The choice to have children is usually not an economic consideration. I think there are more fundamental and higher purposes involved.

> The choice to have children is usually not an economic consideration.

This is obviously the nicer sounding position but I wonder if it's the true one.

Raising a child- especially in the early years when they’re completely helpless- takes way, way more money and time and effort than the lords of capitalism who make the rules around such things realize. They don’t know, because they they have nannies and unlimited money, so they can’t really understand why people want more time off work and cheaper childcare options.

On another note, why is it impossible to find part time professional work? 40 hours is way, way too much when you’re raising kids but unless I want to work at Wendy’s I have no choice but to knuckle under and just bear the weight of basically working 100 hour weeks (if you count taking care of kids as also being work of a sort).

Atlas should have been portrayed as a single mom.

> despite the fact that they are a benefit to the country as a whole (is that wrong?).

Not in moderation. But I don't think that it would be helpful for most countries to have more people in them than they already do, let alone the earth as a whole. We could distribute better (allow people from inhospitable places to choose to live and work somewhere else if they want to) as well as slowly and carefully bring the number of people down so we don't need 5 earths to have everyone live at today's rich-country standards. I'm sure we can still have billions of people, especially with advancements we'll have made by the time that we'd get close to reducing the current number by so much as a few percent, but for the time being: more is not the solution. What made you think that?

I think the government should support its people by providing no cost healthcare, no cost child care, no cost university for most people qualified, and so on. And I think that children are, on a personal & national level, beneficial. I further suspect that people who have a personal genetic investment in the future will make more sound decisions than if they do not. And even if we had these programs I doubt North America will be overpopulated nor would the birthrate even exceed replacement.

I'm not sure international migration is even an alternative. They already can immigrate to numerous countries but most don't. The idea (for example) many Nigeriens would choose to live here is really absurdly arrogant. If they could have a life in Niger half as comfortable as a life here most would prefer that. Most people are not prone to migrate unless pressured by economics, chaos or discrimination. Most people don't want to live in a strange ultra-capitalist society like the US. Of course we also have no obligation to help them develop their own country but I much prefer that course to whisking away their people to make up deficits caused by our state providing so little to the people we already have.