These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.
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If history is any guide, none of this will work: No matter what governments do to convince them to procreate, people around the world are having fewer and fewer kids.
In the US, the birth rate has been falling since the Great Recession, dropping almost 23 percent between 2007 and 2022. Today, the average American woman has about 1.6 children, down from three in 1950, and significantly below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children needed to sustain a stable population. In Italy, 12 people now die for every seven babies born. In South Korea, the birth rate is down to 0.81 children per woman. In China, after decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, the population is shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. In Taiwan, the birth rate stands at 0.87.
Here’s the core problem: people can’t afford to have kids. Until economies are restructured so that a family can reasonably and rationally survive on a single income, you aren’t going to see birthrates rise.
Alternatively, you could ban any and all forms of birth control, and institute a state-religion that tied into your economic system, so that people had huge economic incentives to appear outwardly devout. Handmaid’s Tale, et al.
We had vast universal childcare during the commie period where I grew up. That made it possible for two working parents to have children. The population grew steadily throughout the whole period, until the fall of the regime. It’s been in free fall since then.
IMO it’s better to have a parent taking care of their children–I’m agnostic on whether that should be a mom or a dad in a traditional heterosexual, nuclear family–because that seems to help children develop better emotionally. Childcare in general is more impersonal. BUT the system that your country had under communism is still better than what we have in the US right now.
Anecdotally, I loved child care. I preferred being among other children heck of a lot more than being at home with my parents. It might be good for the parents as well to be on equal footing instead of one being the “breasmaker.” That introduces a natural power imbalance in the relationship which you have to struggle to not let become detrimental.
Subsidized child care for younger ages (under first grade at public school) would be a good alternative too. We don’t need every job to be able to support a family of 4. When women joined the workforce during wartime and maintained that working position, the economy and jobs shifted to paying less because less was needed and we had a larger paid workforce. With that said, that means that a 2 income household should be able to afford kids, and it cannot without external help from other family.
Shortly after I had my first kiss in late high school my mother got drunk and informed me I would receive no help or support if I went and got myself pregnant. Here I am 15 years later, married and aiming for a kid, and I know her words will be true today too.
Some families are able to live closer to each other and help each other raise kids, but the modern economy doesn’t allow for people to stay in the same area as easily. Almost every job requires you to move to a different state hundreds of miles each time, every few years. And most people need to change jobs due to stagnant wages, it’s the only way to receive a raise.
Yes, but also no. IMO, every job should at a bare minimum pay a living wage, by which I mean a wage that allows a person to live reasonably: healthy food, reliable transportation, a single bedroom apartment, the ability to do things that for entertainment, healthcare, and the ability to have a realistic retirement savings plan. While a single job may not–strictly speaking–need to be able to support a family of 4, each job should be able to support at least two people, assuming that you want each family to have at least two children.
Subsidized child care only goes so far, esp. when one or both parents are working jobs that aren’t 9-5.
OTOH, I think that a significant reduction in the human population, particularly in the most developed countries, is probably a good thing. Even if that means that the remainder need to pay sharply higher taxes (oh no, won’t someone think of the Republicans! :'( ).