> You give a tax break of 50% on capital gains per child and the kids will be popping from the higher economic rungs Of course, with a perversely positive ince

> You give a tax break of 50% on capital gains per child and the kids will be popping from the higher economic rungs Of course, with a perversely positive incentive like that. But it tells us nothing of the natural impulse in a neutral environment. In a lot of the western world there is plenty of support for having kids. Ample child care leave, solid monetary support, free or affordable child care and schooling. And in the countries which have most of this, the birth rate is low but not catastrophically so. (see Germany, the Nordics..) Whereas in the US and Japan, for example, there are certainly structural factors that now weigh against having kids. But it does not tell us much about the "default state"