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If you were going to increase the birth rate how would you do it?
There's lots of suggestions, most of them bad. For example, Scandinavian countries have been touted as "doing it right" by offering generous perks to families such as paid family leave. But these efforts, despite outrageous costs, have done little or nothing to stem the falling birth rate. Sweden's fertility rate is a dismal 1.66 as of 2020, and if trends hold, the rate among ethnic Swedes is far lower.
I think that, like everything, deciding to marry and have a family comes down to status.
Mongolia is a rare country that has managed to increase its fertility rate over the last 20 years, from about 2.1 children per women in 2004, to about 2.7 today. This feat is more impressive considering the declines experienced worldwide during the same period. It's doubly impressive considering the fertility rate in neighboring Inner Mongolia (China) is just 1.06!
What is Mongolia doing right? Apparently, they are raising the status of mothers by giving them special recognition and status.
https://x.com/MoreBirths/status/1827418468813017441
In Georgia (the country), something similar happened when an Orthodox patriarch started giving special attention to mothers with 3 children:
https://x.com/JohannKurtz/status/1827070216716874191
Now, raising the status of mothers is more easily said than done. But I think it's possible, especially in countries with a high degree of social cohesion like in East Asia. In Europe, a figure like the King of Netherlands could personally meet and reward mothers. In the United States, of course, this sort of thing would be fraught as any suggestion coming from the right might backfire due to signalling. Witness the grim specter of the vasectomy and abortion trucks at the DNC. But the first step to fixing a problem is to adequately diagnose the cause. To me, the status explanation is more compelling (and fixable) than any other suggestion I've seen.
A few things to note: The tfr in Sweden as of 2023 was actually even worse and down to a new record low of 1.45. Furthermore, the tfr of foreign born women has historically been a good deal higher than native born women but that has now collapsed down to the same low level, suggesting to me that something is hitting all prospective parents hard, regardless of culture.
This extra low level of fertility is probably a temporary state of things that is both part of cyclical trends in Swedish fertility and the currently harsh economic environment with tough combination of very high housing prices (we were hitting a breaking point even before the pandemic), very high private borrowing to finance said high housing prices, interest rates increases that increased people's monthly payments for their housing by some +300%, an inability to sell your house/apartment to buy a new one (trapping prospective parents in too small housing) and high unemployment. If you're not already in the housing market (hopefully with locked in interest rates) and have a good job (unemployment is high and increasing) then you're fucked in the short/medium term. All this affects prospective parents the worst and they often can't wait too much because of delayed childbirth.
Going forward either fertility goes up as interest rates and unemployment goes down, like previous fertility dips associated with cost of living crises, or fertility stays low because our housing situation has become as fucked or worse than in places like Italy. There are arguments for both.
The 10th percentile Swede enjoys a style of life far more comfortable and luxurious than the 90th percentile Nigerian, but Nigeria's birth rate is way above replacement.
So I don't think that better housing or standards of living will increase fertility. Even if higher incomes temporarily lead to more children, expectations will increase even faster. At some point even extremely rich people feel like they don't have "enough". In fact, that's exactly where we are in Sweden today.
But perhaps this is a good insight into the priorities of the average person. When you have a world of amazing travel and luxury at your fingertips, consumption might seem like a plausible alternative to leaving a legacy. Really, the single young person does have it very good now.
It probably won't move the needle much, but punitive taxes for the single and childless seem in order, with corresponding rewards for parents. Free airplane tickets for children and double prices for those traveling without?
Perhaps I wasn't clear, it's not only the absolute rate that has collapsed but the relative rate as well. The fertility differential between natives and the foreign born has been remarkably stable over time, until now. The fob immigrants are now having as few children per woman as native swedes. If people from other countries have as different standards as you claim then the differential should have increased, not declined.
This isn't just some longer trend of fertility decline, something has happened, starting in 2019 or 2015, depending on how you look at things.
On this at least we agree, but if it isn't combined with reform of the housing market it risks being overly punitive. On the other hand if the punitive taxation comes first then pressure for land and planning reform (or some other "solution") would likely sharply increase as well.
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