The decline in fertility has many drivers, thus improving it will almost certainly need multiple solutions.
some are good, birth control allowing people to not have unplanned pregnancies is good.
But most are bad.
One cause that I think a lot of people don't know about is declining sperm levels. Over the last 50 years men have lost over 50% of their sperm levels AND they are still declining. This is a huge problem not getting enough press. Shanna Swain's excellent book "Count Down" is a great in depth read on this topic. She's also covered it in numerous podcasts
After that I think the next big driver is how long it takes for couples to feel like they are in a good place to have kids. For example, I met my wife when I was 25, she was 23. We married 2 years later. We were living in an apartment and both agreed we wouldn't have kids until we were in a house, we stayed in the apartment for an additional 2 years trying to get ahead before finally moving in with my parents to save up money to buy a house. Did that for another 2 years, before finally buying a house. Now I'm 31.
Couple years later, we start trying, had a miscarriage then a 2nd one. Finally had our first kid when I was 37, our second when I was almost 40. My wife was now 38, and we were done.
If we had been able to have kids earlier we almost certainly would have had another one, maybe 2.
I strongly believe we need to bring down housing costs by building a LOT more housing. In our area you could buy a track start home for $100k in the late 90's. Now they are going to $600k.
Incomes didn't increase by 6x.
We need to make it easy for families to get started, This would also make it easier for families to get buy on one income for a while. Also certainly a factor.
I think a part of the problem is the perception by younger generations that their parents were is a good and stable environment when they had kids — in a job for five years and in a starter house, or something like that. I literally don’t know anyone my age that was like that. We had our first while I was still in grad school. We lived in an apartment. It was fine. You don’t need to be set up for live to have kids. I think we somehow misled the generations that followed us.
maybe, but I think that ship has sailed. If you want young parents to start having kids, you need to make it to be possible to buy a house shortly out of college. Then means building a ton of housing so that costs come down to something like what they were in the late 90's.
1) I think age at first marriage for the bride is a really important causal variable for fertility rates. There is a huge difference in the number of children that a married couple can have when the bride is age 23 versus age 30. I am not claiming that it is the only causal variable, but it is perhaps the most important and it is often not mentioned at all.
2) Regarding subsidizing marriage, I think most proposals to do so are sorely lacking. My proposal for a Working Family Tax Credit is designed to promote upward mobility but it may also have a positive impact on fertility. It also indirectly boosts male income after marriage.
3) I don’t think that it is male income that is the key variable so much as young male income compared to other adult workers. We have seen increased income for middle-aged people to a much greater extent than younger workers, likely because employers demand more experience and skills that young people do not yet have.
And it may be young male income compared to young female income that is a key causal variable.
Singapore and Hong Kong have among the highest incomes in the world and the lowest fertility rates (also low happiness levels). The great Lee Kuan Yew tried incentives to raise fertility rates in Singapore and it did little to nothing. Hungary's fertility rate is 1.54 and they also have incentives to raise fertility rates: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47192612 . Spengler argues that mass depopulation is part of a civilizational cycle, which is discussed here: https://cityofthesun.substack.com/p/spengler-closing-the-circle ("At this level all Civilizations enter upon a stage, which lasts for centuries, of appalling depopulation. The whole pyramid of cultural man vanishes. It crumbles from the summit, first the world-cities, then the provincial forms, and finally the land itself, whose best blood has incontinently poured into the towns, merely to bolster them up awhile.")
None of these countries have really tried to raise fertility.
1) The "scale" isn't there. It's always less money than is spent on old age assistance. Not nearly enough to cover the cost of raising a child.
2) Its never "cash". It's always some weird system of subsidies and conditional transfers that don't optimize fertility as much as special interest and central planners. Thus, every dollar is far less efficient than it could be.
Fertility reduction *is* marriage decline, these days. When effective contraception was introduced, married women slightly reduced their number of children down to about three and a half. The desired number of children has hovered around three for a long time without change. What has changed is that marriage is now greatly delayed, and many more women are not getting married at all.
Federal government promises to pay for a full time au pair for any couple with two children by age 30 and a $500 per month housing subsidy (until youngest child reaches 2nd grade)
This will incentivize marriage with a stop watch.
This will create populations of young adults with larger families which will act as models for others to follow
Reduce divorce rate (they’ll lose benefits if two parents aren’t in house)
Bring in tens of millions of fertile young immigrant girls that are good with children who will be snatched up by males as quickly as possible (via marriage) thus even further incentivizing American women to get married as soon as prudent
Problem solved.
Of course, it will be at the expense of those nations sending us their girls. But if they come from Britain, there is the side benefit of our actually protecting the girls from all the grooming gangs.
Instead why not get rid of all the government restrictions causing housing costs to be out of control?
Note $500k won't get you very far in most places.
As for the au pair's that would be a LOT of au pairs. I doubt you could even get that many. Instead make it easier for the mom to actually stay home while the kids are young. Again bringing down housing costs will get you a lot of the way there. Maybe combine that with a child care subsidy that is also available for one of the parents.
The decline in fertility has many drivers, thus improving it will almost certainly need multiple solutions.
some are good, birth control allowing people to not have unplanned pregnancies is good.
But most are bad.
One cause that I think a lot of people don't know about is declining sperm levels. Over the last 50 years men have lost over 50% of their sperm levels AND they are still declining. This is a huge problem not getting enough press. Shanna Swain's excellent book "Count Down" is a great in depth read on this topic. She's also covered it in numerous podcasts
https://www.shannaswan.com/countdown
After that I think the next big driver is how long it takes for couples to feel like they are in a good place to have kids. For example, I met my wife when I was 25, she was 23. We married 2 years later. We were living in an apartment and both agreed we wouldn't have kids until we were in a house, we stayed in the apartment for an additional 2 years trying to get ahead before finally moving in with my parents to save up money to buy a house. Did that for another 2 years, before finally buying a house. Now I'm 31.
Couple years later, we start trying, had a miscarriage then a 2nd one. Finally had our first kid when I was 37, our second when I was almost 40. My wife was now 38, and we were done.
If we had been able to have kids earlier we almost certainly would have had another one, maybe 2.
I strongly believe we need to bring down housing costs by building a LOT more housing. In our area you could buy a track start home for $100k in the late 90's. Now they are going to $600k.
Incomes didn't increase by 6x.
We need to make it easy for families to get started, This would also make it easier for families to get buy on one income for a while. Also certainly a factor.
I think a part of the problem is the perception by younger generations that their parents were is a good and stable environment when they had kids — in a job for five years and in a starter house, or something like that. I literally don’t know anyone my age that was like that. We had our first while I was still in grad school. We lived in an apartment. It was fine. You don’t need to be set up for live to have kids. I think we somehow misled the generations that followed us.
maybe, but I think that ship has sailed. If you want young parents to start having kids, you need to make it to be possible to buy a house shortly out of college. Then means building a ton of housing so that costs come down to something like what they were in the late 90's.
A few points:
1) I think age at first marriage for the bride is a really important causal variable for fertility rates. There is a huge difference in the number of children that a married couple can have when the bride is age 23 versus age 30. I am not claiming that it is the only causal variable, but it is perhaps the most important and it is often not mentioned at all.
2) Regarding subsidizing marriage, I think most proposals to do so are sorely lacking. My proposal for a Working Family Tax Credit is designed to promote upward mobility but it may also have a positive impact on fertility. It also indirectly boosts male income after marriage.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-case-for-a-working-family-tax
3) I don’t think that it is male income that is the key variable so much as young male income compared to other adult workers. We have seen increased income for middle-aged people to a much greater extent than younger workers, likely because employers demand more experience and skills that young people do not yet have.
And it may be young male income compared to young female income that is a key causal variable.
Singapore and Hong Kong have among the highest incomes in the world and the lowest fertility rates (also low happiness levels). The great Lee Kuan Yew tried incentives to raise fertility rates in Singapore and it did little to nothing. Hungary's fertility rate is 1.54 and they also have incentives to raise fertility rates: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47192612 . Spengler argues that mass depopulation is part of a civilizational cycle, which is discussed here: https://cityofthesun.substack.com/p/spengler-closing-the-circle ("At this level all Civilizations enter upon a stage, which lasts for centuries, of appalling depopulation. The whole pyramid of cultural man vanishes. It crumbles from the summit, first the world-cities, then the provincial forms, and finally the land itself, whose best blood has incontinently poured into the towns, merely to bolster them up awhile.")
None of these countries have really tried to raise fertility.
1) The "scale" isn't there. It's always less money than is spent on old age assistance. Not nearly enough to cover the cost of raising a child.
2) Its never "cash". It's always some weird system of subsidies and conditional transfers that don't optimize fertility as much as special interest and central planners. Thus, every dollar is far less efficient than it could be.
It explains marriage decline better than it explains fertility reduction.
Fertility reduction *is* marriage decline, these days. When effective contraception was introduced, married women slightly reduced their number of children down to about three and a half. The desired number of children has hovered around three for a long time without change. What has changed is that marriage is now greatly delayed, and many more women are not getting married at all.
I was thinking more in the US context where marriage has a less straightforward relationship with fertility.
Stone's proposal is marginalist. As are those of other commenters. You cannot stop a tsunami with a marginal sand bag.
Solving the fertility issue with one step:
Federal government promises to pay for a full time au pair for any couple with two children by age 30 and a $500 per month housing subsidy (until youngest child reaches 2nd grade)
This will incentivize marriage with a stop watch.
This will create populations of young adults with larger families which will act as models for others to follow
Reduce divorce rate (they’ll lose benefits if two parents aren’t in house)
Bring in tens of millions of fertile young immigrant girls that are good with children who will be snatched up by males as quickly as possible (via marriage) thus even further incentivizing American women to get married as soon as prudent
Problem solved.
Of course, it will be at the expense of those nations sending us their girls. But if they come from Britain, there is the side benefit of our actually protecting the girls from all the grooming gangs.
Instead why not get rid of all the government restrictions causing housing costs to be out of control?
Note $500k won't get you very far in most places.
As for the au pair's that would be a LOT of au pairs. I doubt you could even get that many. Instead make it easier for the mom to actually stay home while the kids are young. Again bringing down housing costs will get you a lot of the way there. Maybe combine that with a child care subsidy that is also available for one of the parents.