> So far, government attempts to incentivize childbearing have failed to bring fertility rates back to replacement levels. Future government policy, regardless

> So far, government attempts to incentivize childbearing have failed to bring fertility rates back to replacement levels. Future government policy, regardless of its ambition, will not stave off depopulation. I find this to be amusing, because as far as I can tell government policies are a major cause of depopulation in the first place. Women don't want to have children because having children is no longer a net positive. Having children is no longer a net positive because they are not relied upon in old age--the government will support you with medicare, medicaid, etc. If women felt that having children was a requirement to be taken care of in old age, they'd go right back to having four kids each. On the bright side, this problem seems likely (in the absence of extreme levels of immigration) to solve itself naturally. As the population curve inverts further, we'll have fewer resources to take care of our elders, and young women will realize that having a few kids (who can support them later) is vastly preferable to the alternative of spending their old age in squalor--just as it used to be.