Pushing baby booms to boost economic growth amounts to a Ponzi scheme
Many countries are adopting pronatalist policies to address declining birth rates, but experts suggest focusing on broader social and economic issues instead, advocating for immigration and essential services as solutions.
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Many major economies, including South Korea, Japan, and Italy, are implementing pronatalist policies to counteract declining birth rates, believing that higher birth rates will stimulate economic growth. However, experts argue that low or high birth rates are not inherently problematic; rather, they are often symptoms of broader social and economic issues. Efforts to manipulate fertility rates can lead to coercive measures and are generally ineffective. The authors suggest that instead of focusing on increasing birth rates, governments should address economic and social challenges directly through regulation and redistribution. They highlight that pronatalist policies often disproportionately burden women and fail to produce significant changes in birth rates, as seen in Italy's Family Act. Furthermore, the authors contend that increasing the working-age population can be achieved through immigration and enhancing Social Security funding without needing to boost birth rates. They advocate for providing essential services like education and healthcare not as a means to control population growth but as fundamental rights that contribute to a fair society. Ultimately, the authors view pronatalism as a misguided approach that promises solutions through population growth while neglecting the underlying issues facing current populations.
- Pronatalist policies are being adopted by several countries to combat declining birth rates.
- Experts argue that low or high birth rates are symptoms of larger social and economic issues.
- Manipulating fertility rates is often ineffective and can lead to coercive practices.
- Increasing the working-age population can be achieved through immigration rather than boosting birth rates.
- Essential services should be provided as rights, not as tools for population control.
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18 comments-More immigrants
-More pension contributions
The former overlooks the fact that those are just someone else's children, so the suggestion appears to be to drain other countries off of their workforce - provided it even exists as fertility rates have been plummeting across the board.
The latter has been, in a way, tried in some places in Europe and net effect is birth rates plummeting and an increase in illegal employment.
In any case we're way past talking about going above replacement fertility - currently the conversation is focused on preventing a downward spiral that will negatively affect everyone's quality of life.
No, the pronatalist movement is premised on the belief that humans should not go extinct. If the entire world had the Korean birthrate (and it does seem to be moving that way), extinction would happen in 25 generations.
High birthdates are a problem with scarce resources and tend to be associated with poor treatment of women[1]. Low birthrates are an extreme problem because as people age, they need to be taken care of. Even if that old person is very rich through responsible investments in their younger age, that money won’t bring them the proverbial glass of water without another younger person there.
Like with most things in life, balance is important and hard to achieve.Two to three kids per family seems to be ideal, but comes with an extreme life style hit unless you happen to be very well off. There are many irrational worries too that come with being a parent. While not perfect, I’ll take some support over none. „Too much” support is an ethics/ideology question and also has to do with social cohesion and ability of the society to integrate new members into that cohesion.
[1]https://worldpopulationhistory.org/womens-status-and-fertili...
[0] https://www.ft.com/content/868e20d0-90ec-11e9-b7ea-60e35ef67...
What stunned me about that was that they took the admonition seriously to begin with. That a statesperson telling you to have more children or have children at all “for Norway” was worth responding to.
I wonder how they expect it to work in large countries like China. At the moment they would need to take over half of Africa to make the numbers work. Insanity.
Lmao, the entire western economy is built on this premise for decades. Pensions, social security, and even 401ks. It's all passing on the bagholding to someone else. It all depends on a newer/younger generation to pay in to allow the older ones to cash out. And it all implodes when the younger can't afford to buy in because of economic wealth hoarding by the older that wants to cash out.
1) Minimally support raising children through some token property tax etc to pretend you support the children
2) Praise children
3) Have none yourself
4) Offload most costs of raising and make childhood appropriate independence illegal so they won't be in your way, narc to CPS if they're in public without a parent and you find it a nuisance.
5) Wait for kid to be raised, tax shit out of the kid
6) Collect a full share of the social security revenue from the tax generators who's raising you mostly offloaded to everyone else.
The number one thing when modeling really anything interesting about a setting or story is (drum roll): Population
Pretty much everything is keyed to population [1], and I mean pretty much everything. The number of movie theaters, the tonnage of your aircraft carriers, the walking speed in your downtowns, it's all about population.
Generally, I've seen that as population rises, things get better. There are more patents per capita, better ratios of MDs to patients, more ranks in your Fire departments, etc. Yeah, there are exceptions here, but not all that many.
Most things get more efficient as you get more people [2]. Your gas stations have more customers per day, your sewer lines handle more people, your libraries have more patrons per day, etc.
So, when I see a lot of discourse that we somehow need to allow for less people to be alive, to encourage less births, well, that makes me a bit sad. Yes, yes, climate change, I agree, we need to desperately fix that. But from the data that I work with, all I see is that more people = good [3].
To me, the data suggests that we don't need to have less people, that would lead to a less vibrant and progressing world. What we need to figure out a way to grow our population without the effects on the rest of the world. And yeah, I know, impossible. But the data tells me that shrinking is not the way. Somehow, I feel that technology is really the best way forward.
[0] Honestly, I'm a weird nerd that really just likes to play with excel sheets, graphs, and wikipedia info boxes.
[1] the only thing that isn't, in my meanderings through BLS data sheets, wikipedia, etc is the number of stops on any particular subway/rail line. That's most closely correlated to population density. And, really, that's pretty much it. Just that one thing.
[2] again, not population density, it's easy enough to control for that, it's just raw numbers of people from what I have seen.
[3] again, generally. Not all cases, not all places, not all times.
> Seen through this lens, pronatalism offers a hollow-ringing promise that simply having more people will solve social and economic problems faced by a nation’s current population. But that amounts to borrowing from the future to pay the debts of the past.
not having kids is borrowing from the future to pay for your own wants now.
All of civilization in all of history is a ponzi scheme, where you invest heavily in the next generation to keep it moving forward. That's not a profound takedown it's literally why you have a desk job at a computer instead of digging up potatoes to starve to death in a cave.
Related
Global Population to Shrink This Century as Birth Rates Fall
A UN report forecasts a global population decline by 2100 due to decreasing birth rates. Factors include changing values and fertility preferences. This shift may impact climate change and economies worldwide.
Singapore's Baby Bust: Record low births in 2023 deepen demographic crisis
Singapore faced a record low of 33,541 births in 2023, a 5.8% drop from 2022, alongside a total fertility rate of 0.97. Rising deaths and societal factors contribute to demographic challenges.
Britain is running out of babies
Britain's birth rates are declining, projected to decrease primary school-aged children by 10% in four years. This trend raises concerns about economic and social challenges due to an aging population.
The Reason People Aren't Having Kids
Birth rates in wealthy countries, including the U.S., are declining due to economic factors and a lack of purpose among younger generations, suggesting that financial incentives alone are insufficient to encourage parenthood.
Birthrates are plummeting world wide. Can governments turn the tide?
By 2100, 97% of countries may fall below replacement fertility rates due to economic instability, climate concerns, and changing social norms, despite government incentives failing to significantly boost birthrates.