3 ms·

Parenthood is vital to society and it's very much in the interest of countries with declining birthrates to promote it. It is currently subsidized but not nearl

Parenthood is vital to society and it's very much in the interest of countries with declining birthrates to promote it. It is currently subsidized but not nearly enough to make it a rational choice for individuals from a purely economic perspective. If we want to stabilize declining birthrates, we will need to increase subsidies by a lot.

jseban 4y ago
Totally depends on the state of society and what the needs are, China had the opposite policy for over 30 years to achieve a declining birth rate. It's not true that more children = better. It's only an issue somehow for pyramid schemes of the welfare system.
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  Yes, and that policy turned out to be a huge mistake that the Chinese government is now struggling to reverse.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I appreciate having fewer humans to compete against for resources, including carbon emissions.
    - FastEatSlow 4y ago
      The process of shrinking to fewer humans is painful however: less people working, more people old and unable to work.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Painful for who? Maybe asset owners and the few deciles below them who live a decent life due to globally cheap labor. For the young and poor who only have their labor to sell, the situation would seem pretty decent.
        FastEatSlow 4y ago
        Old people need a pension, which is paid by the workers through taxes.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Political will for transferring wealth from certain portions of the population to others can change quickly. Also, the pension amount likely will not keep up with real inflation, as is the case today.
        jseban 4y ago
        People can just have higher salaries and save for themselves for their pension, just like any other expense they have in life. There is no practical need for this to be centrally managed, other than you can't trust people to be responsible and plan for the future. People already manage a big part of the pension savings by themselves.
knorker 4y ago
The population pyramid is not sustainable. The exponential function just will not allow for the combination of age pyramid and our increasingly effective health care keeping us alive to all become parents. Watch this talk: https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY Tl;DW: we can not prevent the end of exponential population growth. We can only choose how it ends. By starvation, war, disease, or fewer births. Pension systems have relied on growth for a long time, but it's just not mathematically possible is the long run.
- modeless 4y ago
  I'm not advocating for growth. I'm advocating for stability. The population pyramid is already over for us. Shrinking is now the default. We need more parents simply to stop the future shrinking. I know some advocate shrinking for sustainability reasons, but a policy of shrinking is a policy of irrelevance. Other cultures with a growth mindset will continue growing and ruin your sustainability plans. Let's have abundance instead of austerity. Instead of intentionally reducing the population for sustainability, we can make the current population sustainable with technology. We don't need to stop population growth. It's already stopping. We now need to stop population shrinkage to reach a stable equilibrium.
  - knorker 4y ago
    > Let's have abundance instead of austerity Others in this thread have, in so many words, said that being a parent should be paid by tax payers as a full time job. It's a waste of resources and society's investments to pay doctors and lawyers to quit and instead be paid to be full time takers. So that lessens abundance, creating a poorer world. It's like the conversation about UBI. If it's actually U and (as often stated by proponents) enough for a middle class lifestyle I would quit today. No way I'd be a sucker paying taxes to support government funded FIRE, without doing it myself. And so would most of the population. On a small scale I've soon this in friends' relationships. "Can I stay home with kids and video games, and you just support us?".
    - modeless 4y ago

jseban 4y ago

Totally depends on the state of society and what the needs are, China had the opposite policy for over 30 years to achieve a declining birth rate. It's not true that more children = better. It's only an issue somehow for pyramid schemes of the welfare system.

xyzzyz 4y ago
Yes, and that policy turned out to be a huge mistake that the Chinese government is now struggling to reverse.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I appreciate having fewer humans to compete against for resources, including carbon emissions.
  - FastEatSlow 4y ago
    The process of shrinking to fewer humans is painful however: less people working, more people old and unable to work.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Painful for who? Maybe asset owners and the few deciles below them who live a decent life due to globally cheap labor. For the young and poor who only have their labor to sell, the situation would seem pretty decent.
      - FastEatSlow 4y ago
        Old people need a pension, which is paid by the workers through taxes.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Political will for transferring wealth from certain portions of the population to others can change quickly. Also, the pension amount likely will not keep up with real inflation, as is the case today.
        jseban 4y ago
        People can just have higher salaries and save for themselves for their pension, just like any other expense they have in life. There is no practical need for this to be centrally managed, other than you can't trust people to be responsible and plan for the future. People already manage a big part of the pension savings by themselves.

knorker 4y ago

The population pyramid is not sustainable. The exponential function just will not allow for the combination of age pyramid and our increasingly effective health care keeping us alive to all become parents. Watch this talk: https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY Tl;DW: we can not prevent the end of exponential population growth. We can only choose how it ends. By starvation, war, disease, or fewer births. Pension systems have relied on growth for a long time, but it's just not mathematically possible is the long run.

modeless 4y ago
I'm not advocating for growth. I'm advocating for stability. The population pyramid is already over for us. Shrinking is now the default. We need more parents simply to stop the future shrinking. I know some advocate shrinking for sustainability reasons, but a policy of shrinking is a policy of irrelevance. Other cultures with a growth mindset will continue growing and ruin your sustainability plans. Let's have abundance instead of austerity. Instead of intentionally reducing the population for sustainability, we can make the current population sustainable with technology. We don't need to stop population growth. It's already stopping. We now need to stop population shrinkage to reach a stable equilibrium.
- knorker 4y ago
  > Let's have abundance instead of austerity Others in this thread have, in so many words, said that being a parent should be paid by tax payers as a full time job. It's a waste of resources and society's investments to pay doctors and lawyers to quit and instead be paid to be full time takers. So that lessens abundance, creating a poorer world. It's like the conversation about UBI. If it's actually U and (as often stated by proponents) enough for a middle class lifestyle I would quit today. No way I'd be a sucker paying taxes to support government funded FIRE, without doing it myself. And so would most of the population. On a small scale I've soon this in friends' relationships. "Can I stay home with kids and video games, and you just support us?".
  - modeless 4y ago