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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   4184 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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For the first case, I think several Eastern European countries have tried fairly generous tax credits to have children. I'm sure there are people here who are far more interested in this topic than I am, but if memory serves, it didn't do too much to move the needle. I vaguely recall it causing people who had two kids to consider a third, but it didn't make people who had zero kids more likely to have one.

From what I've learned, it makes people have their next children quicker, but doesn't make them have more of them. Basically, it makes people switch from "we want two kids, but we can't really afford two pregnancies in a row, we need a few years of double income to rebuild our savings" to "okay, we can try for the second one".

From what I've learned, it makes people have their next children quicker, but doesn't make them have more of them

Which is not to say it isn't helpful. Moving births earlier still improves a country's demographic situation, because children born earlier will come to childbearing age earlier.

For a toy example, imagine two countries with a completed fertility rate (CFR) of exactly two, but one country has the children at ages 18 and 20, and the other has them at 38 and 40. Two parents who live to 80 in country one will have 16 great great grandchildren, while their equivalents in country two will only have four grandchildren.

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