[cgbg]

Birth rates are easy to fix with government policy.

You get more of what you reward.

You get less of what you punish.

[packagingguy]

Hungary pays its citizens to have kids because so many people have left.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Birth rates are easy to fix with government policy.

Suppression of birth rates can be accomplished through tyrannical government policy, as the PRC has illustrated.

Booming birth rates and overpopulation can also be accomplished through socialist/Communist government policies which leave most citizens in poverty and make having many children an economic necessity.

Encouraging high birth rates or even replacement birth rates in relatively free societies with decent standards of living and equality for women is something that has not been achieved yet. Japan hasn't solved it, and neither have we - if not for legal and illegal immigration, the US population would be shrinking right now.

[Vermont Lt]

They are called exemptions/deductions and child care tax credits.

How much more do people want us to pay?

Of course when we outlaw abortions, some people are not going to like what happens in their cities.

[Truthsearcher]

3 Factors that heavily influence birth date.

1. % of women between age of 20-30 who are married
2. Female participation rate in the labor force
3. Divorce rate.

No amount of incentives can change the birth rate unless these 3 fundamental numbers change.

[fuzzylogic]

I’d agree to a point...but not on this topic. There’s challenges that are engrained in the problem. It’s not just birth rates going down, people in Japan are having less sex! Fewer married couples *want* children, offering financial benefits may help but it isn’t enough.

I was talking to a colleague in Japan about this. He mentioned that they’re taking care of the problem through immigration. I was surprised, he mentioned I’d been walking past many people that weren’t Japanese but probably wouldn’t have noticed. Which was very intriguing, when they say “immigration”, they don’t mean non-Asians (white/black/middle-eastern, etc.), only those from Asian countries (yet they claim there’s no ‘racism’ in Japan, which makes me chuckle a bit).

The problem, as I understand it, is worse in China. Even though they’ve stopped the “one child” policy, they can’t change the economic situation most couples find themselves, and the government can’t provide economic support for so many people to have more kids. Even though they’re allowed to now, they’re choosing not to.

This seems to be a huge problem and isn’t an easy fix.