Last month, in “Europe’s Choice: Populate or Perish,” Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg observed:
At a deeper level … Europe’s declining birth-rate may also reflect a change in intellectual horizons. A cultural outlook focused upon the present and disinterested in the future is more likely to view children as a burden rather than a gift to be cared for in quite un-self-interested ways. Individuals and societies that have lost a sense of connection to their past and have no particular interest in their long-term destiny aren’t likely to be worried about a dearth of children. Here Europe’s generation of 1968—which promoted a radical rupture with the past and is intensely suspicious of anything that might broaden people’s outlooks beyond the usual politically-correct causes—has much to answer for.
In “America’s Parent Trap,” Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson picks up the same theme noting that, “Our society does not — despite rhetoric to the contrary — put much value on raising children.” He takes a closer look at tax policy, among other factors, and the way it financially punishes parents.
While having a child is a deeply personal decision, it’s also shaped by culture, religion, economics and government policy. “No one has a good answer” as to why fertility varies among countries, says sociologist Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University. Eroding religious belief in Europe may partly explain lowered birth rates. In Japan, young women may be rebelling against their mothers’ isolated lives of child-rearing. General optimism and pessimism count. Hopefulness fueled America’s baby boom. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, says Cherlin, “anxiety for the future” depressed birth rates in Russia and Eastern Europe.
In poor societies, people have children to improve their economic well-being by increasing the number of family workers and providing support for parents in their old age. In wealthy societies, the logic often reverses. Government now supports the elderly, diminishing the need for children. By some studies, the safety nets for retirees have reduced fertility rates by 0.5 children in the United States and almost 1.0 in Western Europe, reports economist Robert Stein in the journal National Affairs. Similarly, some couples don’t have children because they don’t want to sacrifice their lifestyles to the time and expense of a family.
We need to avoid Western Europe’s mix of high taxes, low birth rates and feeble economic growth. Young Americans already face a bleak labor market that cannot instill confidence about having children. Piling on higher taxes won’t help. “If higher taxes make it more expensive to raise children,” says demographer Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, “people will think more about having another child.” That seems common sense, despite the multiple influences on becoming parents.
Read Samuelson’s column on the Washington Post website.
