> if the state provided support to people with larger families that offset their costs significantly It's been tried, many times, without success.[1] You coul

> if the state provided support to people with larger families that offset their costs significantly It's been tried, many times, without success.[1] You could argue that those countries didn't try hard enough, but that's a fallacy the name of which escapes me for the moment. [1] Demographers talk about a "low fertility trap": because young women grow up in a one-child environment, that is normal to them. They see their peers having one child, and they do too. There are other factors besides re-norming: assortative mating is given a lot of weight; there are the effects of TV, social media, video games, shopping, and other distractions (measured as these things have diffused through countries and regions of countries). Check out a recent demography textbook. (Fringe authors talk about the estrogen-like effects of obesity on sperm, and the 30% - 50% decline in micronutrients in food since the 1980s. They might be right, but they're fringe at present.)