Comment on Throwing money at plunging birth rates won't solve the issue, demography experts say

Throwing money at plunging birth rates won't solve the issue, demography experts say

Many countries are experiencing a decline in fertility rates.Douglas Rissing/Getty ImagesBy 2100, 97% of countries are expected to have fertility rates below replacement levels.Demography experts told BI that countries offering financial incentives won't solve this.Promoting gender equality might help, but it's unlikely to reverse population decline, they said.The world is facing a fertility rate crisis, and experts warn that giving financial incentives to would-be parents isn't going to come close to solving it.A Lancet study forecasts that by 2100, over 97% of countries will have fertility rates below the population replacement level.Some countries, fearing shrinking populations, have invested heavily in policies in the hopes of reversing the decline.In Tokyo, the rates are so low that the government is launching a dating app to help citizens find love and get married.The Japanese government has also tried to boost fertility rates by offering up to a year of parental leave and even cash incentives.In South Korea, the least fertile country in the world, Seoul is offering people money to reverse their vasectomies or untie their tubes.That's on top of South Korean companies offering employees up to $75,000 to have children, and a government allowance system that gives all parents with newborns $750 a month until their baby turns one.However, according to Trent MacNamara, a Texas A&M professor whose work has focused on fertility rates, throwing money at the problem can only do so much."Theoretically, it's possible to produce higher fertility with traditional policy," he told Business Insider.

 

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