Germany recently discussed raising health insurance premiums for families (because families cause higher costs). Instead of the stick we need to use the carrot. Everybody is asking why birth rates plummet. It’s simple. Having a family costs a fuckton of money. I personally know a bunch of well-off people who have decided against children since they don’t think they’ll be able to sustain any way of middle class existence with kids.
Having a program that supports mothers like this, cash, no strings attached, is awesome. The last thing people need is to jump 1000x bureaucratic hoops when they’re broke and have basically zero sleep.
Hats off, cool charity!
> Everybody is asking why birth rates plummet. It’s simple. Having a family costs a fuckton of money.
It's a factor, it's not the only factor.
Decrease in teenage pregnancies, decrease in alcohol consumption, contraception and day after pills, higher levels of education, less socialized culture, less generational housing etc.
Having a child is more than often a deliberate, calculated decision that is made by adults whereas in the old world pregnancies happened left and right with little to say about it. Support systems existed because the problem was pervasive. Now the problem is generally gone, and the support systems thereafter.
No country has managed to reverse the trend of declining birth rates. The better quality of life people have, the fewer children people tend to have.
It's not just about who does and who doesn't have children, it's also how many children per family. 1-2 children is the new normal. My grandpa was #7.
> No country has managed to reverse the trend of declining birth rates.
Perhaps we can learn from the past? Birthrates between the world wars were below replacement level in much of the western world. Then the trend reversed for a while.
Question is why was this the case? I feel a natural explanation is it's a reaction to there being less people around on account of the huge number of deaths, in which case there's probably little reason to worry: if birth rate increases as population drops then the system should tend to equalise itself. If it's something else related to a gigantic war specifically then it's a bit less certain (one very important question is was the growth just a displacement in time from all the couples who could not have a child during the war but now can?).
> No country has managed to reverse the trend of declining birth rate
May I point you to the State of Israel? Its TFR sits at 3.
And if we really want to be nitpicky, and concentrating on the "reverse"-part of your statement, then even Balkan countries shine, as they literally managed to reverse the trend.
Israel is still declining just more slowly [0]. They do show the general point of this thread: it’s not money that is causing people to have fewer kids. It is the changing social structure and norms, in Israel they appear to tolerate kids everywhere, everyone has lots of kids adding social pressure, family and social support structures are strong making it easier.
In South Korea the reports are they this is very different. Kids are not tolerated in many places, many couples have few kids, society makes it quite hard on moms as well.
> And if we really want to be nitpicky, and concentrating on the "reverse"-part of your statement, then even Balkan countries shine, as they literally managed to reverse the trend.
That same bump is now reversing and the general trend of depopulation continues to accelerate. IIRC Bosnia has the lowest birth rates in all of Europe.
I appreciate the push back; I was overly confident in that statement. I do think however that it's correct to state that the slow trend across all developed countries could be summarized as "aggressively downwards".
> It’s simple. Having a family costs a fuckton of money
I've got two young kids. I wouldn't say day to day expenses are particularly huge.
Sure you can go wild and buy them designer clothes/shoes they grow out of in 6 months, or you can fill every waking moment with white-knuckle entertainment and excitement and that all costs money. But you don't need to do that, the kids don't care what they wear so long as it's got a robot/unicorn/etc on it, and they're often very happy playing with a cardboard box, a small amount of generic Lego, and their imagination.
Food cost is almost a rounding error. Barely anything for an extra loaf of bread, an extra packet of cereal, some more chicken etc. peanuts.
The main cost - beyond needing to live in a larger house which I probably would have got anyway even without kids - is the opportunity cost of having kids: I've probably missed a promotion or two because I've had to say no to work travel, projects, late meetings with the US office etc to go kid related things. That and UK nursery costs are bigger than the mortgage, but again that is "optional" and only for the first few years.
IMHO we should just accept the lower income. Since women entered workforce we got used to the inflated lifestyle. We should just accept that having a kid will cost you money and it's fine. It's the best purchase there is.
Some might decide to buy more expensive car or larger house and that's cool choice as well. But in the end will bring you just a temporary happiness and maybe some social status boost.
On the contrary, strike! Refuse to have children completely until society and in particular the wealthy uphold their end of the bargain and make universal free of cost childcare a reality.
Love your own life, refuse to have children for free!
To back this up, there is growing evidence that subsidised child care, financial support for families, etc has a minimal effect on birth rates, if any.
Estimates are that in France and Poland pro-natalist policies have cost around from $1m-2m per extra birth. This is completely unsustainable.
None of which means we shouldn't support families having children, of course we should for all sorts of reasons. It improves health and education outcomes for children, reduces child poverty, and gives women greater autonomy in their choice between work and home life, and overall seems to increase their participation rate in employment.
I think realizing this and taking it into account in family support policies can help us achieve actually achievable outcomes, while avoiding sinking money into unachievable ones.
Don't pay them money, instead have children. The reason why they have money is you decide to buy their product instead of spending it on kids. (of course nestle and similar excluding)
Such a strained metaphor designed to obscure the fact it's just taxpayer-funded welfare for expectant and new mothers without any background checks, drug testing, income limits or work requirements.
I think giving taxpayer money to anybody without basic checks is a bad idea and it will undoubtedly be exploited by people who don't need it or choose to spend it on the wrong things while neglecting their child's needs; I don't disagree with the idea of giving money to new families who actually need it.
If this received no taxpayer funding I wouldn't care, but when public funding is involved there need to be some checks to ensure no abuse, which Rx Kids doesn't have.
> All of the checks you listed would just serve to make it harder for this money to reach the mothers that need it.
In the same way seatbelts just serve to make it harder for drivers to get to where they need to go quickly. It would not be difficult to restrict this to people below a certain tax bracket.
It all comes down to how much public money (that could have been used to help people who need it) you're willing to accept the possibility of being defrauded for one person to get support a couple days sooner.
How are you deciding which tax bracket someone is in? The most likely scenario is they look at your previous years filing, which would defeat the whole purpose of this program. If you read the website, you’ll see income drops significantly prior to the baby being born.
Means testing often leaves out those on the lower end who straddle the line or get excluded by stupid technicalities. You simply can’t account for every scenario. Excluding any mother means you will exclude someone who needs it.
I would honestly love a national program that gives money to every mother automatically no questions asked.
Putting on a seatbelt adds a negligible 3 second delay to get where you need to go in exchange for a valuable addition to safety. I'm saying that Rx Kids needs at least a seatbelt, I'm not asking for constant eye tracking to be required. (Yes, I do admit the irony of me employing a strained metaphor)
I suppose it's about finding a balance. I understand not having unreasonable amounts of repetitive checks, but if you make it too easy to abuse more than a few people will abuse it, which takes away money from the people who need it.
Germany recently discussed raising health insurance premiums for families (because families cause higher costs). Instead of the stick we need to use the carrot. Everybody is asking why birth rates plummet. It’s simple. Having a family costs a fuckton of money. I personally know a bunch of well-off people who have decided against children since they don’t think they’ll be able to sustain any way of middle class existence with kids. Having a program that supports mothers like this, cash, no strings attached, is awesome. The last thing people need is to jump 1000x bureaucratic hoops when they’re broke and have basically zero sleep. Hats off, cool charity!
> Everybody is asking why birth rates plummet. It’s simple. Having a family costs a fuckton of money.
It's a factor, it's not the only factor.
Decrease in teenage pregnancies, decrease in alcohol consumption, contraception and day after pills, higher levels of education, less socialized culture, less generational housing etc.
Having a child is more than often a deliberate, calculated decision that is made by adults whereas in the old world pregnancies happened left and right with little to say about it. Support systems existed because the problem was pervasive. Now the problem is generally gone, and the support systems thereafter.
No country has managed to reverse the trend of declining birth rates. The better quality of life people have, the fewer children people tend to have.
It's not just about who does and who doesn't have children, it's also how many children per family. 1-2 children is the new normal. My grandpa was #7.
> No country has managed to reverse the trend of declining birth rates.
Perhaps we can learn from the past? Birthrates between the world wars were below replacement level in much of the western world. Then the trend reversed for a while.
Question is why was this the case? I feel a natural explanation is it's a reaction to there being less people around on account of the huge number of deaths, in which case there's probably little reason to worry: if birth rate increases as population drops then the system should tend to equalise itself. If it's something else related to a gigantic war specifically then it's a bit less certain (one very important question is was the growth just a displacement in time from all the couples who could not have a child during the war but now can?).
> No country has managed to reverse the trend of declining birth rate
May I point you to the State of Israel? Its TFR sits at 3.
And if we really want to be nitpicky, and concentrating on the "reverse"-part of your statement, then even Balkan countries shine, as they literally managed to reverse the trend.
Israel is still declining just more slowly [0]. They do show the general point of this thread: it’s not money that is causing people to have fewer kids. It is the changing social structure and norms, in Israel they appear to tolerate kids everywhere, everyone has lots of kids adding social pressure, family and social support structures are strong making it easier.
In South Korea the reports are they this is very different. Kids are not tolerated in many places, many couples have few kids, society makes it quite hard on moms as well.
0 - https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/isr/isr...
> And if we really want to be nitpicky, and concentrating on the "reverse"-part of your statement, then even Balkan countries shine, as they literally managed to reverse the trend.
That same bump is now reversing and the general trend of depopulation continues to accelerate. IIRC Bosnia has the lowest birth rates in all of Europe.
I appreciate the push back; I was overly confident in that statement. I do think however that it's correct to state that the slow trend across all developed countries could be summarized as "aggressively downwards".
Israel is literally the one exception.
> It’s simple. Having a family costs a fuckton of money
I've got two young kids. I wouldn't say day to day expenses are particularly huge.
Sure you can go wild and buy them designer clothes/shoes they grow out of in 6 months, or you can fill every waking moment with white-knuckle entertainment and excitement and that all costs money. But you don't need to do that, the kids don't care what they wear so long as it's got a robot/unicorn/etc on it, and they're often very happy playing with a cardboard box, a small amount of generic Lego, and their imagination.
Food cost is almost a rounding error. Barely anything for an extra loaf of bread, an extra packet of cereal, some more chicken etc. peanuts.
The main cost - beyond needing to live in a larger house which I probably would have got anyway even without kids - is the opportunity cost of having kids: I've probably missed a promotion or two because I've had to say no to work travel, projects, late meetings with the US office etc to go kid related things. That and UK nursery costs are bigger than the mortgage, but again that is "optional" and only for the first few years.
Good luck
IMHO we should just accept the lower income. Since women entered workforce we got used to the inflated lifestyle. We should just accept that having a kid will cost you money and it's fine. It's the best purchase there is.
Some might decide to buy more expensive car or larger house and that's cool choice as well. But in the end will bring you just a temporary happiness and maybe some social status boost.
Screw consumerism, just have a child.
This might be a useful attitude to have individually but it's not really a plan of how to solve the systemic issue.
There is no systemic issue to solve. There is only cultural issue.
Culture is part of the system, and probably one of the harder parts to change.
On the contrary, strike! Refuse to have children completely until society and in particular the wealthy uphold their end of the bargain and make universal free of cost childcare a reality.
Love your own life, refuse to have children for free!
Wealthy don't have children as well. Poorer families in africa have ten or more. It's not money issue. It's comfort issue
To back this up, there is growing evidence that subsidised child care, financial support for families, etc has a minimal effect on birth rates, if any.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11150-026-09861-1
https://www.economicsobservatory.com/baby-bust
Estimates are that in France and Poland pro-natalist policies have cost around from $1m-2m per extra birth. This is completely unsustainable.
None of which means we shouldn't support families having children, of course we should for all sorts of reasons. It improves health and education outcomes for children, reduces child poverty, and gives women greater autonomy in their choice between work and home life, and overall seems to increase their participation rate in employment.
I think realizing this and taking it into account in family support policies can help us achieve actually achievable outcomes, while avoiding sinking money into unachievable ones.
you need the larger house to have the kid!
Well no, that's a social standard. Plenty of people even in the US have double digit children in a trailer or two.
I disagree. Why should we accept lower income, while billionaires are doing whatever they want, in the most illegal ways?
Unions and Fight for your rights, that's what we need
Don't pay them money, instead have children. The reason why they have money is you decide to buy their product instead of spending it on kids. (of course nestle and similar excluding)
What a fantastic charity, I really love the idea.
Rx? Is it like Rx by Paul Le Roux, famous drug kingpin?
Such a strained metaphor designed to obscure the fact it's just taxpayer-funded welfare for expectant and new mothers without any background checks, drug testing, income limits or work requirements.
You tried so hard to make that sound bad but you just can’t. No strings attached money for expecting mothers? Excellent! Sounds fantastic!
I think giving taxpayer money to anybody without basic checks is a bad idea and it will undoubtedly be exploited by people who don't need it or choose to spend it on the wrong things while neglecting their child's needs; I don't disagree with the idea of giving money to new families who actually need it.
If this received no taxpayer funding I wouldn't care, but when public funding is involved there need to be some checks to ensure no abuse, which Rx Kids doesn't have.
Well there are basic checks? For one, you need to be having a baby.
All of the checks you listed would just serve to make it harder for this money to reach the mothers that need it.
> All of the checks you listed would just serve to make it harder for this money to reach the mothers that need it.
In the same way seatbelts just serve to make it harder for drivers to get to where they need to go quickly. It would not be difficult to restrict this to people below a certain tax bracket.
It all comes down to how much public money (that could have been used to help people who need it) you're willing to accept the possibility of being defrauded for one person to get support a couple days sooner.
How are you deciding which tax bracket someone is in? The most likely scenario is they look at your previous years filing, which would defeat the whole purpose of this program. If you read the website, you’ll see income drops significantly prior to the baby being born.
Means testing often leaves out those on the lower end who straddle the line or get excluded by stupid technicalities. You simply can’t account for every scenario. Excluding any mother means you will exclude someone who needs it.
I would honestly love a national program that gives money to every mother automatically no questions asked.
>In the same way seatbelts just serve to make it harder for drivers to get to where they need to go quickly
?
Putting on a seatbelt adds a negligible 3 second delay to get where you need to go in exchange for a valuable addition to safety. I'm saying that Rx Kids needs at least a seatbelt, I'm not asking for constant eye tracking to be required. (Yes, I do admit the irony of me employing a strained metaphor)
I'd rather see a few people abuse this rather than having more barriers up for the people who need this assistance.
I suppose it's about finding a balance. I understand not having unreasonable amounts of repetitive checks, but if you make it too easy to abuse more than a few people will abuse it, which takes away money from the people who need it.
Oh no, people who need assistance might get assistance, even if we haven't tried to look for a reason not to help them first?! What a disaster!
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I've already discussed this in a separate reply.