ICTChris Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 (edited) Falling birth rates and the implications for society have been in the news the last few weeks. Writing in the Sunday Times academic Paul Morland argued that reduced birth rates will cause huge issues for society in the future, including soaring care and health costs and labour shortages. Most controversially he suggested “negative tax credits” for those who don’t have children, ie a tax on the childless. here is Morlands article - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/should-we-tax-the-childless-j7h9c297r There was a response to this from Aaron Bastani, who wrote an article summarised in this thread Essentially arguing rather than blasting people without kids with taxes governments should invest and try to open up the housing market to improve the birth rate. To be fair to Morland, he does suggests similar in his piece. What do P&Bers think about birth rates? Should P&Bers who selfishly refuse to squeeze out a few kids have their assets stripped? have any P&Bers had enough children to qualify for a Ceacescu-style patriotic medal of procreation? Edited July 16, 2022 by ICTChris 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mizfit Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 Falling birth rates and the implications for society have been in the news the last few weeks. Writing in the Sunday Times academic Paul Morland argued that reduced birth rates will cause huge issues for society in the future, including soaring care and health costs and labour shortages. Most controversially he suggested “negative tax credits” for those who don’t have children, ie a tax on the childless. here is Morlands article - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/should-we-tax-the-childless-j7h9c297r There was a response to this from Aaron Bastani, who wrote an article summarised in this thread Essentially arguing rather than blasting people without kids with taxes governments should invest and try to open up the housing market to improve the birth rate. To be fair to Morland, he does suggests similar in his piece. What do P&Bers think about birth rates? Should P&Bers who selfishly refuse to squeeze out a few kids have their assets stripped? have any P&Bers had enough children to qualify for a Ceacescu-style patriotic medal of procreation? I don’t have kids, because right now we can’t afford to have one. Maybe when things calm down and we’re mortgaged it’ll be a conversation worth having, but until then I’ll just keep getting off at Haymarket. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlipperyP Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 Been on this forum for 10 years now (birthday last week). I can see why. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coprolite Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 Some suggestions. Across the world the birth rate still exceeds the replacement rate. People are just having babies in the wrong countries. We could bring in more young people fron those countries. A lot of people are put off having children by how annoying they are. Make children less annoying and people will have more. Finally, baby factories: All better ideas than that clickbait brainfart. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 2 minutes ago, mizfit said: I don’t have kids, because right now we can’t afford to have one. This is the story for millions. It's going to be a massive self-inflicted problem because of how conflicted Mail and Express readers are, and the cowardice of politicians who'll play to their prejudices to get elected, but won't spell out the realities. We need more children to do the jobs that I don't want to I'm not paying for the paupers and their uncontrollable breeding! Affordable housing will be needed to provide shelter for any increase in population Not in my back yard! We don't want these types of people living near us. It would affect the value of our second home! Immigration is the obvious, simple answer to negative population growth. Bring in people who actually want to live here and contribute for some reason Dirty criminal foreigners flooding my village? I'll fight against it to my dying breath! The robot workers are a ways off yet. Until then, we're screwed, as these attitudes aren't going away. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Left Back Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 59 minutes ago, ICTChris said: Should P&Bers who selfishly refuse to squeeze out a few kids have their assets stripped? What about the infertile, or gay men? Discriminatory surely. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergeant Wilson Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 1 hour ago, ICTChris said: Should P&Bers who selfishly refuse to squeeze out a few kids have their assets stripped? What have they got? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathematics Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 Just now, Left Back said: What about the infertile, or gay men? Discriminatory surely. What about us that know that any offspring will trigger the riding of the four horsemen? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergeant Wilson Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 1 minute ago, Left Back said: What about the infertile, or gay men? Discriminatory surely. Well, that's the way the cookie crumbles! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted July 16, 2022 Author Share Posted July 16, 2022 1 minute ago, Left Back said: What about the infertile, or gay men? Discriminatory surely. Simple solution, just prove how gay you are and you are exempted from the negative baby tax. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Left Back Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 1 minute ago, mathematics said: What about us that know that any offspring will trigger the riding of the four horsemen? Don’t call them Damian and it’ll be fine. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weirdcal Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 4 minutes ago, mathematics said: What about us that know that any offspring will trigger the riding of the four horsemen? Surely you would spawn at least one of the horsemen.. Or at least clancy 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Left Back Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 Can you make donation to someone that has 6 kids to fulfil your quota? Like carbon offsetting. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathematics Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 7 minutes ago, weirdcal said: Surely you would spawn at least one of the horsemen.. Or at least clancy More likely to spawn one of the four Bikers of the Repocalypse. “No Alcohol Lager” perhaps. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlipperyP Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 I've got 3, after the morning fiasco, I'm willing to for delivery. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMCs Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 Scotland's rates are remarkably low. Lowest total fertility rate of any of the 4 nations of the United Kingdom and Edinburgh City council area has a TFR of less than 1 child per woman. Britain's housing crisis is a massive problem. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101 Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 23 minutes ago, Left Back said: Can you make donation to someone that has 6 kids to fulfil your quota? Like carbon offsetting. Jacob Rees Mogg has plenty cash, I wouldn't worry about it 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeartsOfficialMoaner Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 We can import people from other countries if we think we are running out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'WellDel Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 I'm all for helping society and saving nubile females from any form of childless tax they may try to levy against them. Would a suggestion to the wife of having free reign to have my vasectomy reversed and spread my wild seed for the greater good go down well, do you think? It's a burden I'm willing to bear (as long as I am excused any liability whatsoever for any resultant offspring). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dorlomin Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 (edited) Declining birth rates have been a phenomena for over a century. statista.com/statistics/1037268/crude-birth-rate-uk-1800-2020/ It is seen in every society that has urbanised. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-UN?tab=chart&time=1950..latest https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate Pronatal policies have rarely if ever worked, countries with the best proviosion for mothers in the world such as Finland and Norway have very low birth rates. Its a much bigger issue in Japan and China. Couple of years ago I tried to start a discussion on how much the 2020s was going to be shaped by demographics, climate and energy but sort of gave up as no one really cares. But China may see its population drop by half towards the end of the century. ROK, Taiwan and other advanced east Asian nations are in similar boats. Russia is another that is on the way out. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Russia/Fertility_rate/ They had a mini boom in the 2010s as the 80s boom "echoed" that is there were more women of child birthing age. They are now headed towards their mid 40s and the big collapse of the 1990s is now hitting peak birthing age. Again very long term issues at play. East Europe, including the prosperous EU countries is again, worse than the UK. There are a lot of factors at work. Educated women tend to not want to get pregnant so literacy among women is the strongest indicator of a coming major drop in fertility. Urban living is expensive but you get a lot out of investing heavily in 2 or 3 children and their education rather than across 6-10 when you have mid level incomes (globally your sort of $15k a year type range). In more to most developed nations, carrying a child is hard work and painful.. Its expensive and time consuming, it takes away from your career and your leisure time. Every political group on the right and left will tell you "the things I want in society will fix this" so less feminism, gays, social spending on the right, more feminism, gays, trans and social spending on the left. On the whole if its not some one who spends a life studying the problem, they are probably full of shit what ever their solutions. In the broadest of strokes, this is just a long term thing we have known about for decades (hence the "pensions crisis as there will be too few workers compared with pensioners), to the UK specific, well for the most part we do not stand out from more conservative or more socially liberal countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate#/media/File:Total_Fertility_Rate_Map_by_Country.svg It mostly that well of women do not really want to have children the world over. Edited July 16, 2022 by dorlomin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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