【海外の反応】母親に給料を払えば少子化は解決？海外ネット民「問題はそこじゃない」

Poorer women are more likely to have kids than middle class women.

The Nordic countries have the overall best social and financial benefits for mothers and still have rapidly declining birthrates. The issue seems to be more complex than people like to admit. Turns out when people have the privilege of actually doing anything they want and push off children till their 30s you get less babies

There's something to that, but birth rates are declining even in countries that have very strong social safety nets and protections for working mothers. For example, Sweden has some of the most generous parental supports on the planet. Working parents can take TONS of paid time off to care for children (both newborns and older kids), in addition to their generous vacation and sick time and heavily subsidized childcare. They also get a monthly allowance from the state for every child (it's small – equivalent to only about $150USD/mo).

Sweden's birth rate is extremely low, at 1.4 births per woman.

It's pretty clear that money isn't the only factor, and probably isn't even the primary factor, behind the falling birth rates. There are a lot of theories about what the other factors might be. For example, it's well-known that female education is the single best predictor of fertility rates. The more educated women are, the fewer children they have. It's still debated why that effect exists. Do more educated women have fewer children on purpose? Is it because women in school tend to delay childbearing? Does it go the other way – women who have more access to education are less likely to have children?

One that has to be considered is easily-available, minimally-stigmatized, safe, effective, reliable contraception. We haven't actually had that for very long. Hormonal birth control didn't hit the market until the 1960s, and it was much less safe, much less effective, and much harder to access for a long time. Today's women of childbearing age are the first to have been born into a world where that's completely normal. It's quite possible that this is just how many kids women *choose* to have when they get to make the choice.

People think it’s about money, but really it’s not, it’s about freedom. Women in developed countries have options now with more women getting degrees than men and many more having a career then 40-50 years ago.

Overall Women no longer rely on men financially, so if they don’t add anything else women would rather not settle down. Hence why marriage rates are also at an all time low.

Aside from the general logistical implications of paying people to have kids, fact of the matter is: some people just don't want to. There are countries where parental benefits, work-life balance and social safety nets are very good, and people still don't want to have kids. For many people it's not a financial (barrier hence why on average higher income couples tend to have less kids despite being more able to afford them).

Pregnancy and parenting puts your body through the wringer and many people just don’t want to do that

Might not be shocking to hear this but generally people who believe women ought to have more children out of an obligation to society/god/humanity also believe women ought to stay home with those children, so they tend to vote/act in ways to discourage women from being in the workplace. They also tend to vote/act in ways that make NOT having children harder, i.e. banning abortion care and family planning care. Generally the opinion is not rooted in what's best for the woman; it's about god, society, the human species, etc, rarely is it about giving women choice and agency.

The people concerned with declining birth rates want exploitable labor, not a healthy community.