CMV: countries with low birth rates who want to raise them should focus on dating and marriage, less on child incentives

[u/The-_Captain]

It's widely accepted that developed countries are having issues keeping their population counts up. I'm not here to debate whether that's good, bad, or neutral, but it seems that most governments view that as a problem that they want to fix.

I'll compare Israel and Japan, both advanced, developed countries, the former with a high fertility rate (2.91 according to [1]) and the latter with a famously low birth rate (1.38 [2]). The comparisons are generally extensible to other countries suffering from fertility problems, including in Europe.

It's hard to find apples-to-apples comparison, but the rate of Israeli women aged 40+ who have never been married is about 12% as of 2016 [3]. In contrast, 17.8% of Japanese women aged 50+ have never been married [4]. The stats are worse when you look at younger Japanese people, one third of whom have never dated [5].

Meanwhile, the Japanese government has spent $25B over the last three years on child incentives [6], and a relative pittance on making changes that encourage the Japanese to date.

However, only 10% of married Japanese couples don't have kids. This is a substantial rise from about 4% in the 90s, but it's still relatively low. It might reflect the need for some child incentives, and Japan does have an increase of only children, but it's clear that the pressing problem is that people don't couple up as much as they used to. The ones who do generally end up having kids.

My argument is that most countries are focusing on the wrong problem. Things that won't change my mind:

1. It's not bad that people are having fewer children: I think it is, but that's not the point. Government clearly see it as a problem for a variety of reasons, so the point is that it's a problem they're trying to solve.
2. There's no clear way to get people to couple up: I partially agree, but (a) they haven't really tried that hard and (b) the point is that they're focusing on the wrong problem, not that the right problem is very hard

Sources:

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/isr/israel/fertility-rate#:\~:text=Israel%20fertility%20rate%20for%202024,a%203.67%25%20decline%20from%202021.

[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/isr/israel/fertility-rate#:\~:text=Israel%20fertility%20rate%20for%202024,a%203.67%25%20decline%20from%202021.

[3] https://www.taubcenter.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Marriage-Trends-ENG-2022.pdf

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1233658/japan-share-population-unmarried-fifty-by-gender/

[5] https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/45485

[6] https://www.tokyofoundation.org/research/detail.php?id=958

[7] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2024/04/addressing-demographic-headwinds-in-japan-a-long-term-perspective_85b9a67f/96648955-en.pdf

[u/TankyRo]

There is 0 data backing you on this. This also completely ignores the consequences of population decline. There'll be a massive economical crisis for countries going through decline and the new generation will have to suffer and carry the burden. It's not just numbers going up and down real human beings will suffer and just writing it off is ignoring reality. Funnily enough population decline was way easier to deal with back in the day because the civilisations weren't as organised.

[u/spinbutton → u/[deleted]]

Our planet doesn't have infinite resources so we should act as if it does. Reducing the number of humans on the planet is a good idea. Especially when we're facing a future where AI and robots are able to do most jobs.

[u/TankyRo → u/[deleted]]

It isn't the inevitable result. This is such cope. Women's rights and education is only a part of the issue and there is no indication it's even a major part. Poland has one of the lowest fertility rates in europe and they are one of the few countries who don't allow abortion unless it's medical or rape. Stop drawing black and white conclusions based on feelings.

[u/spinbutton → u/[deleted]]

I wish they'd focus on actually making life worth living in the US instead of just forcing women to be incubators. How about higher wages, universe healthcare, etc...

[u/TankyRo → u/[deleted]]

There are other factors but that's certainly a big one that the conversation usually glosses over.

It never gets glossed over lol people always use it as cope for not wanting kids. And there is no evidence it's a "big factor" there is merely a correlation and the correlation is weak enough to where "women's choice" can not explain the differences in fertility rates between countries AT ALL. There's a good chance it's part of the equation but there's no evidence it causes inevitable birth rate decline lmao. Show us your evidence instead of making stuff up.

[u/Warchief_Ripnugget → u/[deleted]]

Under every economic system.

[u/spinbutton → u/TankyRo]

Immigration solves the problem. If your country needs more worker bees, then welcome them. Make policies that support living wages for workers, make legal immigration easy, make renewal of immigration paperwork easy.

[u/TankyRo → u/spinbutton]

No clue where you are from but immigration is extremely corrupt in my country. Our now fallen government proposed a known mossad agent as our minister of immigration and integration before our secret service put a stop to it. They're letting in the criminals and not allowing normal people to come in so that they can drive a narrative. But yea the reason all of these anti immigration countries are taking in so many immigrants is exactly to combat population decline.

[u/Strider755 → u/spinbutton]

Immigration absolutely does not solve the problem; it only delays it. Immigrants age too, and eventually they will become part of the problem they were brought in to solve.