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The thing is, that's probably the biggest one. When young salarymen and women in Japan are unwilling to become parents because they make too little, or work too

• A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
  Any government that isn't a tyranny can't fix that problem, but certain governments (I'll explain below) can give cash incentives to have children. Imagine, e.g., $100k per birth. That would be a tremendous deal for the government, as the child's tax contributions are likely to far exceed that amount. It would also sweeten the deal, in a huge way, for most parents. ...Then loosen restrictions on childcare, and an entire industry would spring up, as if by magic, to help parents. And help them dispose of that money. That S.Korea hasn't tried this yet suggests that their government still isn't taking the problem seriously, or doesn't care. This is a massive, world-historical failure on their part. (It could be driven entirely by democratic pique -- older generations upset that they missed out.) Hungary, for its part, can't do that. Let's speak plainly. Hungary has a large, and economically unproductive, Roma population. Huge cash bonuses would send Roma TFR -- already twice as high as the baseline population -- into the stratosphere, which would inevitably lead to civil unrest. In Hungary's case, tyrannical measures, such as onerous restrictions on private business, are probably preferred. What's certain is that the solutions are not going to be neat, pretty, or even very popular. Few countries, if any at all, are going to get it right.