And I don't mean "$10,000 at birth" or "and extra couple of grand a year".
I mean literally pay people $10-$20k per year per kid until they are 18, or some equivalent. If raising a kid costs $300k or whatever, that equivalent should be given to parents over 18 years.
Some bold "social engineer" will give people 5-10% of that amount and when it doesn't work we all go "well, you can't pay people to have kids". Bullshit.
Many folk don't want to have kids. Why should they pay for others to have them? After all, the folk who don't have them will have to do all the paying but won't, in fact, actually have kids. Think that's fair?
There are currently 72 million kids in the US. At $20k a year that's 1.5 trillion a year. Or about 50% of the entire Federal tax bill, that sorta order. Or, as is more apposite, about all the tax that men pay. Which is then to be given to women - because that is how it will work out.
The argument for the personal tax allowance is that there is a minimum sum required to subsist on and it is therefore wrong to tax that sum. But that is not a per-taxpayer argument; it is obviously a per-person argument. So multiply the personal tax allowance by the number of people in the household.
Because without someone having kids, society will cease to exist.
Someone else's kids are going to pay for your SS, Medicare, and wipe your ass when you are too old to do these things. Your free riding on them has to come to an end.
"At $20k a year that's 1.5 trillion a year."
Social Security costs $1.24T a year. Medicare close to another trillion. Both of these are set to balloon. None are paid for, they are pay as you go systems funded by the young.
One could limit the cost of the program by limiting it to married couples and scaling it with taxes paid (this could easily cut it nearly in half). Money could be found in current education funding ($17k per kid per year), and 20k would be the higher end number.
The bottom line though is you would think a society would care as much about the future as the past.
I agree it's politically difficult. It would have been better had our constitution given extra votes to parents on behalf of their children. There also didn't use to be so many old people, they just died off earlier.
"Fathers earn more than non-fathers. Quite why, other than the impulse to provide for the family hasn’t really been studied but it is there in the numbers." - This claim yours was true, but isn't true anymore. "Fathers don’t earn more than their childless peers anymore; they earn less. " https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-gender-wage-gap-shrinks-while-the-parenthood-gap-grows
Interesting piece, thanks. "Millennial men who do have families are more heavily involved in the day-to-day care of their children. " When I've written about this subject at other times that's usually been my conclusion too. As and when fathers do more of the childcare then the pay gap will be the same. As in, it's a caring for children pay gap, not a motherhood one.
However, I would caution one thing. These numbers here are about averages across the society. Job choice, education levels and so on are included, not corrected for. My intuition would be that once we correct for that then we'd still see a fatherhood bonus - probably. But I can't show that.
"My intuition would be that once we correct for that then we'd still see a fatherhood bonus - probably." - Are you a father? I am. And my intuition for 20 years has been that childless men earn more than fathers because childless people can devote far more time during their leisure hours to advancing their careers. Evening professional networking. Evening higher education.
I don't understand how that changes things at all. It's mostly an artificial distinction. Childless men have more availability to work extra hours each week, if their job is paid by hourly wages.
Most pay gap figures - not all, but most - are done by hourly wages.
The point to recall is that lots of very intelligent people have looked at this point for many decades. The most recent Nobel Price in Economics went to Claudia Goldin, just as one example. Whose entire research career has been investigation of the gender pay gap.
Starting from first principles to do all that work over again might - might - uncover something they've all missed. But it is, if we're fair about it, unlikely. Me? I'm just reading what those researchers say, not in the slightest trying to suggest that I'm adding anything new other than a precis.
Well, sure, they've been looking at the issue for decades, and over the decades, the situation has changed. Evidently, childless men now earn more than fathers, which matches my intuitions.
The *why* this is so we can all argue about. But it is observably true. The effect narrows once we include the affects of age, education etc - all of which affect both earnings and liklihood of becoming a father. But it's still there even then.
Just re. the question about why fathers earn more than non fathers - I always assumed the causation was running the other way round; i.e. that it is the men who earn more (on average) who get to become fathers?
That richer men get more babes, yes, we know. But I think - I think - that the numbers are studied at occupational level, as are the ones for mothers. So, it's carpenters who are fathers earn more than carpenters who are not. that is, not just that investment bankers have more kids than carpenters.
Do you have any data to link to for that? Because it seems like the opposite (that adults without children) earn more than parents seems much more intuitively true.
Complete anecdata here, but I'm a software engineer with no children, and I earn less than my friend I've known since school who is also a software engineer, but has a a child (well, just gone 18 years old).
Absolutely no rich country, absent immigration (immigrants bring with them the higher birth rates of their usually poorer societies) has a fertility rate above 2. Absolutely none. So, while it's clearly possible, I don't think it would happen, no.
As the author points out, birth rates really start plummeting after child mortality drops to near zero. What does getting an education mean? Just the three "R"s? High school grad? College? Getting rid of our society's current college structure will help both genders out. We can and should have a society of lifelong education for both genders in which both genders start working in their teenage years, meaning they start earning money to support a family, and then it will be easier for both genders to balance work/family/education in a lifelong education environment from then on for the rest of their lives. https://medium.com/non-violence/rescuing-children-humanitys-future-from-leftist-childless-mass-coercion-nihilists-e0866d41878a
It's easy. Just pay people to have kids.
And I don't mean "$10,000 at birth" or "and extra couple of grand a year".
I mean literally pay people $10-$20k per year per kid until they are 18, or some equivalent. If raising a kid costs $300k or whatever, that equivalent should be given to parents over 18 years.
Some bold "social engineer" will give people 5-10% of that amount and when it doesn't work we all go "well, you can't pay people to have kids". Bullshit.
Umm, why?
Many folk don't want to have kids. Why should they pay for others to have them? After all, the folk who don't have them will have to do all the paying but won't, in fact, actually have kids. Think that's fair?
There are currently 72 million kids in the US. At $20k a year that's 1.5 trillion a year. Or about 50% of the entire Federal tax bill, that sorta order. Or, as is more apposite, about all the tax that men pay. Which is then to be given to women - because that is how it will work out.
Sounds, umm, politically difficult perhaps?
The argument for the personal tax allowance is that there is a minimum sum required to subsist on and it is therefore wrong to tax that sum. But that is not a per-taxpayer argument; it is obviously a per-person argument. So multiply the personal tax allowance by the number of people in the household.
"Why should they pay for others to have them?"
Because without someone having kids, society will cease to exist.
Someone else's kids are going to pay for your SS, Medicare, and wipe your ass when you are too old to do these things. Your free riding on them has to come to an end.
"At $20k a year that's 1.5 trillion a year."
Social Security costs $1.24T a year. Medicare close to another trillion. Both of these are set to balloon. None are paid for, they are pay as you go systems funded by the young.
One could limit the cost of the program by limiting it to married couples and scaling it with taxes paid (this could easily cut it nearly in half). Money could be found in current education funding ($17k per kid per year), and 20k would be the higher end number.
The bottom line though is you would think a society would care as much about the future as the past.
I agree it's politically difficult. It would have been better had our constitution given extra votes to parents on behalf of their children. There also didn't use to be so many old people, they just died off earlier.
Not directly, But that's the sort of thing I'd expect Google to be able to find. "Average duation of job" and so on....
Ta. I appear to have had something of a Senior Moment, there.
"Fathers earn more than non-fathers. Quite why, other than the impulse to provide for the family hasn’t really been studied but it is there in the numbers." - This claim yours was true, but isn't true anymore. "Fathers don’t earn more than their childless peers anymore; they earn less. " https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-gender-wage-gap-shrinks-while-the-parenthood-gap-grows
Interesting piece, thanks. "Millennial men who do have families are more heavily involved in the day-to-day care of their children. " When I've written about this subject at other times that's usually been my conclusion too. As and when fathers do more of the childcare then the pay gap will be the same. As in, it's a caring for children pay gap, not a motherhood one.
However, I would caution one thing. These numbers here are about averages across the society. Job choice, education levels and so on are included, not corrected for. My intuition would be that once we correct for that then we'd still see a fatherhood bonus - probably. But I can't show that.
"My intuition would be that once we correct for that then we'd still see a fatherhood bonus - probably." - Are you a father? I am. And my intuition for 20 years has been that childless men earn more than fathers because childless people can devote far more time during their leisure hours to advancing their careers. Evening professional networking. Evening higher education.
That could well be true. But don't forget that the vast majority of people out there working don't really have careers. They have jobs.
I don't understand how that changes things at all. It's mostly an artificial distinction. Childless men have more availability to work extra hours each week, if their job is paid by hourly wages.
Most pay gap figures - not all, but most - are done by hourly wages.
The point to recall is that lots of very intelligent people have looked at this point for many decades. The most recent Nobel Price in Economics went to Claudia Goldin, just as one example. Whose entire research career has been investigation of the gender pay gap.
Starting from first principles to do all that work over again might - might - uncover something they've all missed. But it is, if we're fair about it, unlikely. Me? I'm just reading what those researchers say, not in the slightest trying to suggest that I'm adding anything new other than a precis.
Well, sure, they've been looking at the issue for decades, and over the decades, the situation has changed. Evidently, childless men now earn more than fathers, which matches my intuitions.
Are you aware of any research or numbers on how often people swap employers, by age or life stage?
https://msmagazine.com/2023/03/06/dads-paid-more-than-moms-work/
https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/fathers-working-full-time-earn-21-more-men-without-children-says-tuc
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/03/01/the-enduring-grip-of-the-gender-pay-gap/
The *why* this is so we can all argue about. But it is observably true. The effect narrows once we include the affects of age, education etc - all of which affect both earnings and liklihood of becoming a father. But it's still there even then.
Just re. the question about why fathers earn more than non fathers - I always assumed the causation was running the other way round; i.e. that it is the men who earn more (on average) who get to become fathers?
Fathers earn less than childless men now. Things have changed, and this Substack author wasn't aware of the change. "Fathers don’t earn more than their childless peers anymore; they earn less. " https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-gender-wage-gap-shrinks-while-the-parenthood-gap-grows
That richer men get more babes, yes, we know. But I think - I think - that the numbers are studied at occupational level, as are the ones for mothers. So, it's carpenters who are fathers earn more than carpenters who are not. that is, not just that investment bankers have more kids than carpenters.
Do you have any data to link to for that? Because it seems like the opposite (that adults without children) earn more than parents seems much more intuitively true.
Complete anecdata here, but I'm a software engineer with no children, and I earn less than my friend I've known since school who is also a software engineer, but has a a child (well, just gone 18 years old).
You mention some things that will do a little bit to increase the fertility rate. Maybe a bunch of small things together will add up to pushing the fertility rate over 2.1 children per (real) woman. https://medium.com/non-violence/stakeholder-control-how-to-save-humanity-from-dying-out-2b688afb7d1
Absolutely no rich country, absent immigration (immigrants bring with them the higher birth rates of their usually poorer societies) has a fertility rate above 2. Absolutely none. So, while it's clearly possible, I don't think it would happen, no.
So, if you don't think a combination of multiple small influences in the right direction will work, as I outline in that article of mine https://medium.com/non-violence/stakeholder-control-how-to-save-humanity-from-dying-out-2b688afb7d1, what do you think will work to bring birthrates above 2.1 children per (real) woman?
Nothing. I expect the human population to decline in the future. That's it.
I don't rememberwho said it, but "no country has been able to educate its women without also going on a path to extinction".
As the author points out, birth rates really start plummeting after child mortality drops to near zero. What does getting an education mean? Just the three "R"s? High school grad? College? Getting rid of our society's current college structure will help both genders out. We can and should have a society of lifelong education for both genders in which both genders start working in their teenage years, meaning they start earning money to support a family, and then it will be easier for both genders to balance work/family/education in a lifelong education environment from then on for the rest of their lives. https://medium.com/non-violence/rescuing-children-humanitys-future-from-leftist-childless-mass-coercion-nihilists-e0866d41878a