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Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?
11–20 of 154 posts
Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?
#12Let parents lay claim to X% of the loot (tax) government takes from their children. It's what boomers do to us but with reverse incentives as they profit more the fewer children they have as social security isn't tied to your contribution to the next gen tax generation machines. Change it from tragedy of the commons to mutual cooperation.
Income is inversely correlated to fertility. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1328574/fertility-rate-w...
Having said that, Hungary is trying something interesting. Waiving income tax for life for women who have 4 or more children. That might actually be compelling. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/have-four-or-more-babies-in-...
Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?
#13Let parents lay claim to X% of the loot (tax) government takes from their children. It's what boomers do to us but with reverse incentives as they profit more the fewer children they have as social security isn't tied to your contribution to the next gen tax generation machines. Change it from tragedy of the commons to mutual cooperation.
Income is inversely correlated to fertility. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1328574/fertility-rate-w... Having said that, Hungary is trying something interesting. Waiving income tax for life for women who have 4 or more children. That might actually be compelling. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/have-four-or-more-babies-in-...
In this scheme, by design, you get the income when the children are grown so it shouldn't yield the negative correlation. I specifically accounted for your concern and designed it to incentivize raising productive children.
Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?
#14The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden. Add a looming climate crisis and a self-fulfillment-oriented culture and you get very few new babies.
> The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden I think this is all that needs to be said on these articles. (There's a lot more that _could_ be said, such as how few actual birthing HN readers there are, but I think the economics is really simple at the root of it.) Besides, even the countries with really the worst outlook and conditions aren't falling all that fast. Russia…
But what is driving the housing prices up in the Nordics? Population decline would suggest weakening demand. The EU is famous for long lasting housing so lack of new inventory shouldn't hit supply side that hard.
Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?
#15The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden. Add a looming climate crisis and a self-fulfillment-oriented culture and you get very few new babies.
Yeah you might get a value of a few hundred $ per month from the pro-natalist benefits but buying a dwelling for say 4 kids will cost you 200 years of wages
Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?
#16It's the economy, stupid.
You're right. We've gotten too rich. Every bit of data seems to show that the wealthier we get, the fewer babies we have. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1328574/fertility-rate-w...
It's a lot more complicated than that. France has a higher GDP per capita than South Korea, but has a fertility rate of 1.7 vs .7.
1.7 isn't replacement but it's not national extinction. There's a cultural element here besides pure economics.
Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden I think this is all that needs to be said on these articles. (There's a lot more that _could_ be said, such as how few actual birthing HN readers there are, but I think the economics is really simple at the root of it.) Besides, even the countries with really the worst outlook and conditions aren't falling all that fast. Russia…
But what is driving the housing prices up in the Nordics? Population decline would suggest weakening demand. The EU is famous for long lasting housing so lack of new inventory shouldn't hit supply side that hard.
Population decline lags affordable property shortages (see Japan [1], where property price declines are following after rural population declines). The results of fertility decisions take years, or even decades, to see (although total fertility rate and annual births is a lower lag indicator). For example, declining school enrollment in the US is from fertility decisions made half a decade ago [2], because that's about the time when those kids born would've enrolled.
If there is insufficient supply, housing prices go up.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/7/14/japans-abandoned...
[2] https://www.ey.com/en_us/strategy/declining-enrollment-in-pu...
Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?
#18Hungary did succeed in raising its fertility rate, but in the last few years it's also been falling.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/332502/fertility-rate-in...
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?page=&lo...
I suspect that a couple years is not enough to draw any conclusions.
Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?
#19I hate to ask a stupid question, but... So what?
The housing prices are extraordinary and the cost for people to live so far north is significant. Maybe we don't need a lot of people being born up north. There's certainly enough people on the planet to make up for any headcount-shortfall with immigration (and in Norway in particular, quite a few people born there move away these days because cost of living is so high).
Re: Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are natalist policies no longer enough?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The ratio of housing cost vs real income almost tripled over the last 20 years in Sweden I think this is all that needs to be said on these articles. (There's a lot more that _could_ be said, such as how few actual birthing HN readers there are, but I think the economics is really simple at the root of it.) Besides, even the countries with really the worst outlook and conditions aren't falling all that fast. Russia…
But what is driving the housing prices up in the Nordics? Population decline would suggest weakening demand. The EU is famous for long lasting housing so lack of new inventory shouldn't hit supply side that hard.
The Swedish population is not declining. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/sweden-popula...