Yes, lets bring in loads of uneducated, poor immigrants instead of addressing the issues causing fertility rates below the replacement level. Why let our children have families when we can import them for cheaper?
> addressing the issues causing fertility rates below the replacement level
Myself and many of my friends who have decided to have zero children or only one child rather late in life, cite the burden of having to take care of children, when one is already tired after work, one would like to pursue leisure activities that do not involve children present, etc. Even in countries where the state provides abundant infrastructure to minimize the financial expense of childrearing, birthrates are still low because of the time and effort expense that remains. So, how do you address that issue? Telling people to just suck it up and accept childbearing as their duty isn’t going to work.
Immigrants are often coming from countries where religious and cultural pressures in favor of childbearing are maintaining the birthrate higher than in the West, but even in those regions birthrates are gradually falling as their countries become more developed.
> Myself and many of my friends who have decided to have zero children or only one child rather late in life ... So, how do you address that issue? Telling people to just suck it up and accept childbearing as their duty isn’t going to work.
What I predict will happen:
Government will reduce pension and social security payments to those that did not support the system by having 2 or more well-raised children.
Do you know the difference between an immigrant and a refugee? Have you ever had to deal with the visa system of any western country?
I am in immigrant in the UK. You have to prove you have education, funds to support yourself, and a job offer with high salary. Add visa expenses, moving expenses, and you might realise only fairly 'privileged foreigners' can do this.
By all means, address issues causing low birthrates. But don't go around complaining about the unwashed masses, because kids from Somalia are never getting in.
Because educating immigrants is cheaper? If you support immigrants, surprisingly, they tend to embrace the existentially important parts of your culture and integrate smoothly.
But my guess is that you take issue more with their skin color.
>But my guess is that you take issue more with their skin color
Lol, I feel like having a family is way too expensive and disagree that importing replacements is the only way to go. Giving birth shouldn't bankrupt you, and that has to be a huge reason young people (including me and my friends) are pushing off having children. Combine that with the overwhelming student debt crisis, I don't feel I can take on a child. So it seems weird that the solution is "screw them, just import the people we need".
But sure, make it about me being "racist" so you can imagine yourself as a big warrior fighting off bigots online.
Logically-speaking, why would you create people who will be a burden to a society in need for a longer period than people you could bring in from outside? It's a very similar issue to the adoption vs birth debate, which is exceedingly simple before emotional matters come into play: it's much better for society for childless couples to adopt parentless children.
Likewise, the answer to this immigration debate is exceedingly clear, until you throw overly emotional notions about culture and ethnicity and nationality into the mix.
Me having two children are not destined to be "burdens to society in need (sic?) for a longer period than people you can bring from outside". That is certainly not guaranteed. I'm not sure it's even statistically more likely than not. So I'm very hesitant to take that as gospel.
And my personal beliefs about life and what it means to be human in my very finite time here goes far beyond "well the economics work out better if I'm barren forever and the government imports immigrants with higher birth rates due to being from a third world country". I strive to have a complete, well rounded life with a loving family. At the end of the day, my life goal is not to live an " economically logical" life void of emotions. I have 90 years here, if I'm lucky. I AM going to live a full life.
There is nothing wrong with immigration, but the fact of the matter is you can't strip all emotion out of the equation. You can say its overly emotional to want your own family instead of importing people with completely different cultures and values, but the drive to reproduce has been in the works for 3.5 billion years. Having others reproduce for you so the government can get an extra dollar out of isn't enough of an incentive to kick the repro drive.
>Me having two children are not destined to be "burdens to society in need (sic?) for a longer period than people you can bring from outside". That is certainly not guaranteed.
On balance, it pretty much is. Adult immigrants will generally be productive in a fraction of the time that children will take to even become legally eligible to be productive.
>And my personal beliefs about life and what it means to be human in my very finite time here goes far beyond "well the economics work out better if I'm barren forever and the government imports immigrants with higher birth rates due to being from a third world country". I strive to have a complete, well rounded life with a loving family. At the end of the day, my life goal is not to live an " economically logical" life void of emotions. I have 90 years here, if I'm lucky. I AM going to live a full life.
That's fine. Please explain why we should build policy around your sentimentality, especially since people like you are unmoved (at least, to the point of actual action) by appeals to the human rights of would-be immigrants.
Western countries are importing immigrants that someone else has already paid to educate. If an engineer moves to US from India, Indian government and the Immigrant / their family have already invested in that person's education. Arguably US is 'Stealing' the best people from elsewhere, and gaining unfair advantage.
Myself and many of my friends who have decided to have zero children or only one child rather late in life, cite the burden of having to take care of children, when one is already tired after work, one would like to pursue leisure activities that do not involve children present, etc. Even in countries where the state provides abundant infrastructure to minimize the financial expense of childrearing, birthrates are still low because of the time and effort expense that remains. So, how do you address that issue? Telling people to just suck it up and accept childbearing as their duty isn’t going to work.
Immigrants are often coming from countries where religious and cultural pressures in favor of childbearing are maintaining the birthrate higher than in the West, but even in those regions birthrates are gradually falling as their countries become more developed.