Demographs and birthrates, and why we need to increase them
Children used to provide cheap labor, and retirement security, all in one. Now they’re pretty much all cost and no return, from a financial perspective.Very good points. That said, if you ask me, I think there's some fairly simple ways to reduce the problems of parenthood costing too much: stop buying too many movies, rock music cassettes, stuff like that. Reading material and literature is enough and makes you feel more relaxed, as some studies I read about years ago have explained, and also a computer, since that's one of the ways in which to talk about subjects like these! In fact, with the declining moviegoer rate, I figure that'll help provide more people with better financial resources anyway.
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There’s also the decline in parental prestige over generations. My mother reports that when she was a newlywed (she was married in 1959) you weren’t seen as fully a member of the adult world until you had kids. Nowadays to have kids means something closer to an expulsion from the adult world.
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[P]arenting has become more expensive in non-financial as well as financial terms. It takes up more time and emotional energy than it used to, and there’s less reward in terms of social approbation. This is like a big social tax on parenting and, as we all know, when things are taxed we get less of them. Yes, people still have children, and some people even have big families. But at the margin, which is where change occurs, people are less likely to do things as they grow more expensive and less rewarded.
It's a very important subject, especially for Europe, considering the serious trouble they're in with jihadists born upon their soil, many to Muslims who include more than enough illegal immigrants themselves for the purpose of psychological warfare and worse. (That's one of the reasons why immigration laws have to be changed so that citizenship doesn't apply right away. The US Constitution's 11th amendment may have just the answer to that too, since, as it tells, at least one of two parents needs to be a legal citizen in order for the child to qualify as well.)
Labels: Europe, United States