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Comment by marsrover | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I’m missing something or not thinking it through but why not pay people to have babies based on their status? It would cause more divide between classes but I feel like the ends might justify the means.

Great education and job? You get paid more to have a baby.

Homeless? You get paid nothing to have a baby.

Put the payment on a sliding scale. The lower the birth rate the higher the pay until you cross your desired threshold (1.8 in this case) at which point it starts going down again.

Edit: or just go the other way and tax people if they’re not having babies. Same principle as above but with taking money away.

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If you are rich and not having a baby then I don't think bit more money will encourage you to have one.

If you want to pay people to have babies then you should pay poor people because they might be the ones not having babies because they lack money.

If you don't want poor babies then when the baby is born in poor family buy for them the best education, healthcate, toys, food and other activities and you have a good chance that you turn poor baby into rich baby and then rich adult.

If you just want to have rich folks to have more kids you should give them what they lack. Most likely time. So limit work week to 30 hours top. Make overtime paid 200% and unpaid overtime highly illegal and heavily fined. Pay people to not work for a year or more after they have a child.

I think the solution with poor parents is actually cheaper.

The problem is enforcing such a policy when people inevitably end up having babies without a "permit". What do you suggest should be done to those parents and the kid? Fining them doesn't help, neither does throwing them into prison. Putting up the baby for adoption would be tantamount to the government stealing your kid and I don't think you can convince people to stand for that.

A tax for _not_ having babies? I don't think that will go over so well...

People in the US are taxed for _not_ having babies and no one is taking to the streets over it.

If you have a child, you get a tax deduction (or credit? I forget). That is effectively the same as a tax for not having a baby.

Someone with a child pays less taxes than someone without.

If you have a child, you get a tax deduction (or credit? I forget).

It’s both actually! I get a deduction for each of my kids. Many people also get a tax credit of $1,000 for each of their children. I don’t qualify because of having too high of an income.

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/ten-facts-about-the-child-tax-c...

The logic is that parents bear an outsized cost for providing an essential social good: the next generation.

When we are old, we will need taxpayers to pay social security, well trained healthcare workers, emergency personnel, maintained roads, etc.

Parenting is also especially expensive: child care, safety equipment, larger homes, larger vehicles, etc.

Without getting in the weeds on putting a better dollar figure on it, that's the case for subsidizing families.

The "next generation" saves its own money and uses it as it likes, or rather indebts itself even further than the current. It's not necessary that the next generation will lead to a greater good. And regardless, most people will have children because that's just what animals do, mostly regardless of political considerations.

That's like saying getting paid is a tax on unemployed people.

I'm not sure to what extent the problem is due to economics and to what extent it's due to culture. I read recently that half of single men in Japan are virgins, which is quite staggering. Lots of Japanese people seem to have simply "dropped out" of the idea of having an intimate relationship, replacing that with video games and pornography.

When I lived in Japan, what struck me was how infantile and coddled the whole culture seemed: lots of "kawaii" anime everywhere, in advertisements, on product wrapping, etc. Signs everywhere telling you how to act (in grocery stores they have footprint markings on the floor to tell you what path to follow...). Grown men watching anime about little girls. I wonder if all this is creating a masculinity crisis in Japan.

Funny how they went from Samurais to this.

Samurai were meant to be literally all about work with as little emotional tie to familly so that they are ready to die on command.

So you know, familly and kiss not being priority might not be shocking outcome of such culture.

That being said, why is grown man watching anime about girls something bad? Men were consuming entertainment with girls in it in many cultures ... heterosexual men don't naturally mind watching opposite sex, especially when framed cute or sexy.

The problem is it is not females as such they are watching but young teens and children. Japanese men seem to have a fear of adult women who are their psychological equals.

Something else I have read is that traditional Japanese marriage is very oppressive for women, and as new work opportunities have opened up in recent decades a large proportion of women have just decided to stay single. In addition in recent decades there are few jobs for young men that would give them enough income to support a family.

Interesting that you frame it as a problem with the men and not the women - I'm not Japanese, but from what I've read, most Japanese men who regress, either by avoiding women or worse, see women as "not worth it". Why would they pursue women who don't seem to want or need them, act like men (rude, outgoing, and independent), don't want to have sex (God forbid children), and forgo traditions like marriage?

On one hand, being upset that women have financial independence seems fairly sexist. But on the other hand, if you're seeking affection and someone to raise your children and nobody is offering that, then ...

Basically it seems to me like both sexes are asking too much, while also being victims of the culture and the economy.

I think one of the main impediments to having children is just having space for them. You cannot have a child in a 40m2 apartment, and more is very hard to get in so many places. Certainly not for the people usually inclined to have babies (ie. the poor).

I don't know but Tokyo is probably similar.

I don’t think that’s strictly true. Flavela housing is also smallish but that doesn’t stop reproduction. It’s more a cultural thing with many other contributing factors, like economic outlook, cost of living, etc.

It's not housing. It's basically lack of time. Japanese are allowed to work almost all of their waking hours. So they do. They pretty much have to because rent is on average always as high as people can afford. Not much time for anything else.

Which is a recognised economic phenomenon:

https://ifstudies.org/blog/higher-rent-fewer-babies-housing-...

The last time Japan had a population close to replacement rate was 1974, with the population at 109.5m.

Japan will reach that population again in 2046, so maybe we can hope for a recovery by that stage?

Part of the solution certainly needs to be voluntary Euthanasia for the elderly. If you're above 80 and decide you've lived a good enough life, you should be free to go out on your own terms, even without a terminal disease.

Think it's related to the nukes?

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