The world is having too few babies, and too many
2 min read . Updated: 10 Nov 2022, 03:46 PM IST
PremiumVarying birth rates on opposite sides of the globe will have different economic consequences, and they’re both probably bad.
Having children in America isn’t only expensive, but it puts a serious dent in your social calendar, too. Data show many single, childless women in the US are traveling freely and earning more money—including more than their single, childless male counterparts. But when too many people forgo kids, it raises questions about the future workforce and whether it will be able to adequately fund benefits for the elderly. Increasingly, nations are grappling with how to encourage people to have children while enabling them to live their lives as they wish.
In this episode of the Stephanomics podcast, we explore the subject of birth rates from two very different angles, and opposite ends of the globe. In the US, editor Molly Smith shares the story of Anna Dickson, a 42-year-old from New York who’s traveled to Alaska, Switzerland and Anguilla in the past year. It’s something she probably couldn't have done if she had kids, she says. Likewise, a growing number of American women are making the same choice to forgo children, and they’re reaping economic benefits. As of 2019, single women with no children had an average of $65,000 in wealth, or $8,000 more than similarly situated men, Smith finds.
Host Stephanie Flanders later discusses birth rates and government policy with Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. The total cost of raising a child in the US now exceeds $300,000, and that doesn’t even include soaring college costs, Sawhill says. Despite those expenses, Congress has been lax in passing legislation to support families, she explains. What's more, states with the most restrictive abortion laws also tend to be ones with the weakest social safety nets.
Meanwhile in the Philippines, reporter Siegfrid Alegado says there’s a very different dilemma at work. The nation has one of the highest birth rates in Southeast Asia, with women having 2.5 children on average. That’s far higher than in many advanced nations and threatens to exacerbate poverty among the poor, Alegado says. But any effort by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to encourage women to use family planning faces a distinct challenge: the largely Catholic country has historically frowned on contraception.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.
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