Often, when we look at disincentives for childbearing, we think of them in terms of opportunity costs for the individual. But if children are cumulatively being considered a societal good, we should also weigh the cumulative opportunity costs to the individuals as a societal tradeoff. It seems to me that Ron Hosh's substack (of "luxury belief" fame) generally lives up to its tagline of "general incoherence," but he raised this point/question in this post. The kids have to come from somewhere; what tradeoff(s) should society make?
Teenage pregnancy? Major tradeoff against developing the human capital of the parents and, thusly, the parents' ability to develop the human capital of the children. (And, if you want to follow the HBD line of inquiry, you might hypothesize dysgenic selection effects.)
College students? Lesser tradeoff than above, but same general issue.
20-something professionals? We're taking human capital out of the economy, just after investing in its development, rather than trying to maximize its compound interest.
Hosh also brings up geography and sexual orientation (same-sex couples using IVF is a thing), though I don't think the tradeoffs here are as clear.
Have any of you thought about this? My answer to "Which couples should be having more children" is "All the couples who don't have as many children as they want" which I don't think cleaves cleanly enough across any demographic to give a more clear tradeoff than the subsidies required to support the children not-conceived out of financial concern. But others here are more open to social engineering than I am.
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Notes -
I mean, when the alternative is that your society ceases to exist, none of these sound like particularly big tradeoffs to me. One more meta-level consideration is the balance between different family structures, with the nuclear family probably reducing fertility rates relative to more communitarian/multi-generational systems, but perhaps producing a more independent-minded and creative citizenry.
The structure of PMC families as they exist in the US nowadays in particular i.e. move far away from home at 18, get married late and have one or two children, either spend a lot of money on childcare services or expend a lot of time and energy as a helicopter parent, your children have minimal exposure to extended relatives growing up, etc. seems designed to maximize the expense of raising children (e.g. grandparents are too old or far away, can't usually ask your neighbor to watch all the kids for the day for free) while minimizing the childcare experience of prospective parents (e.g. no more leaving 10 year olds alone at home to watch their younger siblings, if they even have any). Imagine throwing someone who had never even ridden in a car before behind the wheel on the highway; all the talk in the world about the wonders of car ownership would do little to soothe their anxiety.
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