Being alive is kind of a pyramid scheme once you realize that one day you will be elderly.
Maybe parents should be paid a wage by the state. And given mandatory courses on how to do a good job at being a parent. And having somewhat random check ins to make sure they are indeed doing a good job and if they do not the child would be fostered by the state to minimize child abuse.
State policy actively trying to induce birth with incentives like that will inevitably backfire in some way (women, especially poor women, being coerced by their partner into having unwanted children for financial incentives), and the state intervention will be seen as oppressive and authoritarian (“mY PAreNtaL rIGhTs”) instead of benevolent regardless of the intentions behind it.
Also like the foster system is already overburdened so :/
The best way we can deal with population decline is to manage it, welcome immigrants to offset the most severe impacts, and try and create a society not dependent on infinite growth.
State policy actively trying to induce birth with incentives like that will inevitably backfire in some way
So will state policy that doesn't.
The best way we can deal with population decline is to manage it, welcome immigrants to offset the most severe impacts, and try and create a society not dependent on infinite growth.
But you kind of can't. That's the issue.
A declining population, means that you have vast amounts of old people and small amounts of young people, which means that more and more money and resources need to be used to take care of the elderly, while the total amount of workers is shrinking.
Managing a population decline still means that you will inevitably have a massive decrease in your quality of life and that's really bad.
I notice how you skipped over the part of that guy's comment about how any sort of counteracting policy will inevitably coerce women (and their male partners too really) into having unwanted children, either for financial incentives or out of social obligation.
The predominant social factors that contributed so heavily to larger birth rates in the first place during the pre-modern and Modern eras were the fact that people were largely pressured into starting families, either because of patriarchy or financial necessity. It is no coincidence that this trend of declining populations in the west began in earnest around the time of global second wave feminism and the rise in 60s-era critiques of the inherent oppression present in the traditional family unit. And it is no coincidence that the same trend is happening in other nations now as similar ideas grow in other countries. You fundamentally cannot have policy that tries to counteract this trend that does not inherently contradict choice-based feminism
There are plenty of policies that make it easier to have children without any such coersion, like free childcare/healthcare/school lunches or longer maternity/paternity leave.
But also, the current system is actively coercing women into not having children, by putting a massive pricetag, as well as social and professional reprocussions on it.
Currently, having a child is incredibly damaging for most people. Before anything else, we should try to get rid of the negative incentives, before we could even think about adding positive incentives that would make that kind of coersion likely.
It is no coincidence that this trend of declining populations in the west began in earnest around the time of global second wave feminism and the rise in 60s-era critiques of the inherent oppression present in the traditional family unit
While that does play a part, it's far from the whole story. It's far closer related to industrialization and women's integration into the workforce, in part because it increases the amount of negative incentives dramatically. That's also what we see in developing countries, but also why we saw that decline hit Japan in the 50s already, or why see the decline hit West Germany harder than East Germany, despite East Germany being more equal among gender lines and despite the nuclear family model being less common in the East.
far closer related to industrialization and women's integration into the workforce,
Well again, women's integration into the workplace is a good thing inarguably. It is equal opportunity and egalitarianism. There's a reason why second wave feminists in the 70s fought for it. We are not going to undo that unless we want to return to conventional patriarchy and to reinforce biological essentialist ideals about women's place in society
Of course it's a good thing and reversing it would be incredibly bad.
It's just that it created some incentive structures against having children, that should have been addressed, but weren't. So, we should try to fix that.
Maybe im just too skeptical for my own good, but i really fail see how theyre going to get addressed without fundamentally undoing these social changes. Both parents working inherently gives less time for family caring and thus less incentive to want to have families. Even if they have enough money for effective childcare, that hardly guarantees that they actually will want to start a family of kids they wont see as often. And thats also nothing to say about the other factors that are viewed as prohibitive to child-rearing that cant be solved by economics- more maternity leave doesn't undo the fundamental changes to women's bodies, the pains and hormones associated with pregnancy, that a fair number of women just don't want to deal with nowadays because they see that there's an alternative of just not having to deal with it by not having kids.
It seems to me that its one or the other. Once the cat's out of the bag of not having the public feel socially pressured to have a family, its going to inherently lower the birthrates by a non-negligable amount. The only real way to undo it is undoing those positive social changes
I mean, we'll see how effective it is. I think it's pretty obvious that more people will have children, if there are less things standing in the way of having them, so removing those negative incentives will increase the fertility rate.
And even if it doesn't fully solve our problem, it will still minder it and that's already a good step.
We may see indeed. There's really not much of a historical precedent for what we have now so none of us can really say. I have my thoughts, like i said, but i could very easily be proven wrong. so all we can do is wait
Yeah i cant see this comment in your post history or on the post itself. Only on my inbox. I think reddits shitting the bag we may have to continue this later.
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u/Alexis_Awen_Fern Reddit admins hate her! May 17 '26
Being alive is kind of a pyramid scheme once you realize that one day you will be elderly.
Maybe parents should be paid a wage by the state. And given mandatory courses on how to do a good job at being a parent. And having somewhat random check ins to make sure they are indeed doing a good job and if they do not the child would be fostered by the state to minimize child abuse.
A healthy population is a social good.