(I didn’t see any rules against purely text posts to stimulate discussion. But if this is against the rules, please let me know)
Some discussion if you’re unaware.
…conclude that “shifting priorities” about family, careers, and how to allocate one’s time and resources is the most likely explanation for the dramatic reduction in rates of childbearing seen among more recent cohorts of young adults. We have not found compelling data support for more readily observed (and potentially altered) policy or economic factors, like the price of childcare or rent.
So, is this a problem to you at all? If it is, then how would you address it? If it isn’t, is this a problem that can be addressed along with addressing what you believe is the greater problem? How?
Declining birth rate is not a problem that requires fixing, it is a mercifully wise collective decision by intelligent creatures who’ve become educated and aware enough of their place in the biosphere to recognize the destructive effects of their own overpopulation. The idea that declining birth rate is decidedly NOT economic - lower birth rate does not arise among the poor and uneducated in the world.
There is no problem in today’s world that would be mitigated by increasing birth rate. I live in a region where there is a burgeoning elderly population and sometimes people say - we need more young people in this economy! But that does not mean that having more babies here is any help: by the time they are adults, the wave of excess elderly people will be gone. Economic crises are far more immediate than generational solutions - if a region lacks workers, economic forces are more effective to relocate workers than biologically growing new ones. Of course, governments often fail to anticipate needs and adjust migration policies in a timely way, or housing policies, or other such issues that create barriers contrary to the economic forces.