These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.

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.

  • @Artyom@lemm.ee
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    437 months ago

    Raising a kid in America starts around $200k, conservatively. A 2-3k incentive or even 6 months of paid leave worth around 25k aren’t gonna make a dent.

    • @hightrix@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Give me 2-3k per month for 18 years plus cost of living increase at 5%+ per year and I’ll consider it.

      Otherwise, nah. Im good. I enjoy my free time and all the extra money I have due to no kids.

      • @Delta_V@midwest.social
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        37 months ago

        That’s still too cheap.

        There’s probably a price that could be paid to encourage a higher birth rate, but I doubt the governments who have attempted such programs were willing to aim high enough.