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I've previously posted on the Motte about the Swedish state-funded Investigative Committee For a Future with Children (Swed. Utredningen för en framtid med barn) with instructions to look into the recent decline in fertility and suggest solutions to the problem. We've already reached the fifth report in the series, this time analyzing how fiscal policy and social welfare affects childrearing, and what reforms have potential to raise the birth rate. As before, here's a link in case you know Swedish or want to use an AI to give you the uptake. https://framtidmedbarn.se/rapport/nr-5-ekonomisk-politik-och-fodelsetal-en-analys-av-effekter-och-evidens/
This is a significantly stronger and more refreshing report than the last two. It gets deeper into the nitty-gritty of the research in this field, while also being less hand-wringingly faux-neutral. One of the key take-aways is that the problem isn't merely one of spending more resources: Finland and Sweden both spend about equal amounts of government dough on child-friendly policies, yet Finland's birth rate is far worse than Sweden’s. The report instead suggests it's a matter of how you spend the money rather than how much money you spend.
In an especially striking and interesting part of the report, it actually hints at some relatively fresh and semi-radical new solutions. Becoming a parent, muses the report, is most difficult for younger people around 25-35 who are less securely established both in career and life-situation, but who have the highest fertility and the best chance of a good outcome if they do have a child. Yet current policy sprinkles benefits over time rather than concentrating it in the hands of the young who need it most: so concentrate the benefits! Give new young parents a bigger concentrated dose of total spending instead of spreading them out over time. The logic’s pretty good! When the kid turns 14, the parents are likely to be in their 40's, well-established and hardly hurting for money — quite different from the situation when the child was a newborn! Nothing is certain, but the report produces some tentative evidence that it might be possible to slightly raise birth rates by ensuring such economic support to younger new parents.
There's actually a natural experiment supporting the theory that large endowments to young people can raise birth rates — namely, longevity! It wasn't long ago that people mostly kicked the bucket when they were 60-70 years old, thus naturally boosting the economy of their offspring who were likely to be 25-35. With the average life span in Sweden now well above 80, fewer young people today can count on that sort of windfall during their child-rearing years. It might be an idea to try and restore that natural transfer from the older improductive generation to the fertile younger one. The children, after all, are the future, and if there’s anything in the world worth preserving they’re the ones who are going to have to do it.
In passing, I have lately become more and more skeptical towards the term longevity itself. We indeed live longer, but we haven’t so much prolonged our lives as we have diluted them. What is life, and what is death? A long-sickly 95-year old woman whose country and family are straining and sundering keeping her and many like her alive through exorbitantly expensive care – does she live? And conversely, someone who died when he was 75 but lived honourably and left behind an untarnished memory and a future full of promise for his nation and family – is he dead?
Dilution of the lifespan in fact seems to be the secret culprit behind a lot of factors in the fertility-decline – older people living in large houses 20 years longer, the wealth transfer to the new generation being significantly delayed, et cetera – and it seems to me that the solution often involves counteracting these negative effects in various ways. Something worth pondering, to be sure.
I don't believe economy is at all important regarding fertility rate compared to culture.
The Scandinavian countries generally do well on the economic side. Having a child is very doable for most couples and is not going to ruin your life. Provided that you are reasonably good with budgeting, even full-time students with no savings can provide a good childhood for their kids due to various government subsidies.
Yet looking at the stats, the Scandinavian fertility rates have declined alongside everyone else, never looking particularly impressive compared to others in the EU.. If it was true that people would be having kids if only they were not such an economic burden, then we might expect falling fertility rates in countries like the US and China. But Scandinavia, with their immense social safety nets, ought to be booming. Yet there is seemingly no effect.
What has spread basically all over the EU is a narrative of self-actualization and viewing children and family formation as something that keeps you from living your life to the fullest. If you want to travel or build a career you must do so before having kids. This is notably not actually true. As I wrote above, the Scandinavian nations are prime examples of career-building while having kids being possible. But it is what most students believe, and so is ultimately what guides their decision making.
Then you have dating norms on top. American norms have been successfully imported here, which means that long term relationships too are increasingly seen as sacrifices by young people that will prevent them from living the ideal lifestyle of partying, travelling, and hooking up. Dating is superficial, exclusivity cannot be assumed without explicit negotiation, people are increasingly scared of committing to a relationship, and gen Z spends less time in third spaces than any before generation prior, making it difficult to build organic connections.
So while it may well be true that money could be allocated more efficiently by giving a larger share to young parents, I doubt that it would help fertility much. What we need is to change the narratives around children, families, and growing up.
The hedonistic single lifestyle needs to be seen as an unfulfilling treadmill. Raising your children needs to be regarded as a path to self fulfillment on its own. Building a life with someone you love needs to be a goal that is prioritized by young people. The more these are seen as sacrifices that will limit your life, the less people are going to choose them. We need family-formation and child rearing to be perceived as viable paths towards happiness and fulfillment. Right now they just aren't, and so there is no way any government is willing (or capable) of paying enough money for young people to do what amounts to giving up on their dreams for the sake of society.
Two things:
Something was clearly working to some degree, what exactly was unclear. Was it culture? Was it the social safety net? Was it the lower housing costs compared to income? Was it a bit of everything? Who knows.
It is a bit curious that the fertility collapse coincided with the proliferation of smartphones though, but it also coincided with a massive financial crisis and rapidly rising housing costs as well.
The safety nets still exist. Maybe they do have some effect. It makes sense that people wouldn't want children without the means to properly care for them. However, if money was the main reason then fertility rates in Scandinavia would not be as low as they are since the safety nets still exist.
Or they had an effect until something changed in the 2010s.
One materialist explanation is that this has to do with housing, which has increased by some 5-600%, which the safety nets don't help with at all unless you're truly destitute.
Or there is a non-materialist explanation. Or some combination.
This is kind of like saying the house collapsed because there was a stronger than normal wind. I mean, sure, that may be the proximate cause, and if the wind were a little lighter that day then the house would not have collapsed. But, fundamentally, the problem is not really the wind but the extremely poorly built and fragile house. Until yesterday, human fertility rates were incredibly robust across time and place under myriad different circumstances such that everyone agreed that overpopulation was an impending catastrophe, but then suddenly it all collapsed because the wind changed direction.
Most of these policy wonk discussions set the implicit frame as "the last domino fell, so how do we prop it back up?".
I don't think so. Housing is by orders of magnitude the biggest expense of a person's life. It has also tracked wage and inflation as far back as we have kept track but suddenly 30 years ago it started rapidly decoupling from wage growth and inflation.
If this didn't start breaking things then that would be a far bigger surprise than if it did.
It didn't start breaking things. It doesn't even correlate.
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