Lack of children - what should the authorities do, if anything?

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


I just read about a county in Norway with a bad case of dwindling population. Norway has fairly stringent immigration laws, so the solution could not be had there. Also, this place was far out in the boondocks, so one could not expect any internal migration from bigger population centra.

Norway (population 4 million, 2000 counties) has resisted the amalgamation of smaller counties, and instead opted to use a considerable proportion of its oil wealth to support small counties who could not make the debit/credit match otherwise. But, even if those small counties survive economically, they still have to survive personally, which is where the crunch is.

So, how did this county do to prop up its sagging population? The country leadership decided that couples who already had kids in the kindergarten could pay to have the kindergarten take care of them during an entire night, for the princely sum of 50$. The not demanded, but intended quid-pro-quo was that mom and dad would use the undisturbed evening to make new little Norwegians.

The town beside mine (in Sweden) did another, more irritating way a few years ago. They chose a residential area and simply said that it should have some more kids, and that the county should do something about that. So they decided to make a black-out of that area for one evening, with no compensation for those who disliked it. Turned out that it had no intended effect. That can of things can be done if one lives in a jurisdiction where there is extremely little protection for those not in the majority.

So, if you were part of the county leadership of a small county with sufficient funds and a crashing population - and enticing immigration was not an option - what would you do? Should county leaderships do anything at all in that situation?



Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Inquartata]

Do nothing. Let the area go back to wilderness. Plant trees. Make Al Gore proud.

Seriously...why must human occupation of every inhabited area be continued?
In the American West we have the quaint phenomenon of the ghost town. It has not led to the diminution of America in any significant way.

[Zilverzmurfen]

How silly. I would do nothing, of course.

I think it's wrong to promote bringing more children into this world. People who want to have children will get it anyway, regardless of population statistics...

I'm not saying that people should not breed, just that I think it's wrong to promote more life brought onto a planet overpopulated already.

[Philistine]

It's not so much the fact of attempts to promote having children that seems strange, to me, in Peter's examples. It's the rather odd way they chose to further the aim.

The US also puts policies in place to promote having children (certain tax policies and other). What it doesn't do is enact policies to try to have its citizens have more sex--which doesn't seem like a particularly effective way to promote having children....

--Philistine

[Slim]

Hi!


I just read about a county in Norway with a bad case of dwindling population. Norway has fairly stringent immigration laws, so the solution could not be had there. Also, this place was far out in the boondocks, so one could not expect any internal migration from bigger population centra.

Norway (population 4 million, 2000 counties) has resisted the amalgamation of smaller counties, and instead opted to use a considerable proportion of its oil wealth to support small counties who could not make the debit/credit match otherwise. But, even if those small counties survive economically, they still have to survive personally, which is where the crunch is.

So, how did this county do to prop up its sagging population? The country leadership decided that couples who already had kids in the kindergarten could pay to have the kindergarten take care of them during an entire night, for the princely sum of 50$. The not demanded, but intended quid-pro-quo was that mom and dad would use the undisturbed evening to make new little Norwegians.

The town beside mine (in Sweden) did another, more irritating way a few years ago. They chose a residential area and simply said that it should have some more kids, and that the county should do something about that. So they decided to make a black-out of that area for one evening, with no compensation for those who disliked it. Turned out that it had no intended effect. That can of things can be done if one lives in a jurisdiction where there is extremely little protection for those not in the majority.

So, if you were part of the county leadership of a small county with sufficient funds and a crashing population - and enticing immigration was not an option - what would you do? Should county leaderships do anything at all in that situation?



Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

Why not change the immigration policies and relocate people that live in areas like Darfur to these remote areas. Think of the humanitarian rewards for such a noble act. You'd most definitely get the nomination for a Nobel Peace prize as well.

Sounds like a slam dunk, win/win situation all around.

[scrapinpeg]

The policy is to increase native population. Forget the wisdom, rightness or wrongness of the policy -- that's not the issue. (And developed countries do have a strong policy interest in growing populations for good economic reasons: dynamic economies, innovation, economic growth, sufficient workers to support the retired and unemployes, and a sufficient tax base for the broad governmental services all require steady population growth. Population growth is a problem only in underdeveloped countries. All of Western Europe is presently suffering from "lowest-load" fertility, from which no country has ever yet recovered. It's a serious issue.) The issue of this thread is merely how best to put the policy into effect.

The attempted methods failed because they did not take into account the reason for the dwindling native population.

The locals are not in need of opportunities for sex. They're not dwindling in numbers because they don't have enough sex. They're dwindling in numbers because they're not using their sexual activities to produce children at a replacement rate (2.1 per woman) or better.

Sex does tend to result in procreation, unless people actively choose to engage in contraception. The people there are obviously choosing to have fewer children, therefore. The issue is not getting enough sex, the issue is about making people want to have more children than they presently do.

Why don't they want more children at present?

There are several reasons, of course. But the main ones appear to be simple costs and benefits. As societies urbanize, there is less need for children around the house to help out. On the contrary, they become vastly more expensive. The cost of raising an additional child in a developed country is enormous. And that's just the cost of schooling, feeding and clothing the kid. There are also opportunity costs of putting aside a woman's income while she raises the child, or the high cost of paying someone else to raise the kid for her while she goes back to work.

Europeans don't love children any less than anyone else. They simply must bear a significant personal and economic burden when they choose to have a child.

Many who have studied the problem have concluded that, in the environment of a developed modern country, the rules of "survival of the fittest" are just as strong as anywhere else, but the "fittest" to survive are those who are unburdened by children. Children are an obstacle to material success, and the most successful people have the fewest children.

If a government wants to change that fact, it's going to have to enact policies that give people an incentive to have more children. And it has to be a material, financial incentive.

Significant tax breaks for each additional child are the primary means for governments to do that. It's an investment in growth, an investment of tax revenue today for the assurance of tax revenue tomorrow. This is simply the smartest way for governments to increase population starting immediately.

Of course, the long-term fix requires cultural evolution. It will take generations to undo the damage of the spiraling populations. Fortunately, Europe was lucky enough to get wealthy before it hit the demographic wall. Other countries have not been so lucky. Mexico, for example, is aging just as fast as Europe or Japan, as its families are having just as few children. But it doesn't have the wherewithal to take care of its aging population that the more successful countries have had. It might not have the generations necessary to save itself from implosion. Europe at least has a chance.

[mrbiggs]

Abstinence-only education.

[PalmFrond]

I seem to remember reading a few years ago that the French government put financial incentives (quite a generous monetary allowance, tax deductions) into place to encourage citizens to have more children, with a measure of success. On the other hand, although the French indigenous population is growing their countryside is becoming depopulated...So these sorts of policies don't necessarily have any effect on a local level.

[Inquartata]

The cost of raising an additional child in a developed country is enormous. And that's just the cost of schooling, feeding and clothing the kid. There are also opportunity costs of putting aside a woman's income while she raises the child, or the high cost of paying someone else to raise the kid for her while she goes back to work.

Europeans don't love children any less than anyone else. They simply must bear a significant personal and economic burden when they choose to have a child.

That doesn't explain why the same problem doesn't exist in other developed countries---especially in ones less economically socialized than Sweden, such as, say, the US.

I mean, if countries which provide far fewer publicly-funded benefits to parents ( and indeed citizens generally ) are still experiencing higher birth rates, then something else must be at work. And since there ARE several such countries...

Me, I blame the cold weather.

[scrapinpeg]

Bah! You make me reconsider my opinion.

Now I have to go hit something.

[lindajdunn]

I would provide economic incentives.

Reduce the tax burden and increase the level of subsidized services for those with children.

Hire a PR firm and have them do a little effective advertising to enhance the image of parenting. This would NOT necessarily mean advertising. It could be something as simple as initiating some local programs and positive product placement in movies, etc.

[ThatReallyHurt]

I would provide economic incentives.

Reduce the tax burden and increase the level of subsidized services for those with children.

Hire a PR firm and have them do a little effective advertising to enhance the image of parenting. This would NOT necessarily mean advertising. It could be something as simple as initiating some local programs and positive product placement in movies, etc.

I agree with this... there are a number of places in Canada where the popluation is dropping off. A few of those places have advertised, offered cheap land/housing, and provided tax breaks or other incentives for businesses. It's worked in (at least) some cases, but I'm not sure if it's more that there'll be population growth, or if these communities are just siphoning people out of other areas.

[downunder]

I think you guys have missed the point that 'depopulation' is not really the concern here... rather that an aging population is a very serious issue.

[scrapinpeg]

I think you guys have missed the point that 'depopulation' is not really the concern here... rather that an aging population is a very serious issue.

No, I think people here understand that. Depopulation and the the aging of a population are two related repercussions of the failure to procreate at a replacement rate. These effects have their own repercussions, as well. But the ultimate issue is insufficient procreation.

The two related effects are both significant for societies where the government provides many services, because they both reduce the tax base that pays for the services.

The aging effect is a corollary effect to the tax base / social services problem, because the elderly tend not to be economically productive, while using disproportionately high amounts of public treasure. A society with too many old folks will at some point be unable to afford all the governmental services.

The depopulation effect has significant repercussions that are not corollaries to the tax base / social services problem. Depopulation reduces the innovation, variety, robust ability to withstand economic shocks, and other elements necessary for a thriving economy and society.

Failure to procreate at a replacement rate means that a country must either import a thriving productive population from other places (as the USA does) or start getting the natives to have more kids. (Nonproductive immigrants who use more government services than they provide, either because they cannot, will not, or are prevented from contributing economically, are of course just going to make things worse. This is becoming a problem in some countries with closed labor forces or other barriers to immigrant productivity.)

[Phaeton]

Keeping population at a level where it self sustains and funds fundamental social services is important. Whether or not there's a good way to get people to have more children I'm not all that sure.

I think Scrapinpeg's original explanation of why populations are declining in the US and Europe is in many ways a good one. The reason is probably more complex, and there are other factors, but ultimately I think there is a strong economic correlation.

The cost of raising children is high. There is no way the government can provide enough tax incentive over the lifetime of a child to begin to justify the expenses spent raising the child.

The places where there is a strong push to have children aren't exactly the placesthat need population growth. The problem of child birth rates is the root of a lot of other problems.

The countries with the most control over resources to sustain a large population with a decent quality of life are mostly in the northern hemisphere, are. These countries have declining birth rates in general. The population with the least amount of resources in the southern hemisphere is one that is growing.

There's enough food to feed people in the world. The problem is getting the food where it needs to go. There's enough labor to support the world. The problem is getting people educated and where they need to go. The issue seems to be more importing labor and having a group of immigrants that can integrate rather succesfully into society quickly.

Importing labor isn't always the best solution. Israelis are having fewer children than their neighbors. This may not seems problematic at first, but when coupled with the fact that Israel isn't exactly on good terms with its neighbors, many of whom are hell bent on Israel's destruction, and are harboring a hostile population. Israelis need to have children as a form or national defense. Having a population sympathetic the country, both internally and externally, decline and having a hostile one increase is a bad thing. As the demographics change, internal stability may be challenged.

This really isn’t an appeal to blind nationalism, or for any kind of racism, but if you can’t make friends, you have to start producing them.

[jBirch]

The cost of raising children is high.

This is the fundamental difference between impoverished regions and wealthy ones. Your assertion only holds true in wealthy regions.

In impoverished regions, the cost of raising children is low (and, in some cases, profitable). As the quality of the child's life increases, the cost to "launch" that child into adulthood climbs. This effect acts as a natural economic "governor" to procreation: the more educated, healthy and well prepared your kids are, the less kids you can have.

It's a phenomenon that we're seeing in places like India and China: the burgeoning middle class is having significantly fewer children then the impoverished peasants.

The economic prediction from this is that as we raise the standard of living throughout the world, populations will naturally start to decline. The solution to this problem then, is to educate and increase the quality of the children being raised in impoverished regions.

James.

[Phaeton]

This is the fundamental difference between impoverished regions and wealthy ones. Your assertion only holds true in wealthy regions.

I misread while editing. I believed that was implied within my editing. Yes, the cost of children is high in developed nations and often vital to support oneself in old age and illness in undeveloped ones.

The lowering of the birth rate in wealthy countries is an intresting and probably good trend. It hints that we won't all be headed with a fixed course toward some grim malthusian doom if everyone gets their act together.

[Dr Epee]

My understanding , at least in the US, is that areas with declining population are not that way because of declining birth rates, but, rather because those children, when they grow up, leave, usually because of lack of economic opportunity. So, the solution would be to find a way to generate more jobs. The babies will follow.

[introspective]

Why would anyone need to 'intice' more people? Is it fear of being 'taken over' by a bigger country? You should be able to handle whatever population size is natural for your area. The fact that your nation's population is dwindling doesn't mean anything is wrong. I don't think anyone wants to get like 1930 1940's where we all had to have children for the "motherland" or whatever. Populations go up and down naturally according to what is happening in the area. Migration should be natrual as well, lest your country be accused later on of 'inticing' poor immigrant workers into your land to build railroads. It could backfire on your people even if your intentions are good. Which it doesn't sound like they are - that's why I believe in following Natural Law - in Japanese it's called 'Dori'. They maintain a pretty small population count but they don't feel threatened by it - they maintain a cohesiveness that we should try to figure out.

[introspective]

Whzt a man! No need to flex - besides we prefer a flex account.

All kidding aside. Some people just don't want to have children and are very good people who just feel that bringing more children [or kids] into the world which is rife with war and so forth is unjust. Some people want kids,but can't have them. It's called freedom, and I don't think anyone should have to prove that they are straight or fertile by having them - it's probably the worst reason to have children. Let's take a look at Ben Ladin's family for example - his father had over 50 kids by a bunch of wives. While it sounds interesting - look at the results. He obviously was left out of the loop and felt aggressive later on in life.