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So, motteizeans, thought experiment- you’ve been hired by the government of a country you’ve conveniently never noticed before, let’s call it genericland. Genericland has a problem- they have an economy dependent on high tech manufactured exports using highly skilled labor that can’t be imported, it has to be homegrown, and has had a TFR of 1.5 for long enough that the government is seriously worried about a labor crunch taking them from an upper to a middle income economy in 20 years or so. They’ve hired you to raise the birthrate enough to save the economy in the long run, and are willing to spend .5% of GDP to get it to 1.8 or 1% to get it to 2.1. You don’t have reserve currency status, but genericland has excellent credit ratings. The government is dominated by long-running consensus politics and will stick with your recommendations long term. They aren’t concerned with feminism, but are dependent on remaining in American good graces and are well aware that they cannot get away with saudi-level black sheep behavior. The population is homogenous and speaks a language not spoken elsewhere, but 90% are fluent in English. Family norms are perhaps slightly more conservative than PMC American ones, but not by a wide margin. And, of course, because the government wants future factory workers, it’s strongly preferred if the fertility increase doesn’t come from genericland’s underclass and doesn’t care how it affects the elites, it needs to target the working to middle classes.
What do you do?
For myself, all women with white collar jobs get two year’s entitlement to WFH after every childbirth in addition to parental leave, in which they can’t be required in the office more often than 1x week. Renters who get married have access to a government loan to buy the apartment or house they rent, and the government issues loans to couples having a 3rd child to help buy a bigger home. At a fifth child these loans are forgiven and payments pause for three years after a fourth. The ministry of culture is directed to work with generican-language pop culture producers to promote pro-family memes, female pop stars are paid to give interviews and sing about how much they love being a mom. High schools now require ‘family formation’ classes to graduate in which teens assist existing families with childcare(particularly for girls this is strongly associated with wanting kids) and learn social skills for forming relationships, along with some basic home ec. New fathers get an automatic 5% raise regardless of employer. Female civil servants have the option to go part time if raising a child, and genericland’s many factories are enrolled in a subsidy program that pays them to allow female workers with a child under ten to work part time.
No one seems to have mentioned sperm quality and physical fitness. While I cant guarantee how much it will raise the birth rate, its very obvious that much fewer children are born by chance today than in the past. I think this is likely due to lower sperm quality and lack of physical fitness in both genders. In addition many people go through costly infertility treatment, again often due to environmental factors that lower fertility.
So my suggestion are:
Make childhood obesity a borderline crime, meaning if a child is overweight, the CPS/medical support systems gets involved. These children get sent to specific schools with focus on healthy food and exercise. The family gets support and educational help, but if nothing helps, the get fines and eventually the child can be taken from them.
Make computer games illegal, or heavily regulated. Control the internet so its boring and people cant spend hours entertaining themselves on youtube.
Take a serious look at chemical factors that can be causing the fall in sperm count/testosterone, and outlaw them.
Children are tested for physical fitness, and if they are too unfit, they are sent to digital detox camps with focus on physical fitness.
Make housing developments in the most attractive areas only available for families with children
Give plenty of support to students who become pregnant, also the single ones.
Affirmative actions for both parents AND grandparents. If a grandparent wants to move jobs/houses to be closer to their kids to help with childrearing they get preferential treatment. Many of the most high status jobs are only available to people with children (the medically infertile can adopt).
Make being young and/or a single parents less stigmatizing. Students who have children get their student loans forgiven.
UBI for children, maybe something like 500 USD for the first 2, and then gradually lower it.
Some sort of matchmaking for gays and lesbian couples so they can have children together. Similar types of matchmaking for singles over 30 who want children but dont want to be in a relationship.
Yeah, that's called children's allowance or the more modern name, child benefit.
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