To think parents are being screwed over here?

[Bumpitybumper]

I was reading an article today that was discussing how population growth fuels economic growth and how our low birth rate is negatively impacting our economy. They also make the point that productivity is being hugely harmed by growing numbers of young people being economically inactive and often citing mental health issues that were present from childhood. There was an interesting paragraph in the article that made me stop and think:

'We have socialised the cost of old age – everyone is entitled to pensions and healthcare, regardless of whether they have “replenished” the economy by having children of their own – but privatised the cost of parenthood, removing entirely the link between bearing children and future economic security'

I think the journalist has a real point. It is in everyone's interests to make sure that we have an abundant, healthy workforce for when we hit old age and yet this burden is being disproportionately being carried by fewer and fewer people who are choosing parenthood. Surely you either socialise both elements properly (parenthood and care for the elderly) or none? Otherwise more and more people will opt out of having children in the full knowledge that they can skip expensive nursery fees and other costs, with the full knowledge that this doesn't in anyway invalidate their entitlement to assistance as they age.

People do not have children so they can be cared for in old age. It is far more complicated than that.

Some cultures do.

The article is deceptive.

Our economy is built on the assumption that our population distribution will always be like a pyramid- ie having many young workers for every old pensioner.

Low birth rate isn’t hurting the economy because productivity isn’t dependent on individual labour any more. Automation and AI have massively increased productivity despite a shrinking work force (and shrinking availability of secure, full time, well paid jobs).

The issue is that the elites have hoarded the extra profits from the increased productivity instead of sharing them with workers. We could all be working 3 days a week for £75k and have no problems funding social care, health care and so on.

The low birth rate argument is a red herring, since for it to have the impact the article describes we would also have to have a declining population, we aren’t because we are importing in young, tax paying workers who fulfill the same function that locals would if the birth rate were higher.

What a load of rubbish. The future economy needs far fewer children. People who didn't have them will on the whole have contributed more to work and productivity directly than parents could.

Having kids should be better supported but care homes aren't exactly cheap and plentiful and old age comes to us all.

Unless we go to Switzerland.

We don't need to go to Switzerland. Its been taken care of. We will be assisted to die sooner or later.

From what I see the people having lots of children must be a net drain on society and won’t be propping up anyone’s retirement or healthcare - a generalisation yes but very few working families are having more than two children

Doubt it will ever be available on demand here sadly.

Are they taking the fucking piss. After spending decades telling us not to have kids if we cant afford them they now whine when the reckoning has to be paid.
Not the fault of the child free if they couldnt think their attitudes through to their logical conclusion.

I can see policy moving towards encouraging children (pro natalism ?) more and more. Especially from right wing parties who want to discourage immigration.

i think pension age is too low (for us to actual afford)

I really don't understand the pyramid scheme. It makes more sense you pay for yourself, not that you have children to pay for you. Someone has really stuffed up.

I don't believe it anyway. Prior to having children, my DH were both working and high earners putting far more into the system than we were ever going to get back. Now that we have children, it will probably break even, or we will take more then we put in.

Yikes. I think it’s important that the people who want to have children are properly supported by society to do so — the situation with childcare, for example, is ludicrous. But I also think it’s important that the people who don’t want children aren’t guilted into it by shonky economic arguments and the idea that they aren’t deserving of social support mechanisms later in life because they didn’t (or couldn’t) reproduce. The idea that childbearing should be transactional in that way strikes me as pretty dystopian; I’m always a bit grossed out when people ask the childfree who is going to take care of them when they’re older, as if children are born into indentured servitude rather than being people in their own right. What is very frustrating for me is that women (and men, albeit to a lesser extent) keep telling policymakers and society more generally what needs to happen to encourage them to have children, but these explanations are broadly ignored in favour of ‘do it for the economy or you’re selfish and societally unnecessary’. Meanwhile, all the childfree people I know are steadily paying taxes on their income and purchases and paying into pensions just as much as these parents who we’re presumably meant to believe had kids out of a deeply held concern for society and not for their own, possibly quite selfish, reasons.

Well said @Sunflower459
What's worse is many of these children then end up in nursery for 40+ hours from a very young age, then start school and are in before and after school care too. We're essentially breeding like you would in a farm with no thought to the child. It's absolutely dystopian, and what you might expect from China or North Korea etc, but no it's happening right here, right now and we're all just stupidly going along with it. There's a thread at the moment about how school holidays should be shorter as it is needed for childcare.

They had the same discussion on Loose Women last Friday, re summer holidays and childcare
Back in the 1980s my parents both worked and childcare wasnt considered to be the schools problem.

It absolutely will.

This one doesn't.

Historically getting free workers on your Farm and care in okd age was a very strong motovator have children, and plenty of them.

Fortunately we can always import workers. If anything, we're getting more than we want, not fewer.

.We have socialised the cost of old age – everyone is entitled to pensions and healthcare, regardless of whether they have “replenished” the economy by having children of their own – but privatised the cost of parenthood, removing entirely the link between bearing children and future economic security'

This is certainly true. In a grossly overpopulated world/country that's probably a good thing, though.

The future economy needs far fewer children. People who didn't have them will on the whole have contributed more to work and productivity directly than parents could.

I agree, thats why I'm surprised people are falling for this narrative. It makes no sense

Presumably you either went to grandparents (harder to do now as many grandparents are either working still as retirement is so much later, or infirm as older/we are now getting unhealthier and less mobile).

I wish people could see that economics are not the only lens of analysis for this.

Feel free to elaborate. As I said earlier so many kids are in childcare 40+ hours a week so they're not exactly living their best lives either. Who exactly is benefiting

It's probably the most important one, though. I suspect men (and it is men) would be keener to have children if the state wasn't picking up the tab for care in old age.

But the OP is predicated on the idea that underpopulation is a problem in the UK and it's not. Africa's population is going to nearly double from 1.5bn to ~2.5bn in 30 odd years. Africa is not going to support those extra people with a good standard of living so they will be heading towards Europe, we need to save space for them.

I think Children love childcare, but even if childcare is not a good thing what's the alternative? We don't want to go back to the 50s when women didn't typically have careers. Women fought hard to work full time and stop being full time mothers - esentially unpaid domestic workers.

population decline is a national emergency in south korea

Babies don't love it, especially when theyre dumped there when they are sick. And I don't think any child loves seeing their parents for only 1-2 hours a day. That's quite different to someone who is in preschool for several mornings a week.