap the benefits of short term thinking, leave it up to the next generation, then get pissed when people aren’t giving them a next generation to pay the tab.
I have 13 kids from five different women but I never get recognized, pat on the back, absolutely nothing. To top it off I’m stuck working for cash. Has anyone thought about fighting for men’s rights?
Wear a condom. Well it’s too late now but NEXT TIME!!
Raising a kid in America starts around $200k, conservatively. A 2-3k incentive or even 6 months of paid leave worth around 25k aren’t gonna make a dent.
Terry Gou, a candidate in next year’s Taiwanese presidential election, has even proposed giving people a free pet if they have a child.
Okay, so your solution for people who don’t want children is to give them “children lite”?
Even if you think adopting a pet is a reasonable thing to do at the same time you adopt a child, that’s just an insulting small incentive. May as well just offer a free cup of coffee.
There’s no fucking way I can take care of a coffee and a child at the same time. They’ll both be cold in minutes.
A “free” cup of coffee that you need to buy food and pay medical bills for.
You sonnova bitch, I’m in.
Reducing the world population is the obvious answer to slowing the detrimental effects humankind are having on the earth.
But think of the capitalists! How will the stock market continue to make gains if there are less people?
It’s worth noting that communists and socialists also depend on population growth to sustain their civilizations as do trees and rabbits and beetles. It’s possible that economic systems don’t really matter all that much here.
Population collapse isn’t the road to some sustainable future. It is how species go extinct. Perhaps we are on that road, so it goes. But whistling past the graveyard pretending that “Star Trek” is on the other side is silly.
We’re billions of people on the planet. Most jobs don’t even pay enough to feed a couple of people. I believe that there is an oversaturation of people on the planet and this has caused a devaluation of their labor.
Europe would have remained feudal for quite a longer time if the population collapse caused by the black plague hadn’t happened and caused the demographic changes that it did. Without the plague, peasant labor would be plentiful and the status quo would not have changed. However, with the population reduction, the class in power had to concede to enough changes that brought about the Reinassance and the Industrial era quickly after.
In the Bronze age, without the climate changes that brought about cold and dry conditions and triggered the fall of the city states ruled by an oppressive theocratic class, humans would have still been tied to those stifling conditions for longer and wouldn’t have brought about the classical era.
With the onset of AI and advanced robotics, population collapse will allow people to see their labor valued adequately, instead of just more and more people in the workforce working more hours and getting paid less and less, doing meaningless busy work jobs to pay for things that they don’t need or enjoy, like crypto, gambling or online cam girls. A controlled collapse by fertility is not only non threatening, it is also desirable and the most acceptable way to cull numbers a bit. We need this, otherwise, the base of the pyramid will only get wider while the top will only get slimmer. Tragedy breeds suffering, but also change and we NEED change. The problem is the transition, but after the transition, we’ll be in a better place as a society and we will bring about change.
I assure you you can. The payment would have to cover all of the child’s needs plus a bit more but you definitely can.
But the cost of that would far exceed anything remotely reasonable. I say fuck it, let the birthrate drop for a few decades. The planet could use the break.
It’s only catastrophically low in traditionally “western” countries. the world’s population is still growing. It appears immigration is now a requirement to grow the economy. How interesting.
The real reason why people don’t have kids is because they suck. Kids are stupid and annoying. More and more people are waking up to this fact and starting to resist the social pressure.“I can actually live my life instead of dedicating all my time and resources to something I don’t even need? I’ll have two of that please!”
If government wants kids let them raise the kids. Pay women to give birth and then put the kid in public system. Problem solved.
You were a kid, though. Adults aren’t just spawned, they grow from kids. Everyone seems to be talking about them (and old people, for that matter) as though they are a separate species of being. Kids are just immature people. Of course they suck. You did too, so did I.
But they are also awesome, and grow up to be adults. I had fun having kids. Taking them places, watching them grow and change, the funny things they say and the flashes of insight. Now most of them are adult people. I don’t care if they have kids, they should do whatever they want. But I did enjoy the parenting. Sure, it’s not convenient, it’s life.
As a woman of almost 40 fucking thank you. I’m educated enough to know I don’t have to fall for that bs.
I mean, kids only really suck in a world where both parents have to work 40+ hours a week. You really don’t have to dedicate all your time to them, but in a world with less and less community to help raise them and more and more work to grind your energy down, you have to dedicate far too much of your limited free time to them. I would love to be able to raise a kid or two myself. I loved working with kids. We should not be throwing them into some nebulous “public system.”
Yeah, I’m not talking about the public system seriously. It’s just to show it’s not really about systematic solutions. We can come up with government supported solutions and they would be bad.
And I totally agree that if you don’t have to work raising kids is not that terrible but it’s also not really a solution because most people do actually want to work. If you give people a choice between kids and meaningful career a lot of people will still choose career and birth rates will still be low. And a lot of people will still simply choose not to have kids because even when you don’t have to work bringing up a kid is actually really really difficult. My friends and co-workers keep having kids and yeah, sleep deprivation, no social life, no time for hobbies, lots of extra expenses, constant infections, hard time travelling even short distance… And that’s only the first year or two, before any behavioural issues start or you have to decide if you prefer to give you’re 10 yo unrestricted access to the internet or have him excluded from everything his friends do.
The information you get might be biased, because people love to vent about bad stuff, but do not mention the rewarding stuff, that makes it worth it.
Yeah, I’ve heard that argument and I don’t buy it. What I see is people that are really burned out and borderline depressed. I don’t believe a hug from their child before sleep fixes that. I believe it keeps them from going crazy but I don’t think it makes it all worth it. Most people will simply not admit it because it’s taboo.
My friend lost his apartment to a fire so I took him in with my wife and kids while he got back on his feet. He was working class, his parents were neglectful and died young, his other family hated him, and he was left to fight for scraps and fend for himself.
He saw me give love to my kids, he saw the freedom we gave them to explore the world around them and their feelings, to exist without fear. One day my friend got home from work and the two kids ran over screaming “UNCLE!” and hugged him. He teared up a little and hugged them back, then he asked me to chat outside for a bit.
He laid it all out and said he wants kids. He never thought he could subject them to the life he lived but after seeing mine he realized he didn’t have to. He said watching them grow up and being a part of it has been very rewarding. He has since started a business, almost entirely stopped drinking and smoking, invested his money in multiple places, and is now dating.
Kids are a lot of work, but they’re also fantastic at showing you what actually matters in life. So much of the bullshit we think matters is just fluff.
Well since we are at anecdotal evidence. I am in the academics bubble, where quite a few of my friends also got children and they love it. You don’t like kids, so you see all the problems that come with having children. You are looking for confirmation bias. There are more than enough people that do not hate children. I mean, we are kinda biologically programmed to procreate.
I totally get what you’re saying but I think there’s just so much pressure from society that it’s all terribly biased. Last week I saw another very long article from a woman wondering if she should have kids or not and the comment section was full of people talking like they just realized having kids is optional. Watch any American TV show and you’ll see how ingrained the idea that having kids is mandatory is. Average person is so programmed by society and media to have kids people think it’s just what you have to do and yes, they will try to justify it but saying that it’s actually very rewarding. I’m not saying that no one should have kids but I actually think that very few people have kids because they enjoy it. We’re talking couples with good jobs, good benefits, lot’s of family support and lot’s of money. Most people don’t have any of this but they still have kids.
People with your argument are stupid and annoying. Kids are great. They deserve better than our society.
Most birds don’t lay eggs without a proper nest
My wife and I are well to do in the US, with a good household income that probably puts us in the top 2% or some shit. And to maintain the sort of life that used to be considered “middle class”, we need all of that income for our family of 4. Which means that we both work. We would have liked more kids. But there is only so much time to go around. Fuck are we supposed to do, have another kid and hire a nanny? Fuck is the point of that, we wouldn’t even be parenting.
You want more kids? Give people more time. Which means LESS WORK and BETTER CHILDCARE OPTIONS.
Not to mention better healthcare! Healthcare costs are the primary reason US citizens go bankrupt. Kids get sick, adults get sick, and if one of the adults in the house gets sick and can’t help bring in money for the kids then the entire household essentially goes from upper/middle to lower or bankrupt. If a kid gets very sick, oftentimes one of the parents has to stop working to argue every single claim that insurance would be paying but doesn’t, and call every department of every doctors office or hospital to get an itemized bill and get it lowered to a reasonable cost rather than them asking for a blank check. I’m afraid of having a sick kid and losing my job to their healthcare organization (note: not their healthcare directly, but calling insurance asking them to pay for life saving care, then calling hospitals asking why a small bandage is $1200), losing my house to bankruptcy after healthcare costs, and losing any semblance of future career due to time off and losing myself.
Word. What we really need is a societal overhaul. Not gonna happen, tho.
