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 -
MAD
The dissolution needs to be socially and economically destructive.
Also divorce is only in the event of sexual immortality.
Need to fix schools too. Most of the other parents we know with 4 or more are also homeschooling.
It used to be, for women. Good luck convincing women there's anything men will do to make it so for them.
My grandmother divorced my grandfather because he was an irredeemable alcoholic who when he was home beat them. There may have been, and probably was, infidelity. But in the 50s she would have, and been expected to, look the other way.
As much as I love my husband, I would not have married him or had a child with him if the options available to me if he hurt our child were the options my grandmothers had. I would leave him in a heartbeat if he hurt our child, but likely be able to find a path through sexual immorality. He has expressed similar to me.
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