[zrn900]

> but they require a lot of "labor" from you

Unpaid work. If that work were paid enough through tax incentives and state aid, people would have been having children. But it's not. If they have children, they will be working intensely at their day job in an economic environment that expects ever-increasing productivity from everyone, and then doing more work when they get home. Japan did that. People started collapsing where they worked or stopped having children. Now they are trying to reduce workload, increase financial security and increase wages.

Germany set itself on the road to depopulation.

[bigballsbjorn]

why would it be paid? you get the value back through the social contract. monetary incentives for children are empirically proven to be very ineffective. so the ship will go down regardless. why not to punish the culprits out of spite?

[zrn900]

> you get the value back through the social contract

That was in the earlier decades when there actually was a social contract. Now the entire society is a profit extraction machine that has people working until they drop.

> monetary incentives for children are empirically proven to be very ineffective

On the contrary. Monetary incentives made immigrant families raise numerous kids. The problem was that natives of Germany weren't doing it. Or, maybe very few from the very low income segments were doing it.

[triceratops]

> monetary incentives for children are empirically proven to be very ineffective

Money is like violence. If it didn't work you didn't use enough.

> why not to punish the culprits out of spite?

Is there a difference between penalizing the (by choice) childless and lavishing money on those who have children? Seems about the same to me.

[bigballsbjorn]

doesnt make sense unless money has no meaning anymore.