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Comment by marknutter | Hacker News Reader

All of those birthrates are terminal, technically.

That is such an odd term. As if it the birthrates could no longer change for the positive or as if it would doom countries with birthrates below 2.1 to die.

It’s easy to envision things that would induce people to have fewer kids, it’s harder to come up with things that would make them want to have more. These birth rates are completely new experiences for the world and we’re not quite certain what the outcome will be (as it is, there are likely subcultures that are still above replacement on average, even in the most declining societies).

> it’s harder to come up with things that would make them want to have more

"Ability to buy a house or similar" and "affordable daycare" are probably enough to have a huge impact. We don't need a long list of possible answers.

I bet these five could easily get birth rates above 2.0.

- Reasonable maternity leave allowances.

- Good affordable (or free) healthcare.

- Good affordable (or free) child care until school age.

- Free education to university graduate level.

- Affordable housing.

The super-rich have no interest in allowing this to happen, so countries where having a child is a significant cost will continue to have low fertility rates.

Yet despite having none of those things the US birthrate is above most of Europe.

I don't think you're necessarily wrong BTW but it's not that simple.

All of those may help (and arguably, European birthrates would be much worse if they didn't have them) but I don't think they're alone enough to turn around the zeitgeist of the country as a whole.

The two main hurdles to increasing birthrate are:

1. Convince couples with no kids to have one. 2. Convince couples with two/three kids to have one more.

The list might help but the question is how much for each.

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