Why Paying People to Have Babies is a Billion-Dollar Mistake

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Overpopulation has been our biggest fear for decades, but now, shrinking populations are the real crisis. From aging societies to dwindling birth rates, countries worldwide are grappling with the risks of a declining population and struggling with radical measures to reverse it. In this video, we uncover why this shift could redefine our future, and why simply paying people to have more kids may lead to unexpected, even dangerous consequences. Dive into the surprising story behind the global population plunge and its impact on all of us.
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[@interstellarsurfer]

No, I don't think I will.

[@tonsrd]

2.1 problem starts in how you say it and "frame it" a country ( lets say USA ) needs 2.1 put the women under 40 in usa 10% are infert, 30% choose not to have kids, and 10% are Les ( and 90% of les dont have kids ) . Which means 4-6 per woman who do have kids not you saying 2.1 2.1 is needed per National Avg, not 2.1 per woman!! ( 4:52 in vid )

[@zodiacfml]

It is not a mistake but lazy, low effort fix to the problem. No one can if no one fixes the high cost of real estate in cities. On top of that is to restrict workers from spending too much time at work, restrict overtime-this will also help employ more people.

[@noahmarshall6435]

Lately this channel hasn't been answering the questions it asks. Why is cash for babies bad? Why child tax credits aren't worth it? These weren't answered other than "yea, those are bad the policies are expensive". It feels like 15mins of intro fluff, an ad, and then two sentences of explaining the obvious.

[@NathanHenriquefa]

Nicely pointed. They’re probably being paid to post such opinions.

[@Ottobon]

They do its at 13:45 or so

[@alexcovey1200]

I think it's because no one knows. Governments are trying but we have never had something like this happen in all of recorded history so they are throwing everything at a wall and seeing what sticks.

[@JosTheMan1]

@ottobon still doesn't answer why its a billion dollar problem

[@mellowInventor]

@@Ottobon if money doesn’t circulate properly through the economy, it will continue to get funneled to the top, where it will stagnate, and people will continue to maintain or fall below their parents socioeconomic standing, which will further discourage population growth. If we really want the world economy to stop collapsing, we need to fundamentally change the way we operate our economies; our culture is shifting, time will tell if it’s in time for our civilization.

[@vikingspud]

I saw an economist say recently, "having children is the ultimate sign of consumer confidence." I think it is succinct and to the point.

[@ulizez89]

it's also the ultimate luxury good and status symbol, who can afford a kid in this economy!!!????

[@andrasbiro3007]

@@ulizez89 People had kids during the Great Depression. And the highest birth rates are in the poorest countries. Kids don't have to cost a fortune, it's partially the consequence of consumerism, and partially the extremely high standards combined with marginal support from society.

[@andrewbobb3170]

More broadly, having kids is a sign of hope for the future. Plummeting birth rates indicates that people thing something is fundamentally wrong with society/culture/civilization. All the financial reasons are just rationalizations, which is why giving out money never works.

[@burgundian-peanuts]

@@andrasbiro3007 "Marginal support from society" is key. Grandparents and other relatives were once available to help take care of kids.

[@hkonhelgesen]

@@andrasbiro3007 Fertilty was record low in the great depression. It stayed low during WW2. Before absolutely exploding after the war.

[@Pawel_Mrozek]

I am almost certain that the housing crisis in developed countries is the main barrier to fertility in these societies. This is one of the reasons why there is always a higher fertility in the countryside. People there do not have to wonder whether they will have a roof over their heads. Modern societies have turned residential buildings into financial instruments just like stocks and other investments. This is killing societies. Do we really have to turn all basic goods into banking products?

[@kazesim88]

Pretty much; nobody wants to have kids while they have that sword hanging over their head. Maybe you could say that falling birthrates are the problem self-correcting if it wasn't being offset by immigration.

[@andersjohansson3684]

Well said Sir!

[@martinzihlmann822]

in Shanghai there's a saying: "The best contraceptive is the price per square meter"

[@thePacman175]

Japan does not have a housing crisis like the west

[@hhs_leviathan]

​@@thePacman175 It very much does. There is no worthwhile employment outside of Tokyo and no affordable housing in Tokyo.

[@badluck5647]

Honestly, a billion dollars wasted is a good track record for government policy.

[@nunyabidness3075]

Sad, but true.

[@batman1776]

We waste trillions on the elderly in the USA alone

[@AsobiMedio]

@@batman1776 Waste will always happen if you dump public money into private industries. If a government wants to provide a good or service, either do it entirely in-house, or not at all. No profit-making middlemen. If it wants to maximize efficiency for essential services, then nationalize that service and give it to everyone at a deccomodified level, don't just subsidize private coffers or mess with markets through price controls. Either leave it to the market or remove it from the market entirely.

[@badluck5647]

@@batman1776 I wouldn't call food and healthcare "a waste".

[@batman1776]

@@badluck5647 Do you think our healthcare system is efficient or wasteful?

[@thePacman175]

The question in the title is not answered. There are only some sentences along the lines of "many countries are trying to help out families financially, but birthtates are still low" That doesnt necessarily mean the measures are completely ineffective

[@TheNewLooter]

financial incentives just aren't effective when the root of the problem is not about finance.

[@lukacsnemeth1652]

Lets just say show me a working solution then i will consider implementing it. There is simply no example of a country going below 1.8 TFR and recovering to above 2.0

[@sprinkle61]

The core problem is that too much government spending and regulating has made the cost of living too high. Adding more incentives to the breeders just drives up the costs of living even further for everyone, including the breeders. The reality is, the solution to too much government spending isn't even insanely more government spending forcing us into a real life Handmaid's Tale, its getting rid of 95 % of government, but we are not there yet. Things have to get much worse, before we have enough will to make them better.

[@datboijdope]

He made it pretty clear. It's a bad idea because it doesn't work. Everytime a country has tried it, it hasn't produced the desired results. We already know what the problem is, but we'd rather fumble around in the dark than to ever face the truth.

[@JeiBurke]

@@lukacsnemeth1652 Kazakhstan, Mongolia are modern examples. There are also cases of birthrates dropping in the past then recovering, the Baby boom is one example

[@Marbo12f]

As long as children are viewed as a burden (as they are in advanced economies) and not an asset (like in undeveloped economies), people will continue to not have kids.

[@sanusidaniel7112]

You read my mind bro

[@keyboarddancers7751]

An existentially declining fertility rate is an inevitable function of economic development/advancement.

[@User-mncbjlfjrebxkl]

Shush . These developed people thing it is some kind of status symbol.

[@zukodude487987]

It is too indirect and ambiguous. There is huge amounts of stress, money and effort involved with no good view on what you are getting in return if at all. Children might not ever move out. It is seen as an investment that will pay off to the next generation, not the current parents so it feels like charity rather than a ROI. Birth rates are also shrinking meaning nobody wants to try and repair a sinking ship fearing they just might go down with it. I think the true investment is AI cuz it doesnt need parenting like children do.

[@User-mncbjlfjrebxkl]

@@zukodude487987 There you go. Children are not cattle to get an ROI on. What is it with you people ? You gonna talk to AI on your death bed ?

[@rddeb9304]

I think giving people a bag of money isn't going to fix the problem. The idea of having children often starts popping up in people's heads when everything else has been settled. Having a steady job, owning a home, etc. In the Netherlands, for example, housing is a huge issue at the moment, not the wages per se.

[@owowow7509]

So, then just pay people enough to buy a house at very least. Like by increasing wages for example.

[@bebel4298]

@@owowow7509 Increasing people's wages would increase their capability to buy these expensive homes, which would increase demand, and thus worsen the housing crisis.

[@Orclin]

That's bad though. The idea "popped up" in my and my wife's heads before we had a steady job or own a house. You should do it as soon as you're mentally mature because in today's economy a vast amount of people will never have a house or a steady job and we still need much more kids.

[@Kaede-Sasaki]

"The idea of having children often starts popping up in people's heads..." Some dont plan at all and the children start popping up in peoples "belly". 👶🙀

[@samelmudir]

this generation of under 40 is just risk adverse. everyone in my family had kids just after they finished college or started in the workforce. really only started making money once their kids were 8-10 years old .

[@manicka111]

Czechia pays a sum of money to parents of newborns to help them to take care of them during a time they don't go to work. It's a bedrock social benefit to young parents and nobody here thinks it's somehow destroying our economy.

[@weiserwolf580]

well, this is a channel aimed at the American public, and Americans are a bit allergic to government spending, on anything other than the army and the police

[@realharo]

It also has some of the most expensive housing-relative-to-income in all of Europe. Having some extra cash is nice, but if a huge chunk of your income gets eaten by rent or mortgage payments, it makes little difference.

[@SangoProductions213]

@@weiserwolf580 To be fair, if that was the only spending in government, then we wouldn't have government debt in a couple years, and could finally get taxes reduced, and people would have the money to do whatever they want... like buying food or starting a family.

[@sonapazderova2555]

The money the stay-at-home parent gets is ridiculous if you look at the prices of everything. You definitely need the salary of the other parent in order not to. This year the birthrate is 1.33 children per woman anyway.

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

Yeah but the point is whether such programs lead to people having more kids. Which they never do.

[@duncustard]

The moral of the story is that spending $10 billion on social housing is a much more cost-effective solution than giving families $10 billion in cash to give to their banks / landlords. Honestly the cost of decent housing is at the root of almost every problem in western societies in the last 30 years (declining birth rates, fuel and food poverty, animosity against immigrants, poor public health, low productivity etc.) Britmonkey did a great video on this - 'The Housing Crisis is the Everything Crisis'.

[@loneIyboy15]

Really now? I took it to mean that when given the choice, people would rather waste money on themselves than save for a family.

[@Soooooooooooonicable]

Yes. Housing is the elephant in the room. Older generations who own the most homes love seeing their property values sky rocket, which completely exasperates the issue for everyone else. Turning housing into a major investment asset has decimated young people's disposable income, which is the lifeblood of the economy. It all comes back to housing.

[@jaylewis9876]

Yes its surprising to come to the same conclusion by looking at the root cause of the root cause of the root cause of any particular issue. Allowing building would help so many

[@peglor]

@@loneIyboy15 When you have no financial breathing space after covering your own food, rent, heating and transport, and work and commuting uses 10-12 hours of your day, only a complete moron would add to the load by adding children to the mix. Free healthcare and education through university level for children, mandatory maternity and paternity leave, proper enforcement of existing work time rules and making it illegal for corporations to own family homes would be a good start.

[@loneIyboy15]

@@peglor Yeah, I've gone through budgets with people before. They're usually wasting money hand over fist and complaining when I offer up alternatives. Face it: They'd rather be poor and single.

[@ungainlytitan1460]

I tend to agree, addressing housing and education costs would go a long way.

[@DummyUseless-er3dn]

True. And healthcare costs in countries that don’t have universal healthcare

[@dannydenison6253]

​@@DummyUseless-er3dnnot calling anyone out by name. Classy 😂

[@alexander15551]

By increasing the tax burden on families? No way that could backfire

[@ungainlytitan1460]

@@alexander15551 Is this the only way you can think of doing it?

[@anthonyk423]

@@DummyUseless-er3dnmeaning they would have to pay more in taxes and would have less money. Also meaning they still wouodnt have more kids would pay more in taxes when the population decline to take care of the far more elderly.

[@jaykay5142]

One time payment for an ongoing cost seems like an instant failure policy-wise. They must not think very highly of people's math skills.

[@gesshoku92]

The economy needs more people who make impulse buys not people who carefully manage thier money the strategy is genius long term.

[@jaykay5142]

@gesshoku92 Never thought of it that way, but man, if that's even partially true, that's kind of scary and actually says a lot about why birth rates are down in the first place.

[@franszdyb4507]

Arguably you can count on the parental bond to provide the ongoing value. Once the baby is out, the one time payment has done its job.

[@nathanC8888]

Seems pretty calculated to me. It's how those terrible high interest loan companies do so well

[@greeninja2728]

Seeing children as economic units is stupid

[@Rascilon25]

Here in the U.S. it's definitely cost of living, especially housing. I believe that foreign investors and investment firms should be banned from buying U.S. housing, second homes should be taxed at 2-3x a primary home, and AirBnb's need to be much more uniformly regulated and taxed nationally. Housing needs to be occupied rather than utilized as a means to make money.

[@patrickday4206]

This is exactly what I have been saying the more property you horde the more you should be taxed I don't want any lords like we had in Europe when the United States began. Washington state says in its constitution that only citizens can own land which should prohibit corporations but for some reason it doesn't.

[@drscopeify]

It depends where, there is no shortage of homes in Texas or Kansas or Iowa or Ohio, most of the country has no shortage of homes, it is just a few popular areas like Los Angeles and San Diego and Bay Area, Virginia, Boston, Boise, but that is a really tiny land area, most of the county is the opposite but of course the pay is lower too so it's a balance.

[@brianlong2334]

Even if you did that, the birth rates wouldn't change enough positively. Money has to do with it, but it's not the main factor or factors at play.

[@jennaphantom7969]

@@drscopeify That depend on if the job is even in those areas. I was hoping remote work would reduce supply in major cities but that has yet to pan out. I do think expectation have changed. Before you had kids regardless of financial situation and 'figured it out' while now that is irresponsible to do. Collage debt and later entrance into the work force has pushed back the average age of marriage, buying a house, and having kids. I did read somewhere that part of the decline is there are far fewer teen pregnancies which is a huge win as teen moms are far more likely to be poor and raise the kid in that environment.

[@erockandroll39]

​@@drscopeify Location is everything. Housing won't fix the family problem if it's not located near places of work and have good schools near by. A related issue is transit. If people are squeezed out of vehicle ownership, Location becomes that much more important.

[@kibble-net]

Counterpoint: Having absolutely no social safety nets for working class families is a trillion-dollar mistake.

[@donsullivan6199]

The US government is broke. To provide a trillion dollar safety net the government has to tax families a trillion dollars to give them a trillion dollar safety net.

[@emptyshirt]

I don't think the government can substitute for a connected society. No matter how many government programs are started they can't replace the interpersonal connections that people traditionally leaned on when raising children. If you don't have family or close friends to help raise your child the government can't fix that. The social fabric can't hold together when the world changes so fast.

[@chefnyc]

I though social security was a trillion dollar mistake.

[@1wun1]

What if those are unaffordable?

[@whitneyanders5945]

Are you talking about Africa or Latin America as where were these traditional models of the village in the developed world? Asians, Europeans etc all became fractured after world wars and had to move far far away from family and friends to raise children. People like to romanticise this ‘village’ that truly never existed if you bother to look at history.

[@who2u333]

What I got from this video is that as worker pay reduced and families could not live (comfortably) on one persons salary, a population decrease was inevitable. And, instead of fixing the actual problem of wealth inequality, the ideas are to just directly throw money at people (direct inference).

[@shauncameron8390]

Wealth inequality is not a problem as there never was a time when people were equal in much of anything including earning potential.

[@samurguy9906]

@@shauncameron8390it’s not a wealth disparity problem but an incentives problem imo. For one, we’ve gone to an educational model where we (very ineffectively) teach children a bunch of general information as prep for a college education rather than having them learn immediately useful skills doing low risk work, meaning children will be a financial burden to the household until they’re on their own. We also have an economy based on the assumption that most women will have jobs that require them to work outside the home. The women I know who are having kids are either happy being stay at home moms or professionals lucky enough to work in an industry where they can work remote most days.

[@JeiBurke]

And throw people into to countries, though mass immigration.

[@emirozer9280]

@@shauncameron8390 That's a bad faith interpretation of tackling wealth inequality. You're basically saying "too much salt? these idiots don't want any salt in their french fries it's absurd!" Wealth should be causally related to your economic output but instead it mostly depends on how much you own and besides some niche professions like doctors and athletes (extremely skilled), influencers, musicians, and prostitutes (can own their means of production) all the other professions suffer from a lack of power when it comes to clawing back the results of their hard work. Like, do you unironically believe Elon Musk is as valuable as the entire economic output of the State of Kentucky? Acording to how much net worth both of them are it is. Currently the wealth inequality is so drastic that we have the same ratio of wealth distribution as French had in French revolution where people had to put rich people into guillotines...

[@shauncameron8390]

@@emirozer9280 Only for those rich people to be replaced by other rich people.

[@WirHyperboreer]

Germany has "Kindergeld" forever. For each kid you get about 200€ per month until they turn 18 or even longer if they go to university.

[@jasonhaven7170]

And Germany has ultra low fertiity rate

[@CHMichael]

That's 50 per week.... that's making a giant difference ( sarcasm)

[@svr5423]

that's why I left the country after graduating. Can't "afford" the taxes.

[@Soooooooooooonicable]

Isn't rent ridiculously low in germany?

[@HyperVegitoDBZ]

@@jasonhaven7170 South Korea experimented with mone yfor the last 25 years and got nowhere either

[@grimaffiliations3671]

Child tax credits aren't about paying people to have children, it's about giving young families financial breathing room. The expanded child tax credits cut childhood poverty in half in the US before it expired. There are tremendous societal benefits to that

[@johnd.5601]

That is mathematically not true and short-sighted. How does taking a tax break for 18 years on your kids' lives help ? They will be forced to pay a tax premium for a majority of their life! If someone lives for 72 years, this makes a child tax credit a tax burden for the majority. I would do the math, but it would be a waste of time because you would never understand. 18-year tax credit life expectancy of 72 should be enough. Being dumb is what causes young families their problems.

[@bobbyward2440]

And the general population has made up their mind. They do not want higher prices on their own goods and services so someone with less can have more

[@Alex-bf3re]

You got a source for that claim?

[@nunyabidness3075]

@@johnd.5601I have no idea what math you are actually talking about. How about showing some actual math instead of throwing the word around like a hammer. His point is perfectly reasonable whether you agree or not. You might have a reasonable point, but you aren’t making it well. As far as I can tell, it has something to do with hating taxes.

[@ReturnOfHeresy]

@@johnd.5601 Because childhood is more important than the other 54 years because they depend so directly on that childhood. On top of that, an effective 18 year credit paid off over a 54 year period is a low burden.

[@dande3139]

"Billionaires said it is a moral obligation..." to consume far more resources for personal luxury while telling the financially-strapped (under their own policies) what to do?

[@neeneko]

Well, that is their moral structure.

[@eigenb6455]

The richest man in the world is telling us that not having children is selfish

[@kenny1514]

As a parent who finds fulfillment in this role and way of life, I can tell you that paying me won't make me have another kid. Cheaper housing costs, remote and fully flexible work, and student loan forgiveness/affordable tuition will go a long way to incentivize me.

[@dlahouss]

Student loan payments are literally paying you, and got a degree that appears to be useless. Why would we want to encourage that?

[@kenny1514]

@@dlahouss what makes you think my degree was useless? I am very well employed, doesn't negate the fact that the cost of education is still exorbitant. Have a look at medical students or even practicing doctors who are still of child bearing age. The burden from the cost of school affects their ability to raise children and hence the desire to have them. Let's not pretend like the government hasn't previously forgiven other forms of debt for companies, individuals, and certain organizations. The existential crisis is why are people not having kids. I gave a reason that resonates with my many and your approach is to say, why should we address that? The answer is, we don't have to, but we shouldn't ask people then to have more kids, and just accept the consequences.

[@dlahouss]

@kenny1514 if your degree is making you 20k a year more than not having it, you can pay off your educational debt in a decade or less, then the remaining decades are gravy. We shouldn't subsidize you. If your degree isn't making that, it was useless and we shouldn't subsidize you. Yes, governments have given money to other people at other times. That doesn't make it right as either a moral or practical matter. Those with educational degrees are the wealthiest, they don't need more money to have kids.

[@davileite780]

Well, paying you enough money would probably fix all these problems, except for the work flexibility. Thing is, it adds up either way. The government can subsidize housing or just give you enough money to pay rent, the expense is the same.

[@davianoinglesias5030]

Government: So what would encourage you to have kids. Citizens : Affordable housing, financial security, maternal and paternal benefits, working from home. Government : Ok, we've heard you. Here's 100K cheque, it should be enough to raise kids Citizens : 😅Did you hear what I just said???

[@svr5423]

Better Family/Divorce laws.

[@shauncameron8390]

@@svr5423 Abolish alimony and no-fault divorce.

[@svr5423]

@@shauncameron8390 100% agree.

[@Bozebo]

"financial security, maternal and paternal benefits, working from home." Well, this is available if you work so much that you'll never have time to meet anyone xD

[@Ziegfried82]

The government forces men to go die in wars. Why should women be exempt from existential duties? If a nation is facing a demographic collapse...wouldn't it be wise to force women to have babies?

[@AlwyneAvinash]

Cost of living is a deterrent to having kids, medical, education and other related expenses are unaffordable

[@svr5423]

most of it is caused by astronomical taxes.

[@nzuckman]

​@@svr5423 citation needed

[@svr5423]

@@nzuckman look at your tax record.

[@digitalnomad5728]

The cost of living has nothing to do with population decline Only rich countries face this problem And it's 100% cultural

[@vinsin328]

not true. Due to feminism, women do not want to settle down. Women want to marry only selected male - which against human civilization.

[@samstern860]

@economicsexplained I am a big fan of this channel. But this video was mostly intro to the issue and not actually talking about the economic incentives and their results. Which was the title. I hope that can be improved on in future videos

[@VomicaEmanio]

As someone in their early 30s, I have felt for a decade already that I don't want to have kids. It feels like the next century will have a ton of problems to overcome, and I don't want to push that hardship on a child. Even my parent, recently turned 60, says that they wouldn't consider children today. Just to point out; my issue is with creating children that will have to deal with all of this, not with _raising_ children. If I ever find a partner and want to raise a family, I would have no issues adopting. Doing my best to provide a good life for a child that has already been born does sound good to me, it's the _birthing more children into this world_ that I am hesitant to do.

[@stephenkentperez7705]

There is a simple explanation to why people don't wanna have kids: Home ownership. You don't want to raise a family without a permanent home.

[@Ziegfried82]

I grew up in an apartment. My friends grew up in apartments. You don't need to own a free standing house to have children. The root cause is women choosing (yes, choosing) to not have babies. Government could force them to do it, just as they force men to fight and die in wars.

[@svr5423]

not really an issue. My parents did plenty of things wrong, but renting didn't make much of an impact.

[@JWelsh07]

@@Ziegfried82 You win dumbest comment I read today.

[@naniyotaka]

@@Ziegfried82 Home ownership doesn’t mean houses… an apartment still counts.

[@liamogorman3312]

​@Ziegfried82 I'm guessing your parents rented the entire apartment and not just a room in the apartment. Most people below 30 don't own/rent an entire place to themselves.

[@mikesimms1]

Billionaires: People should have more children. Also billionaires: Let's replace as many jobs as possible with AI and make the remaining employees work 60+ hours/week.

[@skylinefever]

The billionaires make a dollar when the pleb makes a dime. Then they need to make sure the plebs breed and spend most of their dime.

[@westacheny4162]

With the Ai revolution so many of us are going to be replaced. Do you think we will be stratified into billionaires and homesteaders as the only remaining parties?

[@kingofcards9]

Billionaires import immigrants.

[@burgundian-peanuts]

Elon Musk wants us to have more kids in order to sustain "western civilization." If he and his billionaire buddies pay for my childcare, I'll consider it.

[@cameronsmithers368]

​@@skylinefever if I had a tenth of Elon Musk's net worth I would be worth $27b.

[@dannydenison6253]

Ignoring child poverty is not a good look.

[@dannydenison6253]

Yes, don't pay people just to have kids. But also don't let that thought be used against policies that actually are to fight child poverty. My beef was not bring up the nuance with policies like the child tax credit. Which just like at the end of the video you mentioned doing things to sustain a family is important and that's exactly what the child tax credit can do if done right

[@svr5423]

@@dannydenison6253 if you need a tax credit to finance a child, you're already on the verge of financial viability for your project. For many, this will fail anyway, thus we have child poverty.

[@shauncameron8390]

That's a non-issue as children don't work or pay taxes. But their parents do.

[@PatrikRasch]

Every country knows what the problem is, but as with most things, they don't want to address it as there's too much financial incentive not to.

[@NoOne-kx7zs]

main reason is decreasing marriage rates.....(since childbirth outside wedlock is rare)......and main reason for decreasing marriage rates are biased marriage laws where husband takes all the risk of losing his property and becomes a lifetime pension plan. However old age boomers in govs. and fmnists have too much ego to admit this. Recently UK gov. grudgingly accepted that it's actually men who r avoiding marriage...and honestly i don't blame them.

[@LibertyForAll-l3q]

Housing? Since even north korea has declining birth rates

[@mikitz]

You can't fix a problem with money when the problem isn't about money in the first place.

[@shauncameron8390]

Exactly. If anything this is more about personal greed and society having gotten too liberal for its own good.

[@Lauren_C]

@@shauncameron8390Personal greed, debatable, but society in general has become far more fiercely competitive over the past few years. The current economic environment moves fast, conditions that may play to your favor likely to flip the next month, and vice versa. Remaining stagnant (company loyalty) is no longer good enough to secure financial stability. The emphasis is on agility, and constantly sharpening oneself to better compete against other (figuratively) hungry workers for better jobs. And the recent tech layoffs have only increased the competition still. Taking time out for child rearing is liable to set one back greatly, in finances, opportunity costs, personal health (pregnancy is pretty destructive on the woman’s body), etc. In a hyper competitive society as is today, these set backs may prove too costly to heavy a price to pay.

[@onlypranav]

I recently heard an economist say the number of children born equals the amount of children women want (obiviously right? but can be used predictively also). now why do women not want as many children was not obvious to him. It cannit be as simple as femini$m, but it can be a factor. Also cli-mate doomerism probably dosen't help but the biggest factor could be urbanization as it's rate is also predictive. But I don't know how it relates with womens' preferences specifically

[@quirkyturtle4896]

Isn't the number one reason people say they don't have kids: MONEY?

[@quirkyturtle4896]

The video mentions it costs about 250k to raise a kid but more importantly people are too poor to raise themselves. If a 3bd house cost 100k you would probably have one, if women could afford not working they probably would.

[@Strykenine]

It seems smarter to structure society in such a way that people are not _disincentivised_ to have children, instead of shuffling the deck chairs around to try to get them to have babies in a broken world.

[@thrall1342]

Pretty much. Something people seem to miss: if everybody strives for academic achievement and has a similar partner, there are consequences. You'll only both find a job: in a city. To name one example.

[@Tuberis]

Low birthrate in developed countries has probably more to do with cultural changes and ideologies that push against having children than economical reasons. So many traveling media influence people's priorities who chose to "live" their lives with freedom of travel and flexibility, yet many of them also get pets which doesn't really make sense unless they think it is more trendy to have pets than children. Most people I've met think that two children is a good logical number as each child gets to have a sibling and not be alone. If the problem was only economical then people with above average incomes that can afford more children would also have more children, but I haven't observed or read about something like this in statistics.

[@morgangrant5180]

Exactly. I haven't seen a correlation between income levels and the number of children a couple has. We are less religious, we live further from parents and everyone we know ( free and reliable childcare) women focusing on other things in their 20s is a big one. People who had crummy parents grow up enough to realize that maybe they would make crummy parents too. Fewer unplanned births. All of this adds up to every woman having one less child than they would have 60 years ago.

[@vibue2415]

ye its sad, many of my friends would like kids, but they either dont have a partner or their partner doesnt want a kid.. I also understand the otherside, pregnancy is hard and many man think they dont need to care for the children. So I can absolutly understand why woman are unwilling..

[@kaeptnstyle4844]

​@@morgangrant5180 Afaik there's absolutely a correlation between income level and the number of children one has. It just goes in the other direction than one would expect, meaning those that least can afford it get the most children. With all the consequences that has - mostly for said children. So I agree, it's a cultural phenomenon. And I believe many people thinking about getting children but being unsure, question themselves what a future their child will inherit. Between climate change, escalating wars and an ever-growing disparity between rich and poor there are more than enough reasons to abstain from getting children and live out your own life in peace. The general assumptions about the near future - reasons therefore being real or imaginary doesn't mather - in the "western world" are mostly bleak, so why would a responsible and successful person decide to get children?

[@Aubrey2004-j4k]

This ideology you speak of is just a resistance to the notion that you can only be happy, as a woman, if you have kids. Its been shoved down women’s throats for so long that people are now swinging to the extreme.Just saying.

[@pipebomber04]

This is true. Pleasure and social status is more important to western people. Plus when it comes to relationships, westerners want MORE LOVERS than QUALITY LIFETIME PARTNERS. It is such an insecure atmosphere to be in that you wont ever think of having kids.

[@Boopop1024]

I'll consider having children when the billionaires that are so desparate for me to have a family stop treating the planet like a dumping ground in the name of profit. You can't expect us to want to bring future generations in to a world we're not confident will be livable in the coming decades.

[@Gazer-x5s]

Meanwhile, they are developing AI and robots to replace new workers. Yup for profits

[@kazesim88]

Pretty much. I'm not signing anyone else up for this when I'm not even confident about the future myself.

[@vinsin328]

That cannot be the reason to have or not to have kids. You cannot decide your child or anyone else future. Having children is your duty as a human being and a way to replay the debt that you inherited from your parents. The way you look things are not correct - your parents didn't think in that materialistic way.

[@Boopop1024]

@@vinsin328 Hahahaha, "duty as a human", what a joker you are. What gives you the right to decide what duties I have? Give me a break. I get the impression you haven't realised, but thing about personal ethical codes is we all have a different one. You don't get to impose yours on others.

[@andrasbiro3007]

@@Boopop1024 Duty is something that is imposed on you by society. It's something you don't want to do, but benefits others.

[@Immudzen]

I don't see why we should have children. The world is setup against it. The price of housing just keeps going up compared to income. Rent is increasing without limits and many people I know become rent trapped. The people at the top take more and more of what is made than ever before. We even know that the majority of the increase in goods is increased profit taking by companies. It has nothing to do with inflation, labor costs, etc. What I see is that those at the top of capitalism have decided they want EVERYTHING for themselves. Even the way they are using AI is driving further inequality. They steal everything they can, pay nothing for it, and then use their power to monetize what they stole through their AI. I think many people see the game as broken and no longer want to play and not having kids is a way of not playing.

[@jimjohnson4072]

Wow, you have a sad life 😂😂 I’m 35 and started with nothing. Served in the military for a little. I’m married. A home owner. Multiple time college graduate. And financially comfortable. We have a child. It’s actually been easier than the socialist and liberals fear mongered against 😂😂. Being married and with children is awesome!! Sorry you think the meaning of your life, is yourself lol. But hey! Got your snacks and the latest Disney/marvel show to enjoy!!! 🤡

[@PassagePass]

And that is why no one will remember your name

[@Immudzen]

@@PassagePass Why should I care if anyone remembers why name? Why would that mater at all?

[@Immudzen]

@@jimjohnson4072 I am personally doing fine now but I have no interest in a family anymore. I know people that thought they where doing well and one medical accident was enough to wipe them out. Even with health insurance. Dual income no kids is my thing at this point.

[@andrasbiro3007]

@@Immudzen "at the top of capitalism have decided they want EVERYTHING for themselves" - And you made the exact same decision. Choosing not to have kids is technically the same as taking everything they have and shooting them into a ditch. Especially when you are doing well. You have no excuse.

[@Smallpriest]

- reduce the cost of raising a child - instead of a 1 time cash incentive Saved you 15 mins

[@sabyasachiporel4675]

Why low population would be a problem?? People lived thousands of years with very low population, population increased rapidly only in last 100 to150 years. Low population is more concerning for the big business and politicians, as big business will have less consumer and low population pool to exploit labour where corporation's negotiation power will be less. And politician will have less vulnerable voter to impose their dogma to stay in power longer.

[@svr5423]

Agree. it's not a problem. We must move away from the idea of infinite growth

[@apc9714]

They didn't live that well. Half the population means you lose all the economy of scale. Half the researchers, half the people maintaining the infrastructure, half the services, half the military.... Everything that is scalable is gonna get worse. People will become less productive cause they can't specialize soo much in their profession (and as Adam Smith teach specialization is a driver of productivity growth). Oh and we will have twice the amount of public debt per person at least.

[@svr5423]

@@apc9714 not a big problem. Small countries like Luxembourg, Switzerland and Liechtenstein maintain a better GDP per capita than most of their neighbor countries in Europe, despite not having the economy of scale. They also employ some of the highest qualified specialists in the world. Note: economy is global now.

[@sabyasachiporel4675]

@@apc9714 Very low population will hinder the future growth and technological innovation. But right now population is higher side. Even at this point, if all the people live like 1st world country, the earth can not sustain it. More technological innovation will increase per capita energy consumption and foot print, to sustain that either lower population or multi-planetary society.

[@Dark3x]

@@apc9714 That's propaganda you are repeating. Nothing won't happen. It's just billionaries will become centenaires that's it. That's what they don't want.

[@lak1294]

Excellent topic. China manipulated its population growth in the most blatant and heavy-handed way, but developed countries more organically (and unintentionally) managed their populations as their citizens became more educated, women started working in droves, and fertility naturally declined as a result. The countries that don't welcome immigrants and immigration policy are basically looking at inevitable and inexorable decline. That includes most of Europe, Japan, Korea, China, and others. Canada, where I live, has turbocharged immigration in the last few years, with also predictable problems such as a housing crisis and relying on more bodies to goose its GDP rather than doing the much harder work of encouraging growth and innovation.

[@Ziegfried82]

Encouraging growth is not the issue here. Having replacement level birth rates is the issue.

[@monsieurlepresident8835]

Capitalism is always gonna fail because at some point the growth is gonna become that big and fast that the birth rate simply can’t catch up with it anymore.

[@Dark3x]

"countries that don't welcome immigrants and immigration policy are basically looking at inevitable and inexorable decline" "with also predictable problems such as a housing crisis and "

[@JeiBurke]

"The countries that don't welcome immigrants and immigration policy are basically looking at inevitable and inexorable decline" If your solution is replacing the Japanese and Europeans with Africans to "save" their country I don't think you want to save any country. You just care about economies, I care about civilizations. Open borders and the obvious failure of multiculturalism is part of the reason societies are in decline, the obsession with diversity has been an undeniable net negative for every country that tired it without exception. And yet you guys cling to it with unreasonable self destructive passion because "racism is bad"

[@lak1294]

@JeiBurke Racism IS bad, full stop, end of story.

[@CatsMeowPaw]

Want more kids to fuel economic growth? Then pay me for the worker. Not just fiddling around the edges like $100 here or $200 there, but at least $1000 per month per child. Make it worth my while. Economists put a price on everything, so why should a child be exempt?

[@TheGangsterousG]

Do you think the UK with it's population of 70M, for example, could pay hundreds of billions every year?

[@TheGangsterousG]

The US has 70 million children right now... do you think it should be paying 864 billion every year to cover them?

[@gaberyan6283]

This is such a simple problem to solve but everyone is trying anything and everything to ignore the root cause of this problem. Give people guaranteed housing, a person who cannot ensure their own stability isn't going to be in the position to look for a romantic partner, let alone pursue the line of action, that leads to babies. If we just gave people guaranteed, no conditions housing that is adequate, then this problem would dissolve overnight.

[@Dark3x]

Can't do that AND have open borders, the whole world would come through.

[@Sticksandstones292]

What do you think that would do to the value of housing? Most people’s personal wealth is tied to their housing.

[@gaberyan6283]

@@Sticksandstones292 This line of reasoning is a large part of the problem in of itself. The obvious answer to your question is the monetary value of housing would plummet, which is a good thing. Housing should be a basic HUMAN RIGHT just like the right to freedom and to be free from pain and suffering. We are the masters of our own world, there is no reason we should let others of our own kin suffer and go without, there is no universal law or intrinsic shortage causing homelessness, its the result of people assigning disproportionate amount of value to a basic thing of need that we have millions of homeless people world wide.

[@GoodWhinger]

1:30: I was sure he was going to announce putting 'Babies' on the Economics Explained Leaderboard. Disappointed.

[@SyedHasaan-op5vl]

😂❤

[@JSx145]

I already pay a tax for childlessness… where do you think your child tax credit comes from, the money tree?

[@chefnyc]

Most people don’t understand how government “gives free money”.

[@nineonine9082]

Spot on

[@Ziegfried82]

I pay a massive property tax levy for schools when I have no children in the schools. They burden single people with no concern at all. I had to register for selective service at age 18 as a male. I could have been drafted at any time. Time for society to realize that women for the most part are not carrying their weight. If they refuse to have babies...force them. Governments can force men to go die, why can't they force women to reproduce?

[@tomkelly8827]

@@nineonine9082Other parents mainly

[@guy_autordie]

Richer persons than you

[@donaldlee8249]

if the cost of living for average house hold drops to 1960s level, people will by nature desire, have more babies. the real problem is that massive government spending and inequality of wealth have pushed asset price through the roof. we have to find a way to make housing more affordable, not by taking a 30 yr loan, but actually making it an affordable consumable item.

[@Connor_Roush]

So basically you want free housing? lol.

[@peglor]

@@Connor_Roush More like wants to be able to afford a roof over their head without a decades long debt or employment stability that is not on offer anywhere at this point. Look at the price of a house relative to the average salary in just about every country on the planet over the last century to see how society is being ripped off.

[@blafonovision4342]

@@Connor_Roushin the urban setting? Yes. Urbanization itself turn children from an economic asset to a liability. The cost of housing on top of that just adds fuel to the fire.

[@AlexParkYT]

@@Connor_Roush Not wanting to pay a 30+ year loan =/= getting it for free now, does it? Quit your foolishness.

[@MrRenanHappy]

@@Connor_Roush If the society and the economy requires people to raise families and the main barrier is proper housing, then it is in the best interest of everyone to provide that either for free or at a easily attainable price.

[@chrisjager5370]

The payments are always way below the cost of raising a child.

[@RicanSamurai]

I feel like a big part of this is social, not economic. Society has devalued the social status of having kids. Having an impressive career is much more prestigious than having a large family in our culture, so people are socially incentivized to wait way longer for kids.

[@svr5423]

+ divorce law and climate change. If you spend 250k towards a house or a sports car, you'll have more fun with it for longer, while impacting the climate less.

[@MrRenanHappy]

That's because raising a family is so astronomically costly that it will generally lead to poverty

[@thewingedringer]

Why would it be impressive to have a large family? Most people don't teach their kids basic manners, so you want a large family, get a bunch of dogs, they'll be better.

[@ulizez89]

nahhhh, it's 100% economic

[@Bakerygo]

Let me also adresse the elephant in the room. Pregnancy, child birth and maternity leave all suck for the women. Women are basically destroying their bodies and they are expected to work after that. So no, paying women to have children is not a bad idea because it's a lot of work. Women have been doing this for free for centuries, it's over now. But of course why pay for something that was free labor for so many years. Raising kids in a city is very expensive, especially if you want to give your child a decent chance to have a good future.

[@tylerhackner9731]

Addressing housing and education would be a great start

[@granyte]

Economists:"No one know why people are not having kids it's a mystery" Everyone:"I can barely pay to keep a roof over my head and there is a housing crysis" Economists:"Such a mystery"

[@inbb510]

If you have a culture where economic autonomy is the most important thing above all else, then you will raise kids that adopt such concepts.

[@rockyscarlet]

- Give me money so I can have children - NO! 😡 - Then I won't have children because I cannot afford it - NO! 😡

[@nunyabidness3075]

So, the first thing we need to do is admit we made a big mistake with these pyramid scheme like policies. Then, we need to figure out a better solution. And then, finally, we need to figure out how to fairly transition. What we don’t need to do is figure out how to get people to have more kids they don’t want and won’t raise well. At best, figuring out ways governments are making things worse might be good, but governments rarely ever bother with that it seems.

[@skylinefever]

I often discuss how not to have conservatism turn to communist Romania unwanted kids.

[@Merle1987]

If billionaires want people to have more kids, they could easily make that happen.

[@svr5423]

musk is doing it like a rabbit

[@Merle1987]

@@svr5423 I was thinking more they could just buy and fully pay for houses for people who wanted to have kids. But the old manual route isn't so bad either.

[@Texas_1985]

I remain unconvinced. The video content does not support the claim made by the title.

[@rubberroast1598]

At some point when will humans figure out a way for a society to thrive even in a steady or declining population. Unlike any other species on earth, we have exploded and every nation, religion, city strives to increase ever more for power and prosperity. Am i wrong to hope that in my ultra dense and congested gridlocked city would actually have a few less people in it?

[@curiousfirely]

I feel like the dropping birthrate is only surprising to anyone over 40.

[@Fr00stee]

I think the main issue keeping the population down is simply time. During covid we saw that people had lots of time to spend with each other indoors causing a mini baby boom. When you force people to go back to the office they have much less time to be with their spouse or look for one. This is why the japanese gov dating system doesn't work, nobody there has the time to spend developing relationships or dating because they spend ridiculous amounts of time working and have no time or energy to do anything else. People may make enough money to start a family but they do not have the time to do so without sacrificing their pay. Therefore I think the solution is quite simple: transfer over to a 4 day work week.

[@Pesso86]

Actually, in many countries covid caused a spike in divorces 😅

[@Bozebo]

Average working hours are in fact longer in many countries like the UK and USA than they are in Japan.

[@Fr00stee]

@@Bozebo I believe none of those stats count overtime which is where the main problem is, and they are also expected to follow their boss everywhere instead of going home.

[@Sticksandstones292]

I don’t see how giving a baby bonus with a met criteria is a bad thing? If you show you have a job and already have 2 kids having a 3rd/4th can net you considerable more baby bonus. Countries wouldn’t have to rely on immigration as much and would be able to retain their own culture.

[@thedamnedatheist]

We are reaping what was sown by governments & economists fanboying Hayek & Freidman. In a recent study in the US, 85% of respondents listed financial constraints as the main reason for not having children. Make life more affordable & birthrates should rise. You talked about radical change. Make societies more socialised & less capitalistic, bring in some form of UBI to offset the coming wave of unemployment, reverse the corporate & rich tax cuts of the last 50 years & fund lots of public housing and add properly funded childcare to all public schools. Set rents in public housing at 25% of net wages & reduce it by the number of children in the household. Concentrate on regional areas, not major cities.

[@svr5423]

financial constraints include taxes and divorce risk EMV. The rest is more of less affordable.

[@ClassicCase]

This is a recipe to shortages.

[@shauncameron8390]

That is just not sustainable. And the last thing the US needs to be is like the formerly and actively socialist countries most immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers come from.

[@williamvida]

In 1933, the German government introduced a marriage loan for newlywed couples. Due to the improvement of the economy, and along with other pro-natalist policies, Germany’s fertility rate increased every year until the middle of the war.

[@CultureCrossed64]

That sounds great until you consider that the growth rate in other countries was increasing at the same (or better) rates during the same time period.

[@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986]

I think it had more to with that particular German government made it socially unacceptable for adults to NOT be married with kids, every aspect of society was geared around having as many children as possible for the nation and the ‘aryan race’. You can’t shame and humiliate people for not having kids in a democracy as government policy. You can’t realistically take from the poor, old and disabled to give more to married families.

[@kevinoftedahl4182]

​Keep in mind that Germany was still paying it's financial debt to the entente powers and was hit hardest by the stock market crash. All in all, they were (economically) in a worse state than any other nation, besides Japan who was also hit hard by the crash. Quite poetic how similar both these nations situations were throughout this period.

[@samet7422]

In addition, under the Nazi rule the Germany became way more pro-baby. So, it was also a cultural and political change.

[@williamvida]

@@CultureCrossed64 I did not say that Germany had the highest fertility rate or the fastest-growing fertility rate. However, in 1939, Germany’s fertility rate was higher than that of France, the UK, and the US, though Japan, Italy, and the Soviet Union had higher fertility rates than Germany. Most, if not all, of these countries saw a decrease in fertility rates from 1933 to 1939, except for Germany.

[@emuevalrandomised9129]

It just means we have to shift our societies and economies to function without the need for an ever increasing population. The immigration approach that was tried doesn't help in the long term, isn't sustainable and creates its own set of societal issues, without even considering the effect of brain drain to developing countries. We need to accept that we must learn to adjust and function with a smaller population.

[@jasonhaven7170]

No chance

[@jasonhaven7170]

Immigration will continue

[@jasonhaven7170]

Even Meloni allowed 450k immigrants

[@thekingofsas9407]

These people in charge are not as smart as the architects of the Liberal World Order that we are currently living in. I don't think they're up to the task.

[@PXAbstraction]

This. The world has been overpopulated for far too long and rather than overpopulate it and strain the planet more, we need to adjust our economy in a way not based around the fallacy of infinite growth.

[@DrEhrfurchtgebietend]

Do one on cutting taxes and funding it with tariffs. They have inverse effects so it might work out

[@gener2842]

What about the people not having children because they refuse to participate in creating a life that eventually has to put up with the perpetual nonsense humanity fails to address?

[@jaykay5142]

Yes I think bottom line is low fertility is basically a vote of nonconfidence in the future

[@Dark3x]

yeah you see rapists and murderers getting scott-free in places like California you don't want to have children really.

[@dlahouss]

Isn't that letting those bad forces win? You are the person described by the quote about good men doing nothing, so evil wins

[@bannedeverywhere]

We have such program in Poland and it's has been a total failure, billions of dollars wasted on unemployed single mothers, ukrainian immigrants while fertility is still below Japan and sligthly above South Korea due to skyrocketing costs of living, unaffordable housing, rampant hypergamy, bigger and bigger tax burden, one of highest costs of electricity in the world and rapidly deteriorating healthcare.

[@ericnoriega547]

I find it fascinating that if a scientist developed a new engine that became extremely efficient but only as it approached the speed of light, most people would dismiss it immediately as unrealistic. When an economist comes up with a economic model that requires infinite growth, he gets a Nobel Prize. 😂

[@MijnAfspeellijst1234]

Thing in our lifetime unions will see a rise in membership. Because a world where labour is in high demand is a world where unions are strongest. Also with a increase of automation i think it for the better the world population is shrinking.

[@robertbender73]

Nothing wrong with a shrinking economy, when most all have been over inflated over the past century funded by debt.

[@armorbearer9702]

Basically, you can't give people money to start families. You need to improve the economic and other conditions related to raising a family.

[@JeiBurke]

And stop pushing anti-family messaging and "alternative lifestyles" but those on the left do not want to have that conversation.

[@Michael_Haddad]

Modern governments approach to child incentives: *puts bandaid on a failing dam* "why isn't this solving the problem?"

[@Pesso86]

Housing prices, low wages are making the issue worse, but are not causing it. Simply put, people in developed cuountrirs, prefer spending their time and money in other ways rather than on kids. It’s a cultural issue made worse by other economical factors.

[@shauncameron8390]

Namely on themselves. No money for kids, but plenty of money for their convenient lifestyles.

[@Pesso86]

@@shauncameron8390 yes, and that is a legitimate choice

[@radec5166]

@@Pesso86 Of course it is a legitimate choice, which will lead to problems in the future.

[@Pesso86]

@@radec5166 or maybe the problem is an economic system based on infinite growth of everything. If economic collapse is what we need to realize the absurdity of this, so be it

[@radec5166]

@@Pesso86 You have strange fantasies. The System has nothing to do with it, people have simply become more selfish (I include myself among the selfish) and do not want to look after their children. Obviously people blame something else, because they simply do not want to admit this.

[@pokaface564]

Let’s be honest, we all know that the main problem with depopulation is “line doesn’t go up” Infinite growth is not possible, it’s not realistic

[@CultureCrossed64]

So... you don't want a pension? Weird flex, but okay

[@degraft3960]

It's a big universe. You're thinking too small n too short term. The problem will pop growth is it's rate not the growth itself. Humans are great at exploiting natural resources but not so good at doing so in a way that's sustainable in the long term. But we have gotten exponentially better in the past few centuries. Just not good enough... Yet

[@xiphoid2011]

infinite growth is possible because the universe is infinite. The line goes up as long as total productivity goes up. While increasing population can make productivity go up, it's much more due to advancement in technology. So population can go down, but with robots and AI, the productivity will still go up. Just as SpaceX is already working towards Mars colonization, you can see how the reach for more resource and energy is potentially unlimited as long as technology continue to advance as it did during entire human history.

[@xoduty1424]

Pensions, public healthcare and infrastructure, and other state welfare, depend on population growth or at least stagnation. That's the problem.

[@IndustrialBonecraft]

@@CultureCrossed64 Your pension won't help you by the time you come to collect it, anyway. Be realistic.

[@infinitygears6388]

🚩Housing affordability 🚩Childcare costs You nailed it.... Raising children is generally a path to poverty.

[@socc4298]

How about we build an economy that allows couples to afford children. Most people struggle to support themselves, let alone a family.

[@QunaticPotato]

Just started watching, but I hope the video ends by placing Baby is the EE national economies leaderboard.

[@Aubrey2004-j4k]

Haha😂

[@kittlee3704]

Parenting is a job. It’s a demanding one with real impact on the state. How much in taxes do we pay for incarceration when poor parenting is a factor. What does poor parenting cost our educational systems? Many women took the primary caregiver role of children historically. What is the value of their contribution? Were they paid accordingly?

[@owowow7509]

If paying people to do something doesn't work then you just don't pay enough.

[@Lycan3303]

It costs the same as a average American house to raise just one healthy child

[@Gazer-x5s]

It is too late, once the economy and corporates are doing the anti-family way to gain more profits by letting woman go into the workforce, then it is irreversible in the mindset of younger generations. There is no hope left for the future. There are two solutions, one is to recognise parenthood as a career with monthly payments from gov, two is to minimize the real-estate or social house businesses

[@rtothec1234]

From a social security standpoint, there is nothing worse than being a low income single male in Canada. Hardly any benefits for you, yet, you pay taxes so that everyone else can get benefits.

[@bb9a]

Eh, maximzing the quality of childrens lives and increasing automation seem to be a more important thing to do

[@brian1011234]

Just address the obstacles! Simple as that, if that means taxing monopoly’s, banks, mega corporations aggressively and cutting back some spending then so be it.

[@olivierdomingue6312]

Policies should focus on making basic needs more affordable, mostly housing cost. For instance, the laws should allow density and override NIMBY opposition for housing projects.

[@jerrik-415]

If any leader is worried about falling birth rates, they can start by removing barriers to having children. Healthcare, childcare, housing, and tax combined is more than some people's entire income, and the lack of parental leave, or any paid leave at all, is a huge burden. The US and countries like it are still anti-child.

[@psikeyhackr6914]

Why haven't our brilliant economists been advocating mandatory accounting in the schools? What do they say about planned obsolescence? Where is the data on the annual depreciation of automobiles purchased by American consumers since Sputnik? The peons are supposed to go into debt for junk designed to become obsolete!

[@war2thegrave]

The WEF's solution to the problem. Make the elderly want to delete themselves and replace the working class with outsiders who will work harder, accept less, and be more compliant to authority.

[@Gazer-x5s]

But birth rate in other cheap labour countries are getting declined too, so eventually there won't be new cheap workers, that solution wont last so long.

[@skylinefever]

The incoming crowd doesn't seem to care much for sexual consent laws.

[@doujinflip]

A big chunk of the baby bust comes from the collapse of teenage pregnancies. The faithful are able to keep up their numbers because they compel their girls to birth their own kids younger than the developed economy average, and once they become mothers (especially when young) the mental barrier to give them siblings drops dramatically.

[@Veylon]

Who could possibly be more compliant than current day Westerners?

[@war2thegrave]

@@Veylon Those who are completely dependent on the government to support their every need. The gravy train of 'free' stuff ends with the generation that arrives. Once their children have to support themselves, they will have no choice but to bend the knee.

[@ac1455]

13:20, Israel completely bucks the trend and does have a growing population by natural births. Even factoring out the Ultra orthodox ones who boost it higher, the tfr for non orthodox people is still well above the Replacement rate

[@matthewwukitch3735]

why do people always want to push for more babies? How about this care for the humans alive right now. it would be better to spend money on getting the under employed into jobs that has to be at least 10% of the population. another would be to address the massive number of people dying of violence, drug use, and suicide. even in the usa when we approach full employment (around 4.0-3.5 unemployment) there are a ton of people sitting out of contributing due to numerous factors lets tackle those.

[@bannedeverywhere]

Because at some point you end up with society where 20% of young people has to work their asses off to sustain 80% of old useless farts, maybe you're not smart enough to figure this out, but obviosuly you understand it's not stable situation which will eventually end up in genocide of old farts or mass emmigration of semi-enslaved young minority.

[@jf03cg]

Anyone who thinks the birth rate being below replacement is a "crisis" ... I invite you to ask when the last time your country had a replacement birth rate, and why all of a sudden it is a "crisis"? Example, in Canada, the last time the birth rate was "replacement level" was the late 1970's - hasn't been an issue for the last 50 years, why all of a sudden is it "something we need to fix asap" ... It isn't, it's a convenient deflection from more pressing concerns ...

[@billyponsonby]

No, the economic destroyer exists at the other end. Retirees, double pensions, hoarding property and cash, consuming huge public health spending living longer after work than they spent in work.

[@svr5423]

retirees have earned their wealth during their lifetime.

[@davideverling753]

⁠@@svr5423agreed. I’m 27 but man i can’t wait to see all the “old-people haters” suddenly change their tune and do a complete 180 once they’re approaching retirement.

[@manana1444]

@@davideverling753 Bold of you assuming anyone in their 20s right now will receive public pension.

[@shauncameron8390]

@@svr5423 At the expense of their grand-children as they voted for more debt to support the easy life.

[@andrasbiro3007]

@@svr5423 Skyrocketing national debts all over the world says otherwise.

[@limp6986]

Arguably, a declining population size is beneficial since a lot of jobs today will be replaced by AI and robots anyway. So less working people could technically earn more per capita, if corporations stop being greedy and stop accumulating all the wealth

[@rothn2]

To fix housing affordability, we would need to convince people who already have houses in an area to be OK with having more, or pass laws so that they don't have to be. Money alone will not fix housing affordability -- only an oversupply of housing will.

[@Lauren_C]

Part of the problem of the housing shortages, also lies with a shortage of builders willing to do so. Building more homes, even with the removal of the red tape, isn’t a simple fix.

[@skyvenrazgriz8226]

Well the billions from the billionares came from somewhere and i dont see families buying homes and having one person being the earner for it... We optimized capitalism to the point were it eats the socity it is based on.

[@zigm7420]

One thing that was missed in this video is the cost of infertility treatments, at least in the US. There are many people out there who would love to have families, but just can’t afford to with how outrageously expensive infertility treatments are.

[@bristoled93]

They could adopt.

[@chrisabler1925]

Declining populations may have negative effects on the economic numbers some seem to worship. "it's the economy stupid". But economies and the numbers they generate are mental constructs and a drastically declining population is most likely the only way the species can continue to exist in reality if staying on this planet with it's truly finite resources and the presumed environmental destruction, If economic numbers are so damned important, I suggest governments continue to creatively manipulate them as they currently do, and leave the childless alone if you can't find a compliment to give them. Elon Musk is doing a billionaires part to make sure he has a market in the future, so good for him!

[@bannedeverywhere]

Finite resources is a meme for brainlets tbh. I mean yeah in terms of economics there are limited resources for beaurocratic parasitical class to steal till there's nothing left for everyone else, but it's physically impossible do destroy iron, copper, water, and basically everything else humans need. If society is healthy it grows like US in 50-60, if it's sick, retarded and weak like now it's declining, it's typical pattern on societal degeneration which we could observe for last 6000 years in places like Roman republic, Ottoman empire, Quing china etc.

[@Kalatakieta]

The solution is to lower cost of living, but that'll never happen.

[@Nhexturtle]

maybe don't tax us to oblivion and we will have more kids

[@gringogreen4719]

The fundamental answer to this problem is from the one group who will ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to do their part. I'm talking about Employers. Wages have not kept up with costs of living and employers are not paying living wages, lwt along BETER than living wages. Its a culture of "Profits over EVERYTHING" and that is THE major component of why there are millions of missing babies.

[@endaohalloran6649]

I think any targeted programs for child birth, beyond fixing cost of living problems, would probably be most effective among parents who already have kids Its probably far easier to encourage a couple to have one more child than to try and get people with no kids to have them

[@alexanderx33]

14:20 Good economics instincs. The solution is not to compensate with government redistribution (a net theft since like converting energy there is always a heat loss ineffiency), the better solution is to eliminate inefficiencies that raise the cost of things to begin with.

[@Jose-ht2lw]

No amount of money will ever make me have children. My time is priceless.

[@matydavus1078]

Yeh, im selfish with my minimum wage fulltime job that i work 40 hours a week to just barely make enough to pay my bills, put food on my pkate and put petrol in my car Meanwhile people earn what i make in a year, weekly... im so selfish If u want people to make baby give us something to live for other then survival, if i had a child i wouldnt want is for them to live the way i do in the world i live in, the whole system is a joke, we are slaves to the government who itself is a slave for economy

[@Dexter01992]

It's also NOT a solution to give penalties to couples not having children, as "someone" has claimed he would like to do soon. Many people don't want to have children "yet" because they can't guarantee them to grow in a decent way without constantly being on the edge of going homeless. Taxing them as a form of punishment will make such people want children even less. You do not force others to have babies.

[@iambicpentakill971]

Also some people are unable. It's a very ableist policy

[@shauncameron8390]

@@iambicpentakill971 But those people exist because of the able.

[@janeteholmes]

If our economic system provided people with sufficient income to afford to have children and gave them a realistic expectation that things would get better rather than worse, they would do so. But, due to the greed of the ruling class, we’re living at or below subsistence and it is obvious that politically, everything is falling apart. Who wants to raise children only for them to die in the next round of world wars? Russia has made its intentions clear. They plan to retake every square mile of what was previously part of their empire, and no doubt any other territory that is insufficiently defended as well. China is similarly intent on invading Taiwan, and will very likely try to annex bits of Russia when it sees the chance. Why bring children into this maelstrom of disaster?

[@bristoled93]

There has always been wars and risks of wars and we are in the most peaceful time in history.

[@kuhniberti]

In the Warsaw pact countries, singles and childless couples could not obtain own apartments, but were more or less forced to stay with their parents. That was a much more effective way to entice people to have children than just taxing the childless: you were kept in a child status as long as you were not ready to produce kids yourself. Of course this only works in an unfree country with a government-controlled housing sector.

[@weiserwolf580]

yeah... and you can ask any person from a Warsaw Pact country how much they liked the government, they liked the government so much that they tried to fill them with lead, on multiple occasions

[@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986]

What about the large proportion of single parents in modern western countries? Do they get housing in this system or still live with parents because they’re not married? If they’re provided with housing due to having a child you would see a large increase in young single women deliberately getting pregnant from any random guy just to have a home and a much larger single male homeless problem in comparison. Nothing causes more instability in a society than actively disenfranchising young able-bodied men who are by far the fittest, strongest and most aggressive demographic in any country.

[@weiserwolf580]

@@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986 correction in the communist system, only the elites and those who paid bribes to directors from the local administration, received houses if they had a child, it was not as simple as the westoids of today, think

[@Someone-by6jm]

@@weiserwolf580 and it works,You westerners are extremely delusional that you think youre still livin in the 1980's

[@kuhniberti]

@@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986 the old socialist countries were extremely socially conservative. You had to be married to obtain a single room apartment, and married with kids to obtain 2-3 bedrooms. So no way for single moms marrying the state.

[@ZedTheThrid]

6:43 I just searched up what DINKWAD meant, almost spat out my tea I was drinking

[@Yort781]

Kippers really took me out

[@Yort781]

KIPPERS is the one that really took me out 😂

[@1370802]

I’m a SINKWAC

[@chefnyc]

The future is SITMC for many women over 35. (Single Income Too Many Cats)

[@Lauren_C]

@@1370802I’d probably settle for SINKWAR here, because rabbits are awesome.