Why a Pro-Family Policy Matters
by Anthony Arnold
April 2021
I recently wrote an article breaking down two proposals for child allowances, along with giving a basic overview of what this would mean for people with kids, and the challenges that could be involved in making the policy better.
You can check it out here if you would like.
While discussing the piece in the prewriting stage, and then after it was published, I heard different versions of the same question: “Why don’t people wait until they can afford to have kids, so that I don’t have to pay for them to do so?”
There’s a temptation to reject questions like these out of hand. It’s become the sort of faux pas suggestion that just strikes some people the wrong way. Oftentimes, there’s a mental association between questions like those and a broader feeling that the person asking it just doesn’t particularly care about helping people out, in general. So, the question is just kind of shrugged off as an irrelevant objection.
But, I don’t think the question should be treated that way.
For starters, if you spend time talking to people then you’ll find that lots of them are concerned about government spending. Here’s a couple of links, one from over a decade ago, and another one from March 25th of this year. In both of those links, you’ll find that a large majority of Americans are concerned about inflation. Which is another way of saying they’re concerned we’re spending more money than we should be; and that this will hurt us down the line.
In the recent polling, you can see that it’s not limited to just older people, who we typically associate with such ideas. In fact, it’s just the opposite, and young people between 18-24 are the most concerned about inflation of any group. Some of this is probably attributable to the fact that there’s a lot of talk about inflation now, so people are naturally concerned.
But in addition to all of that, I’d say that being concerned about government spending is actually really healthy!
Whenever the government decides to spend money on some project, idea, or scheme, they’re spending our money! The taxes come from us. The money comes from us. And not only that, but we’re their bosses. We elect them to do a job, we pay their salaries, and if they want to keep doing that job and making excellent money, then they need our approval. Under those circumstances I’d say asking “Is my employee spending my money well?” is totally acceptable.
Let’s revisit the original question, with an eye towards actually answering it. “Why don’t people wait until they can afford kids, so that I don’t have to pay for them to do so?”
The changing family
I wanted to have a witty way to answer the question, but I can’t come up with one. So I’ll just answer it directly.
People are waiting to have kids. End of article.
But in all seriousness, the age at which people are having kids has moved back quite a bit. When this data first started being seriously compiled, in 1970, the average age that women gave birth to their first child was 21.4 By 2000 that number had risen to 24.9. By 2014 it was 26.3, and there’s no reason to believe it’s gone down since then. It’s a pretty stable trend.
It’s not just a trend that’s appeared in the United States, either. Here’s some data from the Netherlands showing that from 1970 to 2019 the average age of mothers at birth of their first child has risen from 24.3 to 29.9. At the bottom of that link you can also find that across the EU the trend has been the same.
This isn’t even limited to Western countries. Japan, which pretty famously has an issue with a low birth rate, has seen that same statistic rise from 25.6 in 1970 to 30.7 in 2019.
(Side note: The sheer volume of government data out here is insane. You could spend countless days just pouring over it.)
I say all of that to make my first point. In many countries around the world people have been pushing back the age at which they have kids for the last 50 years. So, if we’re going to ask people to “be more responsible”, when it comes to making that choice, then we are obligated to acknowledge when they do just that.
This also neatly aligns with the trends we’ve seen in marriage as well. From census data we can see that in 1970 men and women were getting married, on average, at the ages of 23 and 21. By the time you get to 2020, those numbers have risen to 31 and 28. Again, this is a trend that is also reflected in the countries I discussed earlier.
I could go on and on, but I’m not going to. I’m writing an article, not a book. And besides, I believe I’ve made my point, but I’ll restate it again, just in case somebody decided to skip the links and just wants me to give them the short version.
People in the United States, and around the world, are choosing to have kids and start families at a later date than ever. And there’s not a reason to believe that this will reverse itself anytime soon.
But this leads me to my next question, “Is this good?”
Why the change?
There are many reasons why this change has occurred, but I want to present both a conservative and liberal line of thinking. Because I think that each side could look at the data and come to the conclusion that these changes represent real progress, and that we shouldn’t be taking any actions that might risk it.
If you’re a conservative, or a person with conservative leanings on this issue, then all the evidence I presented could just be a sign that people are behaving more responsibly. They’re taking the burdens associated with families and child-rearing seriously, and they are doing exactly what you suggested. Sure, you may have issues with the more modern idea that the family should be extended beyond the “one man, one woman” formula; but on the whole this looks like progress. We shouldn’t interfere with this by giving a financial incentive to start a family.
If you’re of a more liberal persuasion, then the evidence could just be a sign that we’ve given people the ability to make more choices. Especially women, who having been given greater access to the workplace and higher education, are simply deciding that not having a family, or having a smaller family, is acceptable. This is great, because people should have more choice; and freedom from old, patriarchal ideas is wonderful. So, we shouldn’t interfere with this by giving a financial incentive to start a family.
I don’t want to dismiss either of those arguments. In fact, I think there’s an element to each of them that’s true, and that we should be aware of the potential pitfalls involved in having the government make pro-family policy. But the thing that’s missed is that the reason for the change isn’t high minded ideals, or signs or a societal evolution.
It’s that people don’t have enough money.
When the NY Times polled about this a couple of years ago, what they found was that of the top 5 reasons given for having fewer children, 4 of them were financial concerns. If you look up polling about this issue, you’ll find similar concerns expressed in almost all polling.
People aren’t making their choices with the freedom to embrace the lifestyle they desire. Instead, what’s happening is that people are being constrained, unnaturally. Everyone acknowledges that raising kids is costly. In terms of both money and time that’s always been true. But that cost has risen over time.
According to the Department of Agriculture, the financial cost of raising kids has gone from $198,560 in 1960 to $245,340 in 2013. Estimates of the cost today put it closer to $280,000. Now you’re free to dispute some of why the cost has risen, and I think that’s fine and good. But I don’t believe there’s any getting around the fact that it has risen, and that we haven’t really done anything to address that.
This ties into debates around other issues like the minimum wage, college costs, and healthcare, for instance. As Americans have become saddled with an increased cost of living, it’s starting to change not only how we live, but what we want out of life. When faced with the reality that our wages haven’t kept up, our college debts are rising, our healthcare costs are out of line, and a whole host of other issues, it’s pretty understandable that the high cost of having a child is one that people are choosing to stall, until they believe they’re financially ready.
It’s one thing to say the government should make policy that discourages behavior we find troublesome -- which is why I can’t, legally, get drunk, hop in my car, and drive 100 MPH around the highway all day. The government looked at all the bad outcomes that could come from someone doing that, and saw there was really no upside to allowing it. Then decided to just make it illegal. The result is that drunk driving deaths have fallen a lot over the last 40 years or so. Which is wonderful.
Family policy isn’t like that at all. Not only isn’t it something to be avoided, but providing for kids, and their parents, has a real benefit to society as a whole. If something has a potential benefit for all of us, then that’s an area in which the government should at least consider being involved; even if the consequence is that we, the taxpayers, have to bear the burden of doing so.
Pro-Family policy helps everybody
Pro-family policy is good for everybody! For starters, countries need people. Who’s going to fund social security with their taxes? Younger workers. Who’s going to serve in the armed forces? Young people. Who do you generally find working entry level jobs in a lot of fields? Younger people.
And these needs aren’t decreasing.
The Baby Boomer generation is talked about in part because of how big it was. It was huge. There were 76 million boomers born, up from the 47 million of the previous generation (The “Silent” Generation). But since then, every other generation has also been huge! In fact, every generation since then has been way bigger than the Silent generation.
On a large scale, we need to be figuring out how to consistently grow. We can either do that via immigration, which has its own complications, or we can do it via domestic growth. Either way, it has to happen. And really it needs to be a combination of both growth and immigration; but that’s a different article for another day.
Aside from all of that, pro-family policy shouldn’t be seen as cost, but rather an investment. When you invest in kids, and their parents, you’re making a smart bet. One that lots of research has shown pays off down the line.
By supporting families, you make it easier for people, especially women, to enter and stay in the workforce. You make it easier for kids to avoid the problems associated with poverty. You make it more likely that kids will have good health outcomes, which reduces the odds of taxpayers having to carry the cost of health problems later on.
There’s even evidence to support all of this. Here’s a summary of a report about the countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden demonstrating the economic gains from gender equality. They found those policies had produced between 10% and 20% of growth in GDP over 50 years. Here’s a report from UNICEF demonstrating the numerous ways that family policies help kids, women, parents, and nations.
The upshot of all this is the same. Family policy is one of the foundational ways in which a country can shape its future. There are few things more essential to the well-being of a nation than ensuring that not only are families secure, but that people can freely and comfortably make the choice to have them in the first place!
Pro-family policy isn’t something we should accept with reluctance. It’s not a step towards the days of “barefoot and in the kitchen.” It’s just a smart way to make sure that we are supporting people’s freedom, and the nation's future, at the same time.