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.
I am you. I have two kids and fucking hell our expenses are getting out of control. Fortunately we spaced them out enough that only one is in day/preschool. But it’s still basically impossible to justify my wife being employed with only our youngest kid’s expenses. Looking at $2.5k per month of childcare expenses for one kid makes me want to give up.
My state, Oregon, passed a leave law that is currently saving our lives. Extra 4 weeks of leave that can be taken intermittently. We are financially fucked the moment we are out of our state leave. For reference I have an MS in ME and work in manufacturing. And my wife is one of the highest paid dental assistants I’m aware of.