[smallmancontrov]

When we brought women into the formal economy, we didn't reduce men's hours and meet in the middle, we just doubled the labor supply. Of course the proceeds went to capital. The market-induced-labor-quota (cost of living / hourly wage) now says a married couple has to devote 80 hours per week instead of 40 to the formal economy in order to afford the same house and suddenly nobody has the time/money to afford kids. How could it be?

The solution isn't to go back to oppressing women, the solution is to put downwards pressure on formal economy hours/week until people have time to raise their own kids again. This can be done in a gradual and non-sexist way with overtime policy.

Health care and education are important sidekicks in this drama. Our policies to individualize and increase the costs (and yes, that's policy: everyone knows what happens if you train too few doctors, everyone knows who loses if John Smith, BCBS North Dakota, and Canada are bargaining against each other for drug prices, and everyone knows what happens if you flood a competitive market with debt) also provide steep disincentives to raising children. Start fixing these problems, you start fixing the birth rate.

Of course, you should expect to be fought tooth and nail at every turn by those who profit from the problem, but what else is new?