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  1. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by I Push Buttons View Post
    You already get maternity leave, tax incentives, and some places even paternity leave...

    What more can the government do besides give you free money forever for having a kid?
    I guess, I would prefer that over not actually solving the problem of less people having kids.

  2. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by tumppu View Post
    ^Just pin this to the top and you can explain all the countries with lower birth rates. No need to limit it to southern european countries.

    I dare say the lesser religious influence in peoples lives also plays a significant role. It's pretty much lampshaded in several points already, though.
    Yeah, religion kind of barred divorce, forced the nuclear family, put women into childbearing and raising roles, and turned sex into something only for kids and not for pleasure. It created long-term marriages with 6+ kids. Plus, in a lot of societies pre-WW2, a woman's value was centered around her ability to produce children.
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  3. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by ro9ue View Post
    Why can't you let me have my fun theory? JEEZ
    I appreciated it!
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  4. #44
    good, very good. there should be less childbirth, not more.

  5. #45
    Good! We need less people in the world (especially in first world countries) so we can save the planet.

  6. #46
    As an aside to my previous post, I think that lowered rates of childbirth is good for a society. We should work on maintaining our populations, not expanding. In some areas, population decline would be needed. I.e. Eastern Asia.
    “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
    – C.S. Lewis

  7. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by Anni View Post
    No, it's nothing to do with nature. Economics, access to contraception, religion and cultural factors are what is behind low or high birth rates.
    Why can't that be the natural evolution of humans? I mean it's not like anything supernatural is going on, literally everything in our world is natural.


    We're the natural process that creates internet

  8. #48
    This makes perfect sense. Wealth, social freedom and education has all dramatically improved in the west. Why people would want children is a bigger mystery as it ruins your life.

  9. #49
    Herald of the Titans Baine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Anni View Post
    No, it's nothing to do with nature. Economics, access to contraception, religion and cultural factors are what is behind low or high birth rates.
    And education (unless you considered education within "cultural factors".

  10. #50
    It's fascinating how Tenrisface immediately tries to spin it in a way that makes immigration a god-sent. Why does this need to be about immigration? Why is this newsworthy? Since when is it unusual for a western country to have declining/stagnant birth rates? Though I guess for southern europe with their extremly kidfriendly culture it speaks more about the socio-economic issues they face than the usual prosperity induced lethargy in other countries.

  11. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by Tennisace View Post
    With a growing elderly population, it's pretty clear that these governments need to rely on immigration otherwise their entire social systems will collapse.
    Better solution : as we can't have world population growing forever, we'll need one day or another to deal with the fact that populations are going to grow older and decline until we reach an equilibrium.
    Rather than import people and just kick the can down the road, let's find how to rearrange society to manage such situation sooner instead of later.

  12. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by Tennisace View Post
    Per BBC



    With a growing elderly population, it's pretty clear that these governments need to rely on immigration otherwise their entire social systems will collapse.

    At the end of the day it's the choice of these women not to have children so it is what it is.
    Are you talking about the populace simply disappearing or keeping the productivity / pensions?

    The first is an unlikely scenario, it will shrink, but hardly ever disappear. You will need to automate more processes to adapt to the lack of labor, but with the your populace shrinking, so would the demand to certain jobs.

    If you are talking about the later, then the current model it is quite inefficient, since the vast majority of the immigrants are unemployed and are on welfare (at least in Germany, the best number I could find is that 3% of the immigrants got a job so far). If you really wanted productive immigrants you could have easily recruited then from third world country with a good education system and western values (India, Russia and Latin America, for instance).

  13. #53
    Deleted
    Tennispro, of course, won't post that with present flow of 90% male refugee children to Sweden, the Swedish Teen Sex Ratio will in 4 months be like in China: 120 boys/100 girls.

    You can guess the short, medium and long-term results of such an idiotic policy.
    More violence, more sexual assaults, more rapes. More misery, more broken lives.

    But muh diversity.

  14. #54
    Once you see through the lingering cultural notion that raising children is noble, there's not much left for motivation. There are a lot of negatives. Giving some tax breaks isn't going to make up for that.

    If you're wealthy then you can just hire people to do the work whenever you want to do something else. Hell, you can have full time staff at home. But, if you're just a regular person then having children will completely wreck your life and your future.

  15. #55
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Raybourne View Post
    Good! We need less people in the world (especially in first world countries) so we can save the planet.
    We need less people in third world shitholes and second-tier countries like China and India, if you are oh so worried about the preservation of this planet.
    They are the worlds largest polluters and their role in the destruction of wild life will only increase, meanwhile wild life in Europe and Russia is regaining some of the lost space.

  16. #56
    I always find it weird people don't just see it as them blatantly trying to keep down wages.

    They admitted it themselves already..

  17. #57
    Kind of dishonest to call it "involuntary childlessness."

  18. #58
    I am Murloc! Grym's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by I Push Buttons View Post
    You already get maternity leave, tax incentives, and some places even paternity leave...

    What more can the government do besides give you free money forever for having a kid?
    The problem is:

    Maternity Leave - First 9 months are paid, at a statutory amount, which is pretty much fuck all. Many women wanted to go back to work ASAP because the money you get from the government is nowhere near their salary. Oh and after 9 months it is unpaid.

    Paternity - it shares with Maternity, so the 9 months get used up faster, and during this time again they earn the statutory amount which is fuck all.

    Tax Incentive - no where, even close, to scratch a tiniest dent on the cost of a child.


    Having a child is a commitment, now taking the financial hit on top of that, many people don't think it is worth it anymore, especially the newer generations where they want the best for themselves, having a child involve sacrificing too much for them to want to do it.

  19. #59
    Herald of the Titans Berengil's Avatar
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    I think the scholarly work on this is pretty clear: as societies become wealthy, more educated, and more technologically advanced, the trend is towards a substantial drop in fertility.

    I'd say a global population of about 1 billion could be sustained at a Western standard of living (by the end of this century & given technological advances in energy production). The problem is both:

    1) keeping global society stable (economically & politically) during the transition

    2) coming up with an economic model for a society of ZPG (zero population growth), not shrinking & not growing, just replacement rate
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  20. #60
    Titan I Push Buttons's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grym View Post
    The problem is:

    Maternity Leave - First 9 months are paid, at a statutory amount, which is pretty much fuck all. Many women wanted to go back to work ASAP because the money you get from the government is nowhere near their salary. Oh and after 9 months it is unpaid.

    Paternity - it shares with Maternity, so the 9 months get used up faster, and during this time again they earn the statutory amount which is fuck all.

    Tax Incentive - no where, even close, to scratch a tiniest dent on the cost of a child.


    Having a child is a commitment, now taking the financial hit on top of that, many people don't think it is worth it anymore, especially the newer generations where they want the best for themselves, having a child involve sacrificing too much for them to want to do it.
    And?

    Its a personal commitment. One the government already rewards you for.

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