You'd think that paying citizens to have children would work. But the examples of Japan and Singapore show that people usually can't be bribed into having babies. Despite offers like huge cash payments and tax credits, the number of Singapore babies just kept plummeting downward. Today Singapore's total fertility rate is 1.1. There is no historical example of replacement rate coming back from a sustained loss of this kind.
Parts of America still still have a birth rate at or close to replacement level: those parts are also the most religious. "[I]t is important we preserve the role of religion in our public square, resisting those critics who see theocracy lurking behind every corner. Our government should be welcoming of, not hostile to, believers - if for no other reason than they're the ones who create most of the future taxpayers."
Reversal of the global trend to very low birth rate - is it possible? Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore said in 1983 that it was too late to turn back the clock "and have our women go back to their primary role as mothers, the creators and protectors of the next generation."
(cont'd tomorrow)
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