> give flat tax cut for people who have children

> problem solved.

Keeping it a flat rate also incentivizes wealthier (and thus on average higher educated) people to have more children.

Experiments with this type of program have found that it mainly acts as a windfall to people who would have had children anyway. Demand for children seems to be pretty inelastic with respect to money. As far as I can see, it's a matter of social expectations and convenience.

I beg to differ.

https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/media_release/f...

> “Our analysis of mothers’ intentions to have a child, and an examination of reported births statistics, suggested that the baby bonus increased the fertility rate by 3.2 per cent”, said co-author of the study, Mark Wooden Professorial Research Fellow and Deputy Director, Melbourne Institute.

I meant it more in sense that when the human race (or rather 'civilization') starts to collapse that its easy to start propping up birth rates by making having children more and more attractive (financially-wise anyway) until you have the rate you want. The only problem is (and I'll probably get downvoted for this again) is that its mainly poor people that have lots of children. That's not good for society, so I'd rather incentive educated people to have more kids.

Uhm, citation needed?

I thought that it was well known that economic considerations such as career, daycare costs & even how many children does the car fit affect family size.

You say that like it'd be a bad thing.

A martyr for a planet, now that's a new one.

If some combination of benign incentives causes the human race to be smaller than 7B 100 years hence, that won't be a bad thing. I doubt anyone here is advocating for anything Swiftian.

The comment wasn't about the human race shrinking in size, it was about the human race ceasing to exist.

Amusingly, this is one of those things that's been around for a while: Voluntary Human Extinction Movement http://www.vhemt.org

If humans actually died out, there wouldn't be any humans to lament it. Seems neutral to me.

Yet somewhere a faint "You bastids!" will still echo from my grandmother for all of eternity.

As a global population, we reproduce plenty. Why should we non-kid producing folk have to subsidize your energy/water guzzling sprog?

Because our society supported you when you were a energy/water guzzling sprog.

"Why should we others pay" is a worthy point, if the survival of the planet means anything, Of course. But, unfortunately, it turns out that half-assed parenting ends up costing society very dearly over time. By which I mean taxes and worse landing on your tab, anway. More jails, tons more depression and substance abuse, increasing illness and more. It's better to pay less, up front.

You'll surely want someone to pay for your retirement and healthcare, and provide the services you'll need.