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Notes -
The useful insight is that throwing money at parents clearly doesn't seem to work, so let us do something else. That starts by figuring out why people are actually not having kids. Whenever I speak to other young people about parenting, they usually give one of the following reasons:
Clearly, these issues are not about money. The problem is that raising a child takes time and energy that could have otherwise been spent on living the young adult dream of getting a degree and otherwise living a carefree life in your twenties. Unless you want to give every young family a full-time maid, or have the government adopt the newborn baby in exchange for a pile of cash, then you are not going to solve this by throwing money at people.
When parenthood is seen as a side objective at best, and at worst a straight up hindrance to your own happiness/fulfillment, then of course birth rates are going to fall. I don't see a solution that doesn't involve changing the narrative.
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