A recent National Review article called attention to the fact that nearly all measures to prop up humanity’s quickly declining birthrate have failed, and that allegedly the only successful factor behind a high enough birthrate is marriage. This article points out that increasing the marriage rate will require worker-friendly employers and communal living, like the secular moshav/kibbutz communes of Israel.
As rightwing National Review, and leftwing Vox, point out, no country has found a way to increase the birthrate, not even by paying parents tons of money. Scandinavian countries are famous for their health work/life balance, social welfare systems, and support for mothers, and yet even there the birthrates among the native population are still below replacement.
So far, though, countries have experimented with paying parents only a few thousand U.S. dollars per child. That is not much money. Some public intellectuals like Robin Hanson at his Substack advocate paying parents far more, maybe US$300,000 per child! Sums that high seem far more likely to have a significant effect, although they also will be far more expensive.
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In the United States, married women have a birthrate above the replacement rate of 2.1 children on average per woman. The birthrate hovers between 80 and 83 births per 1,000 married women in the 15–44 age range. This 80–83 children per 1,000 married women per year translates into an average of 2.4 children on average per married woman over the course of her lifetime.**
Under the per 1,000 metric, as long as the birthrate is above 70 children per 1,000 women per year, the birthrate is above replacement. Obviously, not all women are going to marry, and so the actual birthrate in the United States of America is considerably less than 2.1 children on average per woman, going as low as 1.6 in recent years, because unmarried women have an average somewhere around 37 children per 1,000 unmarried women per year.
And, unfortunately, marriage rates have been declining quickly in America.
If society wants to find a way to increase the birthrate to sustainable levels without trying Robin Hanson’s unproven and expensive (at least up front, but it could pay off long-term) proposal to pay parents US$300,000 per baby, increasing marriage rates seems like the only viable option.
The rightwing conservative Heritage Foundation is stumbling towards a viable answer when it proposes more workplace and educational flexibility in order to increase the birthrate among married couples. However, this policy paper does not hone in on the more effective goal: Increasing the marriage rate itself, rather than the fertility rate among married couples.
Considering that married women have a birthrate more than twice that of unmarried women, it seems that focusing on increasing the marriage rate is the most effective means to increase the birthrate, not increasing the birthrate among the cohort that is already have children at the highest rate: married women.
Necessary But Insufficient Fertility Measures: Flexibility
Everyone on the political spectrum, left and right, should be able to agree with some of the measures that the righwing Heritage Foundation recommends in that article, including expanding childcare opportunities, and somehow encouraging/requiring employers to provide more flexible work hour and telework arrangements.
The rightwing Heritage Foundation article also recommends more flexible educational opportunities from kindergarten to higher education, including school vouchers. This previous Stakeholder Control article articulates a vision for a school voucher system that the political left might be more likely to agree with than current voucher ideas coming from the political right.
All these measures, though, are proven insufficient by the fact that Scandinavian countries have implemented almost all of them (with the notable exception of lacking free choice in education), and yet they still do not have marriage or birth rates high enough to surpass the break-even sustainable rate of 2.1 children on average per woman over the course of her lifetime. These measures are necessary, but insufficient.
#1 Priority: Baby-Friendly College & Employment
All of these measures are necessary in order to provide the foundation to increase the marriage rate and thereby increase the fertility rate to above replacement/sustainability at 2.1 children on average per woman. The foundation requires an economic system promoting flexibility in education and the workplace, and good jobs for both parents, as the Heritage Foundation and many other commentators across the political spectrum point out.
Ideally, as many young adults of college-age are marrying as possible.
What will convince more college-age young adults to marry?
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Answer: Higher education, and all employers whether of high school graduates or college graduates, encouraging their students and employees to marry, and wholeheartedly and emphatically supporting career advancement for parents while providing support to parents to have flexibility for family care.
Right now, these goals do not seem realistic.
The nihilist political left will never support encouraging college students to marry each other and start having children during college. The wealthy (left and right) are never going to support baby-friendly employment; they would rather just continue importing low-wage illegal immigrants.
Neither side of the political spectrum really supports house ownership. Both sides support rent slavery. The nihilist political left wants everyone to rent apartments, rather than habitat-destructive single-family houses, but in direct contradiction leftwing NIMBY elites refuse to rezone land to allow apartment buildings. Too many rightwing elites also just love having rent slaves.
This Stakeholder Control series has a solution to rent slavery in this article. But the dominant political forces across the political spectrum would never agree to such family-friendly laws.
And so, in the end, nothing the political seems willing to do can raise marriage rates or fertility rates.
No, the Real #1 Priority: Tribal Commune Living
No, I change my mind. The #1 Priority should not be increasing marriage rates, or focusing on explicity increasing fertility rates.
Like in dating, and so many other aspects of life, the way to get what you want is to ignore it and strive for other goals that naturally result in the achievement of the original goal as a secondary effect. The ideal political leader is one who does not want to be a political leader.
And so, in order to increase the marriage rate and the fertility rate, we should ignore them.
Instead, we should return to our tribal roots. Communes are the modern implementation of our tribal roots.
We thrive in a community with a few dozen, to a few hundred, people.
As that linked article and its antecedents point out, moshavim and kibbutzim have birthrates above replacement. The “kibbutz” style is older, more classically socialist/communist, and so does not have family units; instead, children are raised by the community as a whole. In a more modern “moshav”, on the other hand, two parents raise their children as a traditional family, with their own separate dwelling unit.
So, unless political elites across the political spectrum are willing to give up rental income and to support baby-friendly employment, humanity has only one choice: the “moshav”.
If you want to establish a secure future for humanity that is modern, and not like the Amish, then you should build your own “moshav” commune. There is no other more realistic, or even only slightly less unrealistic, option.
If you are thinking: “Wow, I really liked the hippie commune vibe, and modeling my commune after some Zionist pattern is not as thrilling.” Well, consider reading about the last remaining hippie commune in California at this link. Two of its core rules were no drugs, and no relationships outside of marriage. (The remaining members are so old, these rules do not matter anymore.)
The hippie commune has proven itself a failure, while the “moshav” framework has proven itself a success.
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