Sounds like something the USA would do. Hilarious. What a waste of money lol. They could have easily fixed their housing crisis and ensured a better standard of living for young people.
It's going to take multiple $million+ per woman to change the calculation.
(And this doesn't even take into account taking care of elderly. Marriage tends to be a prerequisite for children and women often wind up being the caretakers for both sets of elderly parents. And that often never ends. Yet more money required.)
This is something the US should do. US would probably tax the $30k though.
People will rightfully oppose attempts to penalize them into having children.
Reliable birth control essentially "broke" millennia of evolution. Our evolutionary drive to have sex is as strong as it ever was, but now that drive can be fulfilled without the occasional outcome of children, which has been the case for only about the past 60 years. And children, at least in economic terms, are much more of a burden than a benefit in modern times.
For starters, Money and Macro looked into this and a lot of the fertility decline is the result of less unplanned pregnancy. Teenager's are far less likely to give birth. This is seen as a good thing.
In many places of the world, woman not having children is seen as bad (see China's shengnu dialog), but that's also immediately also recognized as misogynistic by liberal minded people. So I'm not sure it's worth solving either.
So it's basically a classic case of societal values bumping up against personal autonomy. In my mind, the best option is to prepare for population decline and mitigate against the downsides.
When I consider the notion that impregnated 16(?)-19yo's were a primary driver of population growth, I find evidence for and against it.
Pro isn't about the number of births per se - it's about the number of child producing relationships that began after our school age daughters got knocked up.
Against is that the earliest (and latest!) birthing ages are historically highest for stillbirths and other life-ending birth issues. And youngest parents are (historically) the most likely to experience a first child death (that commonly ends young relationships).
Mitigating the 'Against' column is that modern medicine reduces those deaths.
Mitigating the mitigation is that the ability to access to modern medicine is in decline for young+poor parents - at the same time a war on kid-saving vaccines is heating up.
If I remember correctly, I don't think the claim was teen pregnancy was the "primary driver of population growth" but one of the variables that has a large impact on fertility rates. Most people see the reduction in teen moms as a positive development.
I also think the reduction in unplanned pregnancy to be a net positive. So 20 somethings finishing school before starting a family is good, but it's also probably resposible for fewer large families. I believe polling shows most woman want more children than they actually end up having. I'm sure part of that explanation is that people are starting families later in life.
When I restated your original argument, I was careful to say "a" primary driver.
My own counter argument is based on worthwhile data but is submitted without the evidence thereof. Given that last, I'm inclined to frame your assertions in reasonable light.
I do genealogy and have created 10s of 1000s of profiles, mostly of people in the US from 1850-1950. Much of what I see aligns with common knowledge of historical birth rates and parenting stats.
But not everything. One exception is that (Adult-Reaching) First-Born kids of moms <18 is a significantly smaller demographic than I would have expected. Families that start with moms in early-mid-late 20s are all better represented.
This isn't to throw shade on common knowledge. I suspect our CK is missing some nuances in the data (data from the groups I work on).
To give another example of missing nuance: We know historical lifespan averages were strongly shaped by infant mortality but they were also shaped by labor-related deaths (ex:black lung).The US currently faces an inability to support a household on 1-2 typical incomes. This pressure pushes away from parenthood.
I believe a stronger reason(s) is that the demands on parents have massively increased while kids simultaneously lost most of their nutrients for social and internal growth.
Between my parents generation (silent) and mine (genx), parenting time sharply rose. My mom's peers parented a few hours a week; I parented ~ceaselessly. Modern kids face 24/7 adulting.
At the same time, kids access to 1) safe [from cars,adults] free range area and 2) adult-free social time went from sq miles to sq ft and from hrs/day to n/a.
I argue that stripping critical resources from kids and parents gives us fewer kids and parents.
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-...
> Stunning stat: 64% of young women say they just don't want children, compared to 50% of men.
(US statistics, contextualize accordingly)
Certainly, there are potential parents ("fence sitters") who are opting out due to the economics, but the opportunity cost cohort is substantial and is important to recognize, as they will not be swayed with economic policy changes. The population boom and "demographic dividend" (the economic growth that can occur when a country's population age structure shifts) occurred because women were not empowered. Being empowered now, the neutral fertility rate is simply not near replacement (based on all available evidence).
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545397/empty-planet... (“Once a woman receives enough information and autonomy to make an informed and self-directed choice about when to have children, and how many to have, she immediately has fewer of them, and has them later.”)
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... | https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30677-2 ("Our findings suggest that continued trends in female educational attainment and access to contraception will hasten declines in fertility and slow population growth. A sustained TFR lower than the replacement level in many countries, including China and India, would have economic, social, environmental, and geopolitical consequences. Policy options to adapt to continued low fertility, while sustaining and enhancing female reproductive health, will be crucial in the years to come.")
Sadly, I am not even sure if I am kidding or not. S Korea can be an interesting case study over the next few decades.
I assume this is a function of the ability to project force from nation states that observe and respect human rights. If might makes right (historically speaking), you should be prepared to exert force (or offer asylum at scale to women from countries where human rights are at risk or not observed).
Ability to defend oneself is a given for any nation state, babies or not.
I did read the context you offered and I offer this.
The causes I suggest can be a primary driver while being fully uncredited. The reason is our new child-raising dystopia is our assumed reality. It goes unconsidered because there is low awareness of what historical parenting actually looked like.
Stated differently, people correctly understand how massively taxing raising kids is. However they consider that taxation as if it were the ever-existant reality. They don't consider that [compared to now] raising kids used to be a trivial task most of the time.
Historical kids amped up critical life-skills with their peers and away from adults. During those same hours, their parents worked and maintained their own social lives.
Conversely, modern kids are ever-attached to modern parents and this severely limits everyone's opportunities for natural social interaction.
Well, yeah. To keep my assertion simple, I didn't want to add that I see no path to restoring kids' social ecosystems - and their mental health. I see no path to unwinding/overcoming the damage done by automobile culture.
This doesn’t juice the fertility rate (because it doesn't appear anything will), but it will make childhoods suck less for kids already here and those on the way for the foreseeable future (as well as improve parental experience). Barcelona Superblocks is my mental model on this topic.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18273894...
Whenever fertility rate is mentioned on HN, I find that a lot of comments just rehash the same talking points, which could apply to any economically developed countries. Rather uninteresting.
As an analogy, I started playing Minecraft because my friendsand I were compelled at the idea of building stuff on our server, not "because" (to use the word you used, though there is no causal connection) people all over the world start playing Minecraft.
Change laws to pro-family. Do not allow scams on "single-mum with kid send more money".