Elizabeth Nolan Brown and Scott Winship: Governments Can't Increase Birthrates. They Shouldn't Even Try.

The right and the left are pushing pro-natalist polices that have never worked and are deeply misguided.

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Elizabeth Nolan Brown and Scott Winship: Governments Can't Increase Birthrates. They Shouldn't Even Try.

This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream that takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern.

The topic this week was whether falling birthrates in the United States and other countries are a bad thing that governments should try to reverse. My guests were Reason Senior Editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown, whose June cover story is "Storks Don't Take Orders From the State," and Scott Winship, who runs the American Enterprise Institute's Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility and has written widely on the myths and realities about economic and cultural decline.

We talk about whether past government policies have proven effective in changing birthrates, whether the state should be involved in such decisions from a moral perspective, and why the right and left are increasingly committed to pro-natalist policies.

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Comments

[Michael Ejercito]

Governments can increase birth rates by hosting mixed-sex unchaperoned slumber parties for teens aged 14-18, with open bar.

I wonder what the downside would be.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Mixed sex? Are you a science denier?

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[Mother's Lament]

"mixed-sex unchaperoned slumber parties"

All 93 sexes and 128 genders?

Anyway, the whole idea is ridiculous. Everyone knows that population levels only maintain themselves through unfettered immigration.

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[CE]

Someday in the not too distant future, AI will be so advanced it can detect clever spam posts that start with "Great article, Mike...." and automatically delete them and ban the spammer.

[TheReEncogitationer]

All Hail The Robot Overlords who do this! (Though it is funny to josh with AngelinaJolie when she posts.)

[Carey Allison]

Angelina never replied to my question about what all was available "on the menu" in her webcam show.

[Nobartium]

Such a position is literally "manage the decline". I guess we are done being Americans, we have now become the British (politically and socially,).

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Except we have guns.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

We're working on that.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

If they wanted to make everyone safe, they’d take guns away from cops too.

[A Thinking Mind]

They’ve pushed this story like 3 different times.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

They need to replace the natives.

[rev-arthur-l-kuckland]

They need to replace ENB.

[Mother's Lament]

Governments can't increase birthrates, but they can stop pushing and funding things that decrease birthrates, like "gender affirming" castration and abortion until birth.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Government: “we need more people!”
Also government: “kill all the people!”

[CE]

The main reason for declining birth rates in the past century is the practice of old age pensions being paid by the state. People no longer need kids to help take care of them in their old age.

[Brett Bellmore]

Bingo! It's the tragedy of the commons, with the next generation rendered a commons.

In fact, I've seen a study of childbirth incentives, and they actually do work. It's just that they're about ten times too small in most trials to have enough effect, given all the anti-natal policies already pushing the other way.

[Carey Allison]

Au contraire, mon ami. There are any number of things the government does and can do, that do and will affect the number of children born, though admittedly some of these measures have greater effect in some demographic groups than in other demographic groups.
Examples:
(1) provide tax paid benefits to based on the number of offspring, without any consideration to the marital status of the mother at the time of conception or delivery.
(2) provide tax exemptions to encourage having offspring, regardless of marital status.
(3) have no limit to the amounts that can be collected in benefits as long as it's "for the chilluns".
(4) have no limit to the amount of tax deductions that can be claimed, regardless of circumstances e.g., marital status at the time of conception or delivery.
(5) declare by law that bastards are as entitled as legitimate children to public welfare, inheritance, etc.
(6) when the currently-in-place steps above do not entice wombs to become satisfactorily productive, raise the income tax rates so that without the "exemptions and deductions" for offspring, the rates are ruinous for anyone making above minimum wage
(7) limit by law the options that the childless have, under the guise of it all being "for the chilluns", e.g., vehicle choice and size, grocery options, increase property taxes based if occupants/square foot of housing is "too low"
(8) use all measures available to eliminate any benefit to the children or the mother if parents are married, and make equal if not superior the benefits received by single mothers as opposed to married mothers e.g., certain benefits are available only to unmarried moms
(9) make court-ordered child support "golden" for single mom sperm-jacking, backed by strict "civil" penalties (including incarceration) for those resistant to or unable to pay levels of support that make Mom's standard of living highly dependent on "squeezing 'em out". Make court ordered child support available based on "Mom's best guess" about who Dad might be, without proof required. Allow child support to be ordered against multiple men rather than just one, again based on "Mom's best guess". (After all, it is for the chilluns.)
(10) make illegal the permanent sterilization of either sex unless satisfactory proof of having at least three children if available; consider making vasectomy per se illegal so that all reproduction decisions other than celibacy are in the hands of the female

Some of the above are already law. Many of these have already been tried and approved in 1930's Germany, and here in the good ol' U.S. of A. The rest of the measures are available options for the government to consider (if you're not too picky about who you incentivize to reproduce).

[Religion and Politics, my life]

Hungary’s Constitution clearly defines both marriage and parents. Marriage is “the union of a man and a woman established by voluntary decision…and is the basis of the survival of the nation. Family ties shall be based on marriage and/or the relationship between parents and children.” (Article L.1)

That would help a lot.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Hmm, maybe we should "discourage" abortions. But then we would get even more of "those" people.

[Nardz]

ENB is pro abortion and anti natalist.
Why possible justification is there for anyone to take such a malignant tumor seriously?

[MasterThief]

Definitely the wrong person and wrong outlet to talk down to people about population decline. Reason is an enthusiastic supporter of abortion and all manner of social ills that make it harder to build and maintain families.
The disgusting portion of this is that while they decry attempts to reverse the decline of native birth rates they also advocate for unfettered immigration as a political solution to the burden of social programs on a declining population. They outright are taking all of the positions in favor of replacement theory while also saying those people are crazy conspiricists.
There are thing the government can do (or more importantly, stop doing) that will allow birth rates to rise naturally. The problem is that the people who push for political solutions all seem to like the policies leading to the decline and favor foreigners to fill the gap.

[Religion and Politics, my life]

Reason disillusions many people by their constant attacks on religion, family, morality.

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[mtrueman]

"Definitely the wrong person and wrong outlet to talk down to people about population decline. Reason is an enthusiastic supporter of abortion and all manner of social ills that make it harder to build and maintain families."

Blaming Reason for declining birthrates is the height of stupidity. South Korea and Taiwan have even steeper declines and they don't speak English or read Reason.

"There are thing the government can do (or more importantly, stop doing) that will allow birth rates to rise naturally. "

Like banning Reason? Ridiculous.

[Religion and Politics, my life]

Wow! An honest whopper of a fallacy

"South Korea and Taiwan have even steeper declines and they don’t speak English or read Reason." --- but that in no way exonerates Reason, just the opposite, if you know the fallacy of the common cause, which you do not

The fallacy of ignoring common cause occurs when one notices a constant correlation between A and B and assumes A caused B (or vice versa) while ignoring that there is a third variable, C, that causes both and therefore accounts for the correlation.

[Religion and Politics, my life]

If you can't put out every fire you can at least stop lighting them
Government caused the birth decline.

[Cloudbuster]

From elizabethnolanbrown.com:

"Brown currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her husband Swin and their two cats, Esme & Gemini."

Woman with two cats and no children tries to pass herself off as an expert on what can or can't be done about birthrates.

Bzzzzzzz. Thanks for playing.

[DesigNate]

Didn’t ENB have a baby a couple years ago?

Also, not having kids shouldn’t disqualify you from being part of the conversation. Actively spamming for unfettered immigration and abortion already does that.

[buybuydandavis]

"Aprez-Moi, Le Deluge!"

Just as the government can do plenty to decrease birth rates with mass immigration, they can do plenty to increase birth rates by ending mass immigration.

[CE]

Hey, that wouldn't have been a bad add-on to the COVID stimulus packages -- give married couples a coupon for a fancy dinner out and nice hotel room.

[mtrueman]

Extinction is something to worry about. Declining birthrates, on the other hand, are a natural, rational and desirable adaption on the part of a population (animal or vegetable) to environmental signals.

[Religion and Politics, my life]

You commit a language mistake and a logical fallacy
First of all, it is pure babble to separate extinction from declining birthrates since all extinctions must have a declining birthrate. They don't just go "whooosh"

Populations have no rational element separate from the rationality of its members and one of those members just complained about declining birthrates and you ignored it based on a non-existent group mind.

Almost prehistoric are your mental powers.

[Ben_]

Government could easily increase birth rates by lowering the drinking age to 20 or 19. They should do that — not for birth rates but because prohibition is bad.

[mtrueman]

South Korea's legal drinking age is 19. It has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. In North Korea it's 18 but not strictly enforced.

[Ben_]

Different culture, different issue.

[mtrueman]

Koreans get drunk when they drink, different culture notwithstanding. That goes for North Koreans, too.

[Ben_]

"Different culture" doesn’t imply chemistry and biology don’t work the same. It implies people respond differently.

[tlapp]

Entitlements built on a Ponzi scheme. They want people to birth more indentured servants.
When and how many children to have is no place for government intervention.

[mtrueman]

The state exists to expand and intensify its grip on land and people. It requires the growth of the economy and the markets to prosper. Absent that, you've got a failed state on your hands. You don't want that, do you?