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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   37129 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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Given the discussion here in the past about this topic, I'd guess most people would cynically posit that the government financially incentivizing people to have more babies couldn't possibly work and would just add needless bureaucracy.

As far as I can recall, the usual point is that it is observed not to work.

Is it observed not to work, or do people just assume it doesn't work without checking? My impression is that it totally works but we don't do it anyway (relevant graphs are on on page 67). The upshot is that the Swedish government changed a policy from providing benefits if children were born within 24 months of each other to the same benefit but within 30 months instead, and the number of children born with a between-24-and-30-month gap roughly 1.5x'd while birth rates by age gap stayed pretty much the same for every other age gap. It was not a subtle effect.

They might be referring to Communist Romania, though Ceaucescu mandated rather than incentivized.

Plenty of regimes incentivised having a big family: Jus trium liberorum of Ancient Rome, Battle for Births of Mussolini's Italy, "Médaille d'honneur de la famille française" of France, "Cross of Honour of the German Mother" of Nazi Germany.

The medals probably came with some cash reward.

Your recollection is probably correct. I should have it worded it more like "has never worked empirically and as such is almost definitely not going to work in this case" rather than "couldn't possibly work."

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