Why doesn’t the country support having children?

[NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting]

Just seen an article on The Guardian about the 15 free hours for childcare for under 2’s and how the whole system is a mess.

I’m just starting to lose hope that this country doesn’t support working families anymore?

AIBU and need to think more positively, or have we screwed up massively by not supporting families?

The Guardian article which I read.

Google says UK teachers get 39 weeks?

Why does everyone seem to think you're a parent OR a taxpayer!? So many people are both. So why can't some of the taxes we pay be utilised in a way that assists us with going to work AND THEREFORE PAYING TAXES!?

The more people working and paying taxes, the more money the country has to spend on the people. It is not rocket science. We are not saying "give me money because I had a child". We're saying "let me go to work and contribute to the pot of taxes".

You can hate people who have children all you want. But we need both parents and taxpayers for human society to work, it's that simple. And some of us manage to be both.

Considering what we've done to the planet and other, less destructive species, from insects to elephants to marine life, the sooner humans die off, the better.

Imagine how beautiful Earth would be once it recovers?

Or we find a way for it to recover so that we can see how beautiful it becomes for our children and grandchildren. We are evolved enough to know we've done bad things and that something needs to change. We could change it. It won't be easy, it would be drastic, but it could be done.

The thing is what you want is to maximise your overall tax receipts less whatever benefits you give to help people work.

If what does that is having childcare available at a lower cost to individual parents it makes a lot of sense to fund it.

Bot quite the same thing but OH and I are one of the much discussed couples who earn 50k each but get full child benefit. In reality we earn nearer £120k between us but just shove loads into pensions & share scheme. We also get bonuses but we take unpaid leave to offset them and have extra time off with the kids. Maybe some people would do it regardless to avoid going from 30-42% tax but I think that we’d shrug off. Many people I know on similar incomes feel, like us, that it makes total sense to pay into pension, reduce hours or take parental leave in holidays to avoid being taxed 62% on their latest payrise, which is what tax rate effectively is for parents between 50-60k. I know people do similar to avoid losing their personal allowance at the next threshold and to avoid losing universal credit at the prior one. We won’t do it forever I’m sure as eventually we will want some additional income but we will keep it going this year at least.

I strongly doubt the behaviour encouraged by that particular policy with child benefit results in a great deal of extra tax receipts. It would be interesting to know how common it is for parents to do things to keep taxable income below/at 50k or below other thresholds and what impact it has on the economy overall.

Pumping out millions more humans who all want cars, houses, a new iPhone every two years, and to fly abroad annually is not the solution.

Firstly, you never give what your solution actually is, despite being asked. What is your solution other than being rude to people with children? I have asked you before but you only seem interested in telling us what the solution isn't.

Secondly, that is not what I said. Not everyone is materialistic. Some people have had the same phone for many years. Some of us drive old cars or walk or cycle. Some of us don't go abroad, or even on holiday regularly. Some of us enjoy our country and the nature it has. Some of us don't want the planet to burn AND want our children to appreciate it and be decent humans.

My solution?

Surely you can make an educated guess. Does somebody who thinks there are too many humans on the planet want more humans to be born or less humans? 🤔

It's a tough one....

Averting climate change and other environmental issues is always, ultimately, going to be about leveraging new technologies until the problem is solved (renewable energy, modern safe nuclear, grid technology, carbon capture and storage, modern alternatives to plastics that break down safely or are burnt safely as fuel). My big worry, actually, is that aging societies will be using up so much of their time and energy and money looking after growing numbers of very elderly based on an ever-shrinking tax base, that we will literally not have the means or capacity to make this transition.

Sure, Google is most definitely more correct than the actual teachers commenting here.

This
My friend child minded - the tax breaks were brilliant.

@Kokeshi123
Both stem in someway from a lack of personal responsibility. Pensioners want more out than they put in it seems, and people want the environmental issues resolved at no cost or inconvenience to them. "The way you do one thing is the way you do everything."

We also need to acknowledge that there will be an environmental cost to savings the atmosphere. This will be mainly in change of land use and loss of some habitat. Nothing is free. Making the responsibility as personal/local as possible will likely minimise that.

Every household/company needs solar on the roof. Every town needs a wind farm, every county needs storage , every region needs a nuclear power plant/tidal.

This is not to say there can't be trading of requirements to take advantage of better resources. But abdication of responsibility is the first step of failing.

Our first responsibility as adults in society is to care for ourselves. If we don't do this we are a drain in everyone else. Reforming state pension to increase personal responsibility is really a must.

My big worry, actually, is that aging societies will be using up so much of their time and energy and money looking after growing numbers of very elderly based on an ever-shrinking tax base, that we will literally not have the means or capacity to make this transition.

This is reality, you need new blood & youth to innovate & progress.

Birth rates are down. People are making more educated choices about whether to have children. But, biologically, people will never stop having children. So you need to get over your hatred of families and start thinking about what can actually be done.

Take America for example. They took away a woman's right to choose. They actually made it illegal in many states for a woman to decide what to do with her own body. So at either extreme of how a oregnancy occurred (failed birth control in a loving marriage down to pregnancy resulting from assualt), there's somewhere you could actually be angry at for adding to over population.

Or fast fashion. Things aren't made to last. Many of us are now turning back to how our grandparents did things, repair not replace. But, it's hard when things are made with flimsy materials because industries WANT you to have to replace regularly and therefore contribute to landfill, single uses etc.

There is LOADS of things we have done that we could undo. So many things we could do to make the planet better and make our species better. But that's hard work so you're not interested in that.

You, however, come across as really angry that people are choosing to follow their biological need to continue the species. What is your answer to in the future there being not enough people to fulfil care roles? Or to feed the aging population? Or to continue to repair the damage we've done? We still need new humans. We just need less overall than we have right now. And better ones.

Calm down. 😂 I'm neither angry nor filled with hatred for families.

I just don't agree that we should be incentivising/facilitating people to have kids when the planet is already massively populated with the vast majority of that happening in a tiny and recent period of human history with no sign of meaningful reversal on a global basis. I mean, anyone who's tried to get a doctor's appt or drive on the motorways lately will know that infrastructure is increasingly struggling to keep up.

An aging population is defo a problem but sometimes I feel like creating more humans to deal with it is a bit like saying we need people to keep smoking to avoid the collapse of the tobacco industry and the loss of the significant taxes (given that the government makes a lot more £ in tobacco taxes than it spends on smoking related illness).

I just don't agree that we should be incentivising/facilitating people to have kids

I don’t see this as wipe everyone out just not incentivise as a few pp have wanted

We’ll see a decline. What the right kind of birth rate is given AI replacing a decent chunk of the dc born now when they’re older would be good for researchers to think about

@IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos

We still need new humans. We just need less overall than we have right now. And better ones.

Nail on the head. I know I'll be flamed for this, but we need the "right" kind of people being born, the kind who are going to make a positive contribution. Sad but true, that in general terms, that's more likely to be the children of middle-high earners rather than the children of the workshy/criminal underclass. By making it difficult, if not impossible, for workers to have children due to ridiculously high childcare costs, we're disincentivising the kind of people we need to have children, yet the underclass who don't work are incentivised via the benefits system to keep popping out children because their benefits increase, they become entitled to bigger homes, etc., and they don't lose anything by having children in the same way that workers have to either reduce their hours or pay stupid amounts for childcare.

I mean, anyone who's tried to get a doctor's appt or drive on the motorways lately will know that infrastructure is increasingly struggling to keep up.

but thats not to do with more babies, there are more over 65s than u15s. The NHS is starting to be impacted by ageing population, what do you think it will be like in 10-20 yrs.

“Demographic and other pressures mean that spending on state pensions and other benefits for pensioners is already projected to rise by £100 billion a year by 2070, with even bigger increases in health and social care spending”

where does the money come from?

Complete tangent but I wonder if the jobs AI can’t do will get better pay as AI picks up what it can. It strikes me a lot of fairly badly paid roles like Carer, teaching assistant or nursery worker are not going to be replaced by AI any time soon

Yeah, interesting point. The need for human labour will always increasingly drop in most industries, caring possibly excepted as robots won't have that human touch.

I mean, anyone who's tried to get a doctor's appt or drive on the motorways lately will know that infrastructure is increasingly struggling to keep up.

https://www.birthgap.org/posts/the-birthgap-maps-about-the-birthgap-maps
: in 20 years time, newborns will typically be entering the workforce, will 50 year olds will expect to be retiring, give or take a year or two. If there is a significant difference between the numbers in these two age groups it is will be problematic in the years ahead, economically and socially.

This data scientist uses 50 to newborns maps to sort of get past the now and visualize situation in 20 years.

Maybe I’m not sure. Dc born today will enter the workforce in a pretty long time in tech development. We should be thinking about how to not just have loads of 18 to 21 year olds entering the reduced workforce, it’ll be tough

It was an aging population institute director that made me think that actually the two areas are too siloed. She said the same. All the research papers on falling birth rates, others on increasing AI - where what’s needed is people who get both and can advise on policies today

I don't know what technologies will develop over next 20 years - or how that will impact the workforce - there's so much hype but also real changes.

Listening to radio last night they think near real time AI translation services may not be that far in the future - that would I think have huge impact for that sector.

but thats not to do with more babies, there are more over 65s than u15s. The NHS is starting to be impacted by ageing population, what do you think it will be like in 10-20 yrs.

Surely the less babies now the less pensioners in the future? I feel there's an argument that we either struggle through it now or keep perpetuating it.

I think all the talk about driverless trucks won't happen for a very long time, possibly excepting trunking up and down the motorway like a train. We're a long way from automated bin collections for instance.

But drivers are already hugely in deficit so it's less likely to lead to a surge in unemployment in the same way automation of other sectors would. I feel like a lot of office jobs could be automated.