[dragonwriter]

> No, I'm blaming Republicans for blocking initiatives that might actually help the birth rate. Including things like better funded public education and funding for childcare

There’s pretty good evidence that weak public social safety nets, particularly around old age, disability, etc., contribute to higher birthrates, [0] so you should be applauding the Republicans and their attacks on Social Security and Medicare, if that is your highest concern.

[0] speculation is because in the absence of state support, family are your social safety net, and particularly younger family members.

[scottLobster]

Shockingly I have concern for the quality of life of said kids.

Theoretically you could increase the birth rate by using the army to force people to breed at gunpoint. But it probably isn't going to result in a high quality labor force, social cohesion, or high quality of life for those involved.

[dragonwriter]

> Shockingly I have concern for the quality of life of said kids.

My point was not that you should actually support Republicans, or the particular policies most likely to increase birth rates.

[PathOfEclipse]

> Shockingly I have concern for the quality of life of said kids.

But do you really? Because, for instance, children in Sweden have shown a far more rapid decline in mental health than in other similar Nordic countries without government child care:

https://www.imfcanada.org/archive/1107/swedish-daycare-inter...

"An official Swedish government investigation in 2006 showed that mental health among Swedish 15-year-olds declined faster from 1986 to 2002 than in eleven comparable European countries."

https://www.aei.org/events/the-unintended-consequences-of-un...

If you cared about the well-being of children, you'd think you'd fully consider the effects of various policies on children before advocating for them.

Indeed, most things done by the Democrat party harm the well-being of children. They could care less, for instance, that their open border policies facilitate child trafficking: https://www.dailywire.com/news/gop-senators-introduce-end-ch...

“Children are tragically being trafficked across the border by illegal immigrants who falsely claim they are related,” Ernst added. “This needs to stop — for the wellbeing of these children and the security of our nation. ... Of the 100,441 arrests for illegal border crossings in February, unaccompanied children accounted for nearly 10%"

Democrat lockdown policies harmed children tremendously while saving statically zero child lives. From the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/opinion/coronavirus-schoo...

"Children have suffered because many mayors and governors were too willing to close public schools."

Education quality in Democrat-run cities is the lowest in the nation: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/big_city_sc...

However, instead of supporting measures like school vouchers and charter schools that have been proven to help the most in inner cities, democrats have fought these policies tooth-and-nail at the behest of teacher's unions, who themselves have openly admitted they care about teachers, not students. https://www.amazon.com/Charter-Schools-Enemies-Thomas-Sowell...

And, of course, the Democrat-supported transgender movement has presided in a "Sharp Rise in Transgender Young People in the U.S.": https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/science/transgender-teena....

In case you need it spelled out, no, that's not good for children. Many lives are being ruined as the number of detransitioners also rises: https://www.dailywire.com/news/chris-cuomo-hosts-first-natio...

Have you considered that your "care for quality of life of children" could instead be empty virtue signaling and a desire to parrot the partisan views of your political party, which has proven itself time and again to be bad for children?

[vidarh]

> than in other similar Nordic countries without government child care

Which are these supposed Nordic countries you're talking about without government childcare?

Oh, look, the source is a religious thinktank that is ideologically opposed to out-of-home childcare, who conveniently ignores that Norway, Denmark, and Finland has a very similar childcare system, because it doesn't fit their narrative.

[PathOfEclipse]

For Norway, Could it be related to the fact that Norway had a cash-for-care policy much earlier that was used by 91% of citizens? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318121531_The_rise_...

Using cash-for-care, as I understand it, resulted in mothers working less and spending more time at home.

This article also claims Finland had a cash-for-care program much earlier, and also had a higher proportion of mothers who chose to be homemakers: https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id/09079.pdf

It looks to me like you are being overly dismissive because this information doesn't fit your preferred narrative.

[vidarh]

"Cash for care" was a compromise forced through by the Christian Democrats to attempt to roll back long standing daycare policies, but it only ever applied to one and eventually two year olds, and was rolled back heavily as soon as that government fell after one decade.

The majority of the last half century has been characterised by steady expansion of daycare, just like in Sweden.

> that was used by 91% of citizens?

That is a ridiculous exaggeration by omission, given that daycare takeup for the covered group consistently remained relatively fixed, reflecting that in most cases it changed parents behaviour very little.

In 2000, two years after that policy was introduced, 37.1% of the eligible age group was in daycare, by 2005, a majority of the eligible group were in daycare. By the time it was removed for 2 year olds, the number was 78.1%, and today >85% of the originally covered group is in daycare. This steady growth in takeup has closely followed the overall increase in takeup of daycare.

Overall the long term percentage takeup of daycare in Norway has gone up year over year nearly every year since the mid 70's, just like in Sweden, the exception being with lowering of school starting age.

Today, 93.4% children between 1 (after majority of parental leave is over; some extends past one year and so contributes to pulling the 93.4% number down) and 5 go to daycare in Norway according to Statistics Norway.

So the point remains: If it was Sweden's use of day care that has supposedly led to these supposed problems, you'd expect to see the same issues in Norway (half the references were 404's or had no links and no full titles of papers, so I'm see little reason to trust that they've not been equally selective in their treatment of their sources as their convenient failure to address this).