Only because of the subsidies. It's hardly "natural" for all humans to reproduce.
All living humans come from a long unbroken chain of natural selection and rejection of bad genes and reproduction of only the fittest to enable adaption to a changing environment.
If you create subsidies so that every human can reproduce, you are going to reverse natural selection and create survival of the unfittest where every bad gene will reproduce endlessly.
Not having children is just as "natural" as having children, it all depends of how your particular set of characteristics do in the current environment and foreseeable future.
This is an incredibly bold statement. Most people like having sex, and in a natural state (sans birth control, online dating, internet porn, etc) there are going to be a lot of pregnancies. The idea that tax credits, welfare or parental leave is what is driving this situation is ridiculous. This feels more like a dog whistle about the welfare state, but even if you take away those "subsidies", people ain't gonna stop having kids, that's just not how the majority of young people of child-bearing age think.
We balanced this out up until recently by sending men to war and other dangerous jobs that made them die before they had a chance to reproduce.
There is an enormous asymmetry between the sexes in our biology and that's the feature that drives natural selection and evolution.
The only reason why all people are able to reproduce are subsidies, otherwise natural selection would reject a lot.
Better medical treatments and lack of wars are not child subsidies.
Lower education and religion is probably the biggest cause for these higher birth rates. In the victorian era, people would simply not get married if they didn't have the means to raise children, and they would be childless, and there was nothing strange about that. To give subsidies for everyone to have children comes from the post ww2 politics.
Using your own logic: if natural selection is that fragile, then it should evolve or die. We're not called to uphold it in any way; our own selfish genes inevitably predispose us not to worry about an evolutionary mechanism that does not directly affect us or our children.
It is “natural” in the sense that we wouldn’t be here to talk about it if it wasn’t the case.
Obviously the human race somehow made it until we created developed societies. I think you are confusing survival of the human race with survival of our current pension system.
Who knows if it's really better or worse to suddenly allow everyone to reproduce?
For sure it's not "natural", and as far as I can see it would actually reverse evolution to regression instead.
And it seems like we can't really stop it anyway with how many men today are becoming outsiders in society because they get rejected to reproduce.
Yeah that's the point, so there really is no need for every man to have children, should it be the norm I'm wondering. Can we get rid of this natural selection, and should we? I don't know. Why is it so self-evident that every person should have children? Clearly it's not natural. It's just another artificial "equality" of a social welfare state.
The whole idea that child bearing should be perfectly and equally distributed across the whole population is a construct of the social welfare state, enabled by subsidies, and is just an artificial form of equality like any other. As such I think it should be examined and debated like everything else, and not taken for granted as self-evident or "natural".
The median is close to the average in kids per women in the developed world. Having four kids is harsh on many women’s bodies; eg my grandma had 8 kids, but she died in her late 50s. While no doubt some couples will want to go for four kids or more, I don’t think it’s ethical to encourage it over a more standard 2 something for most couples.
Most would consider the implications of that to be highly immoral.
I think it's already immoral how society punishes people for being childless when it's a natural thing and can be 100% caused by characteristics that you are born with and have no control over.
And government aid is not just for unfortunate events, it's used to promote desired behavior. That's why there are subsidies for companies developing green energy and EVs, for farmers growing certain crops, for animal feed (very frustrating as someone who always has to pay more for veggie burgers), and many other things. Clearly, though, the US doesn't value parenthood very much because the monetary incentives simply are not enough. I guess when you know your replacement rates are kept afloat by immigration, you don't care much if your citizens have kids.
It's funny that you say being social is easier, because what I see is the opposite. Being a parent isn't a panacea for socialization. It can be very isolating when your childless friends can drop whatever they are doing to go have a good time (so they don't bother to make plans, they just go) while you have to secure a babysitter just to get a quiet dinner. Your friends have to accommodate you, and many will not.
As someone who is currently childless with both new parent friends and not-so-new parent friends, it's very clear to see how much simpler it is for the ones of us who don't have kids have to be social or follow their own interests.
I feel in no way compelled by any law or incentive to have children and am in fact dreading the day my wife is serious about having them, because I have seen first hand what it does to your bank account and your personal life.
Yeah parents can't have as much spontaneous fun, but they don't have to deal with unhealthy loneliness of being alone on thanksgiving, christmas, vacations etc. Society is organised for the family unit, and there are no options for single people.