Pro/Anti Child Bearing Policies (split from "Canada don’t matter" thread)

[daftandbarmy]

I think we admittedly came to a sort of consensus that neither political spectrum supports heathy family policies in totality. Despite lip service from all parties (in different ways).

In order to encourage families to have more children there needs to be support for:

Child birth; direct financial support throughout the pregnancy and beyond. Emotional and Mental support as well.

Child care; financial assistance to both parents as well as those businesses engaged in child care to incentivize it as a viable small business (and not a “kiddy farm”)

Medical Support; for expectant mothers, and children from conception to adulthood.
*May not be such an issue in Canada, but a big thing down here.

Parental Leave and Financial Support for that leave period.

Education on contraception, and health, mental, financial issues with young pregnancies.

IMHO if you can’t get behind the above, all the anti-abortion efforts in the world aren’t going to help, and also make one a hypocrite to attempt to call yourself Pro-Life and Pro-Family.

Meanwhile, entrepreneurs...

'I didn't have the energy to be upset': Entrepreneurs struggle with parental leave​

For as long as she has worked, Marie Chevrier Schwartz has paid into Canada's Employment Insurance program. Yet when she eventually needed to collect the benefit, she was denied support.

In 2021, the chief executive of Toronto-based brand promotions company Sampler had just given birth to her first child and, for the first time since founding her company eight years earlier, planned to take a break. She spent months co-ordinating with the board of directors and senior leadership about what responsibilities other staff would assume during her three months of maternity leave.

But after Chevrier Schwartz applied for parental benefits, she found officials didn't seem to trust that she had stopped working. In two interviews and an audit of her application, she said they questioned why her email signature and voicemail still said she was chief executive and whether she'd truly backed away. Chevrier Schwartz said she had been too caught up with her newborn to change her messages.

Eventually, an email arrived denying her the benefits because she was at "non-arm's length" from the company. She decided at that point to cut her maternity leave short, taking off just one month.

'I didn't have the energy to be upset': Entrepreneurs struggle with parental leave

For as long as she has worked, Marie Chevrier Schwartz has paid into Canada's Employment Insurance program. Yet when she eventually needed to collect the benefit, she was denied support.

www.ctvnews.ca

 

[Eaglelord17]

So some ideas that could possibly encourage increasing birth rates.

1) Increase parental leave pay. Minimum 6 months of full wages for each parent. Having to take the reduced wages makes a huge difference and unless your workplace tops up really limits many families on how long parents can take off.

2) Student debt write offs, doesn’t necessarily have to be the full thing, or put a specific amount per child (say 50k) but it’s a burden for many.

3) Downpayment assistance/grant. Something like 25k-50k per child towards a downpayment on a home. Either make it a loan payable when the house is sold or from the parents estate when they die, or just a straight grant.

4) Child care. There needs to be more child care available and it needs to be reasonably priced.

5) I did fine Hungary’s 4 children and the mother doesn’t have to pay income tax ever again quite interesting. Under a policy like that my aunt would never have had to pay income tax and my mother likely would have had one more child. Not sure if it would fly here, but it is a interesting proposal.

Many would argue that those proposals are too expensive, however we willingly give OAS which writes off a substantial amount of tax money which was collected from seniors. At least policies that promote increasing the birth rate creates more tax payers for the future.

 

[YZT580]

So some ideas that could possibly encourage increasing birth rates.

1) Increase parental leave pay. Minimum 6 months of full wages for each parent. Having to take the reduced wages makes a huge difference and unless your workplace tops up really limits many families on how long parents can take off.

2) Student debt write offs, doesn’t necessarily have to be the full thing, or put a specific amount per child (say 50k) but it’s a burden for many.

3) Downpayment assistance/grant. Something like 25k-50k per child towards a downpayment on a home. Either make it a loan payable when the house is sold or from the parents estate when they die, or just a straight grant.

4) Child care. There needs to be more child care available and it needs to be reasonably priced.

5) I did fine Hungary’s 4 children and the mother doesn’t have to pay income tax ever again quite interesting. Under a policy like that my aunt would never have had to pay income tax and my mother likely would have had one more child. Not sure if it would fly here, but it is a interesting proposal.

Many would argue that those proposals are too expensive, however we willingly give OAS which writes off a substantial amount of tax money which was collected from seniors. At least policies that promote increasing the birth rate creates more tax payers for the future.

perhaps instead of full pay which might be an unacceptable cost to industry one could do a 50% tax free or some other reasonable percentage.

 

[captloadie]

It is too bad we couldn't come up with a way to make having a family affordable on a single income, thus negating the need to implement many of these other financial incentives. Make it a family choice if both parents want to work, rather than having to work, and let those individuals pay out of pocket for that choice (because the double income would allow for that).

My wife runs a home day care and my experience from that is a little more than 50% of the parents would love to stay home with their kids rather than returning to the workforce, until their kids are school age for most. But instead, they have a child, return to work after the year, start working on #2, return to work after a year or 18 months, then in some cases start on #3. Maternity/Paternity leave and the time off work is actually what drives many of them to have more kids, and they only go back long enough to become eligible for the benefits again. Now, its a small sample size of less than 40 parents over 5 years.

 

[Eaglelord17]

It is too bad we couldn't come up with a way to make having a family affordable on a single income, thus negating the need to implement many of these other financial incentives. Make it a family choice if both parents want to work, rather than having to work, and let those individuals pay out of pocket for that choice (because the double income would allow for that).

My wife runs a home day care and my experience from that is a little more than 50% of the parents would love to stay home with their kids rather than returning to the workforce, until their kids are school age for most. But instead, they have a child, return to work after the year, start working on #2, return to work after a year or 18 months, then in some cases start on #3. Maternity/Paternity leave and the time off work is actually what drives many of them to have more kids, and they only go back long enough to become eligible for the benefits again. Now, its a small sample size of less than 40 parents over 5 years.

Unless we are magically able to bring back the cost of living and income ratios of 70 years ago it pretty much isn’t a option anymore.

I am doing the single income household right now. I can only afford to do it thanks to living in a low cost of living area, in a house bought before the prices went insane (170k purchase price, locked in on cheap mortgage payments now), with a income a bit above the national household average. If any one of those factors were to change it wouldn’t be possible for me. To think that used to be the standard is mind blowing.

perhaps instead of full pay which might be an unacceptable cost to industry one could do a 50% tax free or some other reasonable percentage.

Tax free means nothing when you need the money to take the time off. 6 months isn’t unreasonable considering you can already take a year and a half, it is simply taking the burden of paying for it out of the parents hands.

I personally could only do 3-1/2 months off because of it. I looked on with some jealousy at my government and military friends who got topped up to 100%. For me especially it would have made a big difference as my child has some health issues with trips to sick kids and such. I had to take unpaid time off soon after coming back to take the child to those medical appointments, which if I had 6 months off wouldn’t have been a issue at all. Work was difficult with me taking that time as ‘you just came back to work’.

Yeah I did, but that was a financial decision as opposed to the decision I wanted to make. Someone had to go and make money to pay the bills and my partner wasn’t in any state to be doing that.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Policies can't simply throw bags of cash at people who are going to have kids anyways. What would truly be an incentive aimed at increasing birth rate above replacement would be benefits starting with third child.

If there isn't already enough reasonably priced child care, ask yourself why. Then try to imagine where the additional workers are going to come from, and how much it will be necessary to offer to pay them. For bonus points, imagine what will happen to costs if provision of service is overtaken by governments.

 

[suffolkowner]

Policies can't simply throw bags of cash at people who are going to have kids anyways. What would truly be an incentive aimed at increasing birth rate above replacement would be benefits starting with third child.

If there isn't already enough reasonably priced child care, ask yourself why. Then try to imagine where the additional workers are going to come from, and how much it will be necessary to offer to pay them. For bonus points, imagine what will happen to costs if provision of service is overtaken by governments.

Not sure incentives on 3rd childs is the way to go when we are likely headed to sub 1 fertility, although one shouldnt underestimate the impact of super breeders

Hard to see how child care can be reasonably priced in a lot of cases, especially if it is licensed and regulated. Does the child care provider not need to earn an income too? Or just another govt subsidized thing.

eg make $20/hr work 44 hrs a week = $880 gross, $10 a kid daycare where available

 

[YZT580]

Unless we are magically able to bring back the cost of living and income ratios of 70 years ago it pretty much isn’t a option anymore.

Focusing only on this point, I believe that a major contributing factor to the high cola is or was initially just plain greed. With her working I can buy a boat, sled, F150 etc. We can get a bigger house just like Fred did. Etc. Etc. Yes everything went ballistic with COVID but even back in the early 80's most families were requiring two incomes and it was primarily because of their credit card bills; things they didn't need but wanted.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Focusing only on this point, I believe that a major contributing factor to the high cola is or was initially just plain greed. With her working I can buy a boat, sled, F150 etc. We can get a bigger house just like Fred did. Etc. Etc. Yes everything went ballistic with COVID but even back in the early 80's most families were requiring two incomes and it was primarily because of their credit card bills; things they didn't need but wanted.

Again, the early '80s is too early. It doesn't fit the pattern of the younger families I knew (peers, and people between my age and my parents' age.) I was perfectly capable of buying a house and supporting a family in the mid-90s, and I was earning middle class wages.

Part of the snowball in home prices was couples deciding to delay or not have kids purely for lifestyle reasons: they wanted to live well; they could outbid single income families in the desirable markets.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Hard to see how child care can be reasonably priced in a lot of cases, especially if it is licensed and regulated. Does the child care provider not need to earn an income too? Or just another govt subsidized thing.

Short answer is that it can't. People working now are owners and people willing to do the work for low wages. Anyone can do the arithmetic: take the going monthly rate per child, multiply by the maximum number of children licensed for the number of workers. That's the gross take. Estimate what that allows for the owner and workers in compensation, noting that there will also be costs (administration, accounting, consumables and activities for the kids, facility).

My guess is that child care workers will eventually have to be paid comparably to teachers before there will be "enough", mainly because governments would have to get involved on the supply side and the work force would be an easy target for unionization.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Focusing only on this point, I believe that a major contributing factor to the high cola is or was initially just plain greed. With her working I can buy a boat, sled, F150 etc. We can get a bigger house just like Fred did. Etc. Etc. Yes everything went ballistic with COVID but even back in the early 80's most families were requiring two incomes and it was primarily because of their credit card bills; things they didn't need but wanted.

It was the 80s that started the decline. But the 90s that reinforced it. Mainly wages stayed stagnant well jobs were shipped overseas. The West sold out the blue collar jobs in the name of the rich getting higher profit margins. Which they then didn’t even have to share thanks to successful lobbying of the governments over the previous decade to drop corporate tax rates.

Policies can't simply throw bags of cash at people who are going to have kids anyways. What would truly be an incentive aimed at increasing birth rate above replacement would be benefits starting with third child.

If there isn't already enough reasonably priced child care, ask yourself why. Then try to imagine where the additional workers are going to come from, and how much it will be necessary to offer to pay them. For bonus points, imagine what will happen to costs if provision of service is overtaken by governments.

If people can’t afford the first child how are they going to get to the third? I would favour a tiered incentive system where first child is ‘x’ amount. Second is ‘1.5x’. Third is ‘2x’ etc.

We throw tons of money at things which have no return on the economy. If we scaled back some of that money could easily be found for child benefits.

OAS could easily be scaled back, make it so 40-50k or less a year income to receive it. That would likely find billions in savings. Other programs that could be squeezed are student loans/post secondary education, if the program doesn’t generate income there is no point in the government subsidizing it.

Child care is expensive, with the rules around it unless its heavily subsidized it will always be expensive. I see it as a investment in the future as thousands spent on a child will easily be made back up in tax dollars in the future. Maybe with AI and the potential resulting loss of jobs there will be a surplus of workers to watch them.

 

[Brad Sallows]

If people can’t afford the first child how are they going to get to the third? I would favour a tiered incentive system where first child is ‘x’ amount. Second is ‘1.5x’. Third is ‘2x’ etc.

Don't know. But I don't see how we can afford to throw $100K+ per child at pretty much every couple in the country that wants to have children.

OAS could easily be scaled back, make it so 40-50k or less a year income to receive it. That would likely find billions in savings.

Already looked at this one. Anything we claw back with less generous means testing is better spent on the people for whom OAS/GIS is their only income.

Other programs that could be squeezed are student loans/post secondary education, if the program doesn’t generate income there is no point in the government subsidizing it.

If we could squeeze anything we'd still likely be borrowing massive amounts.

As I keep pointing out in the threads that touch on increasing defence spending, there's no revenue. People need to wrap their heads around that and make sure it's the first thing they remember when they start thinking of new spending.

 

[KevinB]

Don't know. But I don't see how we can afford to throw $100K+ per child at pretty much every couple in the country that wants to have children.

Already looked at this one. Anything we claw back with less generous means testing is better spent on the people for whom OAS/GIS is their only income.

If we could squeeze anything we'd still likely be borrowing massive amounts.

As I keep pointing out in the threads that touch on increasing defence spending, there's no revenue. People need to wrap their heads around that and make sure it's the first thing they remember when they start thinking of new spending.

You need more revenue.

LNG exports and in a further time frame, northern resources to be exploited.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Don't know. But I don't see how we can afford to throw $100K+ per child at pretty much every couple in the country that wants to have children.

Already looked at this one. Anything we claw back with less generous means testing is better spent on the people for whom OAS/GIS is their only income.

If we could squeeze anything we'd still likely be borrowing massive amounts.

As I keep pointing out in the threads that touch on increasing defence spending, there's no revenue. People need to wrap their heads around that and make sure it's the first thing they remember when they start thinking of new spending.

Putting money into the future is a investment. Putting money into OAS isn’t, unless we want to bring in a inheritance tax to make up for it.

Hungary spends 5% of GDP on trying to bring up the birth rate, it is expensive to do so. The question is it worthwhile, because what we currently are doing isn’t working.

 

[QV]

You need more revenue.

LNG exports and in a further time frame, northern resources to be exploited.

Hush! There is no business case for LNG, said our exalted PM. Despite the worldwide demand.

 

[CountDC]

Putting money into the future is a investment. Putting money into OAS isn’t, unless we want to bring in a inheritance tax to make up for it.

Kinda sounds like you are saying lets spend money now to get more young people and when they get old too bad for them.

 

[KevinB]

Kinda sounds like you are saying lets spend money now to get more young people and when they get old too bad for them.

Logan's Run...

 

[daftandbarmy]

Kinda sounds like you are saying lets spend money now to get more young people and when they get old too bad for them.

In case you missed it, even bribing people to have kids with government money won't work.... in any country:

You can’t even pay people to have more kids​

These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.

Taiwan has spent more than $3 billion trying to get its citizens to have more children.

In 2009, after decades of falling birth rates, it began offering six months of paid parental leave, reimbursed at 60 percent of a new parent’s salary — then recently increased that share to 80 percent. The government has introduced a cash benefit and a tax break for parents of young children, and has invested in child care centers.

Perhaps having exhausted more conventional approaches, current and would-be lawmakers have started getting creative: Authorities have hosted several singles mixers in an effort to get young people to pair up. Terry Gou, a candidate in next year’s Taiwanese presidential election, has even proposed giving people a free pet if they have a child. “If there is no birthrate in the future, who will take care of our furry friends?” he said. “So I have put these two issues together.”

If history is any guide, none of this will work: No matter what governments do to convince them to procreate, people around the world are having fewer and fewer kids.

In the US, the birth rate has been falling since the Great Recession, dropping almost 23 percent between 2007 and 2022. Today, the average American woman has about 1.6 children, down from three in 1950, and significantly below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children needed to sustain a stable population. In Italy, 12 people now die for every seven babies born. In South Korea, the birth rate is down to 0.81 children per woman. In China, after decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, the population is shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. In Taiwan, the birth rate stands at 0.87.

You can’t even pay people to have more kids

These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.

www.vox.com

 

[Eaglelord17]

Kinda sounds like you are saying lets spend money now to get more young people and when they get old too bad for them.

Did I say get rid of OAS? Or did I say OAS is going to a bunch of people who don’t need it? Why can someone make up to 134k a year and still receive the benefit? Thats over twice the average income, yet we still subsidize them for no reason other than vote buying.

Meanwhile asking to put money into having children is absurd despite the fact the more children there are the less old people need to be taken care of by the state to begin with. It also benefits pension systems and other social pyramid schemes we have set up that require a bunch at the bottom working to support the top.

If we cut OAS back on who receives it (I would say 50k is a good cut off point) just redistributing that income to having children we would be better off.

 

[Brad Sallows]

It also benefits pension systems and other social pyramid schemes we have set up that require a bunch at the bottom working to support the top.

There was only one - CPP - and it's moving to an asset-funded model.

The time has already passed for governments to start governing without the assumption of population growth.