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 -
Ok. Cards on the table- I'm a little worried about population collapse. But only a little. My ingroup is above replacement; more economically successful outgroups pushing dogs in strollers instead of breeding means more opportunities for my children, and those of my friends and relatives. I'm sick of subsidizing public school systems from which I derive no benefit except relentless demands for more money- asking what they need it for being proof you hate children, of course. Not that I have any illusions that the public school system won't continue demanding ever more money even if it has 0 enrollment.
Who do I think should be having more children? Well, I recognize that while teenagers getting married to someone suitable and having babies isn't the end of the world, it's also not going to happen. My heart does go out to the normie women who sacrifice big chunks of their fertility by cohabiting for five+ years before marriage- cohabitation is a bad thing just in general, but wreaking vengeance like that is sad to see. I would like to see early-twenties marriages, not partnerships, come back into fashion by getting cohabitation replaced with marriage.
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