These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.
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If history is any guide, none of this will work: No matter what governments do to convince them to procreate, people around the world are having fewer and fewer kids.
In the US, the birth rate has been falling since the Great Recession, dropping almost 23 percent between 2007 and 2022. Today, the average American woman has about 1.6 children, down from three in 1950, and significantly below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children needed to sustain a stable population. In Italy, 12 people now die for every seven babies born. In South Korea, the birth rate is down to 0.81 children per woman. In China, after decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, the population is shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. In Taiwan, the birth rate stands at 0.87.
Florida is giving $8k per year for private school costs, and apparently homeschool can count. As against that idea as I am, I do think that could have a positive impact on population growth.
I could definitely see someone fantasizing having 4-5 kids then “retiring” to homeschool them. For $8k per year each kid.
Indiana gives $6k, but even though my daughter is in online school, she doesn’t get it because it’s a state program (except it’s run by Pearson). If she was in another online program, she’d get the $6k. Granted, we don’t have to pay tuition, so we don’t need the $6k, but it seems unfair to me.