Hi, I really appreciate your independent thinking. I strongly suspect that the main reason people are not choosing to have more kids is because of the raising kids portion, not the pregnancy portion. At least that’s my reason for not having more kids. If this (the difficulty of raising kids, rather than birthing them) is the main bottleneck for most families, then I suspect the best ways to boost fertility would be mostly policy things along the lines of:
Less strict zoning laws --> more abundant, cheaper housing so young couples can more easily afford to live in larger houses, sooner.
Reducing the large amount of redistribution we currently do towards seniors (they are some of the richest demographics in world history!) and directing more towards young people—better yet targeted towards encouraging children (childcare subsidies, more and better schools, direct “baby bonus” payments, weird income incentives like they do in Hungary, etc)
Especially for places like Korea, trying reduce spending more and more on individual children (eg by hiring private tutors, making kids study 24⁄7 as part of a stressful, intense competition to get into the best schools)
Random little ways of making life more amenable for families with children, eg less-strict car seat laws, passing free-range-child laws to reduce false-positive CPS investigations and other sources of hostility towards child-rearing, etc.
For more on these kinds of things, Zvi Moshowitz’s has a good series of posts on fertility-related policy issues
I think it’s also possible that the very best lever for increasing fertility would be to boost marriages rather than the birth rate among married couples, since there is some good evidence toward this conclusion.
On artificial wombs as a technology: I do not have any information unfortunately (other than anecdotes). I would also suggest checking outside academia if you have not done so yet. And if anyone is doing this “for pets” as a way to make progress faster before transitioning to people.
Out of personal interest, though, I am highly interested in knowing what the main bottlenecks and timelines are for artificial wombs. This is because it would contribute towards reversing species extinction, and I would inform my estimates to how far away that technology is. Please share what you learn, I would appreciate it!
In general if you are seeing an obvious lack of rigor everywhere you look, then you can greatly improve the information environment by doing your own shallow research and sharing what you find. I think this itself would be a great service. (even without doing a full delphi forecast)
Thank you so much for this thoughtful and pragmatic response. I agree with all of these points.
I had a look at Hungary’s income incentives briefly and am astounded by how extreme they are. There is a non-linear reduction on your taxable income per additional child you have ($203 per per child per month for one child vs. $667 per child per month for three children).
Also, which forum do you recommend I share any research on?
Hi, I really appreciate your independent thinking. I strongly suspect that the main reason people are not choosing to have more kids is because of the raising kids portion, not the pregnancy portion. At least that’s my reason for not having more kids. If this (the difficulty of raising kids, rather than birthing them) is the main bottleneck for most families, then I suspect the best ways to boost fertility would be mostly policy things along the lines of:
Less strict zoning laws --> more abundant, cheaper housing so young couples can more easily afford to live in larger houses, sooner.
Reducing the large amount of redistribution we currently do towards seniors (they are some of the richest demographics in world history!) and directing more towards young people—better yet targeted towards encouraging children (childcare subsidies, more and better schools, direct “baby bonus” payments, weird income incentives like they do in Hungary, etc)
Especially for places like Korea, trying reduce spending more and more on individual children (eg by hiring private tutors, making kids study 24⁄7 as part of a stressful, intense competition to get into the best schools)
Random little ways of making life more amenable for families with children, eg less-strict car seat laws, passing free-range-child laws to reduce false-positive CPS investigations and other sources of hostility towards child-rearing, etc.
For more on these kinds of things, Zvi Moshowitz’s has a good series of posts on fertility-related policy issues
I think it’s also possible that the very best lever for increasing fertility would be to boost marriages rather than the birth rate among married couples, since there is some good evidence toward this conclusion.
On artificial wombs as a technology: I do not have any information unfortunately (other than anecdotes). I would also suggest checking outside academia if you have not done so yet. And if anyone is doing this “for pets” as a way to make progress faster before transitioning to people.
Out of personal interest, though, I am highly interested in knowing what the main bottlenecks and timelines are for artificial wombs. This is because it would contribute towards reversing species extinction, and I would inform my estimates to how far away that technology is. Please share what you learn, I would appreciate it!
In general if you are seeing an obvious lack of rigor everywhere you look, then you can greatly improve the information environment by doing your own shallow research and sharing what you find. I think this itself would be a great service. (even without doing a full delphi forecast)
Thank you so much for this thoughtful and pragmatic response. I agree with all of these points.
I had a look at Hungary’s income incentives briefly and am astounded by how extreme they are. There is a non-linear reduction on your taxable income per additional child you have ($203 per per child per month for one child vs. $667 per child per month for three children).
Also, which forum do you recommend I share any research on?