Would this encourage more couples to have children?
Would this encourage more couples to have children?
The data is robust that some don’t want children out of economic reasons, and others don’t want them out of lifestyle choices (prioritizing self over a thankless job). Across several national pro natalist policy programs, the evidence shows that even when enormous amounts of benefits are provided, it barely moves the realized fertility outcome.
(40% of pregnancies in the US and internationally, annually, are unintentional, and we have enough humans we don’t take care of already [1], we should be radically empowering as many as people who don’t want to have kids to not have them)
One thing I've never had the datasets to work with to do is to just make a scatterplot of US counties by fertility vs median home square footage, and I think analyzing such a relationship is a missed opportunity.
At the moment, this permanent birth control is covered by the ACA at 100% as preventative care. We have prepared for any changes to this by establishing travel logistics across the border into Canada, Mexico, and other LATAM destinations at favorable rates (medical tourism).
Planned Parenthood can continue to receive Medicaid funding by carving off abortion services into an independent entity that receives non government funding for abortions (only 4% of the services Planned Parenthood provides are abortion services).
By empowering women to not have children they never want to have, you empower, enable freedom, and avoid suffering at scale.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/5-things-to-know-a...
> But the state-federal health insurance program for lower-income people does pay for other services from Planned Parenthood, including birth control, cancer screenings and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.
In its 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court overruled lower courts and said that patients don't necessarily have the right to sue for Medicaid to cover their health care from specific providers.
https://www.abc4.com/news/national/federal-court-grants-temp...
https://www.abc4.com/news/national/planned-parenthood-medica...
https://www.abc4.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/07/Plan...
Consider: the government pays a salary to each married family while they raise children; the salary would be equivalent to a blue-collar job, and it would scale with the number of children up to a point (e.g. 4 kids).
I strongly believe that'd lead to many more marriages and childbirths. Many people not interested in raising kids would prefer it over a "regular" job. Families with adoptive children would also be paid, so it could decrease adoption difficulty and stigma as a side-effect.
However, some people will game this policy, and it would be very expensive to implement.
While this somewhat help lower paid families, we still have a huge number of men that just leave their families once kids appears and leave a single mother to raise the kids -- which have their own issues.
[1] I may be a bit off in the values, but you get the idea.
This is common in central Europe. In German we call that Kindergeld. It's not exactly a full salary but for some it is. Gets more with more children etc. Is expensive, gambling it is weird. Who makes a child for like 500$ a month? Some may do, but nobody cares ...
One way the state also pays for children is by having them have basically free healthcare in your name. No extra costs for that in the first 18(?) years.
The weird thing about Kindergeld ist that everyone gets that, no matter if you earn good or not. There are ways to get more of you are poor, but the base is basically basic income for your child.
I am not sure that actually helps growth. We don't have higher birth rates than other modern countries
I believe most of countries have orphanages already -- and what you're suggesting already exists in some countries (I do believe we still have that in Brazil).
While that could increase the number of people, orphanages are not great places to raise a child (with rare exceptions). Imagine you growing up with a large group of other child, and nobody actually take the time to take care of you. What kind of person would you be today?
Finding people willing to adopt newborns is also fairly easy now.
Babies are not like buying clothing, that you try it on for a few days and return if you don't like. Primary reason most people don't have more kids is the economic stress and affordability. Of course there are people who genuinely do not want children, no matter how much they earn. Those are the minority though.
And yes, not all countries face all problems listed above, it is just a collection of problems that countries face at different levels. But in general, social safety nets are disappearing everywhere. We can't expect responsible people to have more kids in this situation. Of course irresponsible/gullible people will still have kids even if they can't afford, which will only add to the problems
Yet nobody cares in the west to implement even this. Having children became a luxury.
This is a problem not solved by a startup.
herbst•7mo ago
This sounds just like some people approach pets
ben_w•7mo ago
People trying to plan accurately, end up with a list of things to think about containing more than seven items, and human psychology is such that this makes it *feel* infinite despite us being able to see that it isn't.
People who don't worry to much and vibe it, get pregnant/cause pregnancy by accident, often but not always as teens. Despite not planning carefully, and even in pre-industrial societies where a lot more problems were rapidly fatal and the best you could hope for in such cases regarding childcare allowance was a shotgun marriage, vibing it generally works.
With more certainty:
I'm not sure what the distribution is of women hearing about painful births and saying "nope!", but I do know it's more than none.
I know a few deliberately childfree couples who like the higher income and lack of responsibility, and have zero interest in proposals such as this.