＞ I cannot imagine thinking about kids and having them for tax breaks.

The reverse is true though: many couples wanting kids will bail at the price to pay without serious aids, and feel it would be a disservice to their kids to raise them in too poor conditions. Many couples won't make long term plans (including marrying/having kids) if they don't see a stable financial path down the line.

Now, the gov aids and labor laws provisions need to be significant to have a visible effect (e.g. a hundred or two bucks per child per months won't cut it). I don't know how far Germany went.

Germany specifically gives a lot of incentives, not just money and tax breaks but also subsidized kindergartens, and the numbers are stil poor. Not terrible, but less than adequate. E.g. the typical monthly fee would be enough for two days of kindergarten in Switzerland. So I am not really convinced those incentives work. It's an emotional decision, you either want kids or not. The economical decision is IMHO mostly about how much time you have. E.g. if you work 60 hours a week it will be tough to make that decision.

Yes, it really comes down to emotions and perception at the end of the day, and people's optimism really gets reflected in birth numbers in our societies.

I was looking at the comments on the r/germany about wanting kids but not being sure to be able to "afford" it [0]. This is a pretty common refrain for the Japanese youth as well, even going to down to not being able to afford dating as they're expected to spend money on courting, wining and dining in general.

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/14jhwdn/after_10_y...