02-14-2025, 09:59 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-14-2025, 10:03 AM by MidTowner.
Edit Reason: spelling
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(02-13-2025, 08:35 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Countless governments (including ours) have tried to bribe families with various types of child tax credits (or maybe this is demonizing, too?) to have larger families, and it really does not significantly move the needle. Some individuals, yes, but not enough.
What does work, at least somewhat? Enabling women to have children AND continue their careers. And how do you do that? With $10/day child care.
The Canadian government doesn't have any natalist policies: as far as I know it has never stated that a goal of any policy is to increase the birth rate. The Canada Child Benefit, for instance, the biggest such program, is intended to lift children out of poverty, and the evidence has been that it really has. Some people view it as a "bribe" to have children or to have children, but that's not the intent. It doesn't privilege larger families, for instance. No Canadian policies do, and to some extent most actually privilege families with fewer children.
If you have seen some evidence that subsidized day care works to increase fertility rates, I'd love to see it. I personally doubt it- but it's still probably good policy for all sorts of reasons.