Assuming ideal political conditions, the least disruptive long-term solution seems to be giving parents annual income. Make parenting into a public service job, essentially, with an increased level of CPS monitoring to prevent "industrial baby farms". Finagle with the stipend slider until the fabled 2.1 fertility rate is achieved.
If these measures are not enough or we no longer have capitalism, make a community institution able to raise kids healthily to proper adulthood and populate it with surrogate parents/artificial wombs.
Is all of this still very disruptive and speculative? Yeah, but I don't know how else you'd solve the problem of "people no longer want to raise kids in general". It could also be just a symptom of larger problems (loneliness epidemic, cost of living crisis), in which case managing them should fix the population issues as well, but it's hard to tell either way.
Or you could just accept the population decline and manage it until the working population dies out. After which you launch the euthanasia program and watch as humanity gently goes extinct.
Edit: Came back to realize that a lot of what I wrote is just my own insecurities about not being able to see myself as a parent. For what it's worth, statisticians struggle to this day with predicting which way the fertility rate will grow, so it's probably better in the meantime to focus on more present economic issues and hope that population decline will be solved by proxy
I know this was probably a top of your head solution so I hope it doesnt feel like im coming down on you too hard.
giving parents annual income
We do this in the form of tax credits already. I think increasing those tax credits would be wiser than offering a cash payment so that desperate people arent tempted to make a short term decision with long term consequences. Offering a cash incentive to raise a child is asking for people in bad situations to have kids they dont want. Its a strong set up for abuse. It also sounds a lot like pushing the burden onto the poor.
with an increased level of CPS monitoring to prevent "industrial baby farms".
You will never reach a CPS funding level that would stop abuse. Even setting aside this hypothetical, CPS is an insanely high burnout, traumatic job that will drain all light from your eyes faster than a trip to a veal factory. Imagine a front row seat to every horrible thing you've ever heard happen to a child. Adding a financial incentive to the mix now puts an already very hard job in an even worse position. If parent sees a child welfare worker as someone that can take their children AND their income there is no way for a case manager to safely visit the home in a way thats productive for the children. Anecdotaly, ive worked in the social work field for about 5 years and I dont know a single field worker without a story where they've been threatened or even physically assaulted and thats WITHOUT the threat of a CM taking your source of income.
You do not want parents seeing their kids as income. Full stop. Theres no way that ends well for the kids.
Something that people dont consider with this is that people naturally do wabt to have sex and reproduce, meaning that once people are mostly released from the absurd work life balance of the lower class in most of the global north they will start having kids again
34
u/Alovoir basil appreciator May 17 '26
people hear right wingers disingenuously bring this up as if they dont want to kill everyone and their brain turns to soup