These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.
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If history is any guide, none of this will work: No matter what governments do to convince them to procreate, people around the world are having fewer and fewer kids.
In the US, the birth rate has been falling since the Great Recession, dropping almost 23 percent between 2007 and 2022. Today, the average American woman has about 1.6 children, down from three in 1950, and significantly below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children needed to sustain a stable population. In Italy, 12 people now die for every seven babies born. In South Korea, the birth rate is down to 0.81 children per woman. In China, after decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, the population is shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. In Taiwan, the birth rate stands at 0.87.
My friend lost his apartment to a fire so I took him in with my wife and kids while he got back on his feet. He was working class, his parents were neglectful and died young, his other family hated him, and he was left to fight for scraps and fend for himself.
He saw me give love to my kids, he saw the freedom we gave them to explore the world around them and their feelings, to exist without fear. One day my friend got home from work and the two kids ran over screaming “UNCLE!” and hugged him. He teared up a little and hugged them back, then he asked me to chat outside for a bit.
He laid it all out and said he wants kids. He never thought he could subject them to the life he lived but after seeing mine he realized he didn’t have to. He said watching them grow up and being a part of it has been very rewarding. He has since started a business, almost entirely stopped drinking and smoking, invested his money in multiple places, and is now dating.
Kids are a lot of work, but they’re also fantastic at showing you what actually matters in life. So much of the bullshit we think matters is just fluff.
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