How Much is a Child? - P2

Straightforwardly enough, some might find their ill-favoured appearances or dullness, which have all too often dogged them, rather unbearably horribly miserable.

Given that we’re by no mean shouldering the responsibility of minding other 8 billion fellow humans on this planet, we have to admit that anti-natalism view is, to a certain extent, justifiable.

For the last few days, Vietnamese has been pretty much engaged in the Prime Minister's Decision 588 in facilitating before-30 marriages and the family model with two children. What has driven citizens of a country ill-favouring anti-natalism, with an average birth rate of 5 to 7, controversial on an optional "incentive" decision?

By the 1960s, each Vietnamese family had on average 5-7 children. Which had formerly derived from the large family, “each day brings it own bread” perpetual custom. Mothers did give birth in a "tolerable" manner, since half of her children would, in all likelihood, cease to exist before adulthood, insomuch as the other half could have been done away with during wars.

"Baby boomers", born during a peaceful period advanced in medicine did hold on tight to their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They, in turn, grew up and got the population to blossom. Still, reach their marriage age, the policy had got stringent so as to reduce the average birth rate to around one to three. Then came their children’s generation, wherein each family has since hemmed into 2 children at most.

These days, as these baby boomers are getting piece by piece older, they’ve as well-bred an ageing population. The ideal golden population pyramid with enough adults - a sufficient labour generation to feed the young and elderly have since witnessed them ageing, thus, constrain the social welfare. Should they hold on this bare line (without any reformation, take, for example, cutting-edge machines and superior AI), this young generation is, in all likelihood, not sustaining an economy as stable as it had formerly been.

Such a presumption is neither speculative nor theoretical. It has actually broken out in Europe, Japan, China and some US states. Inasmuch as economic models have, by the book, evidenced the proportional relationship between the shrinking fertility rates and economic downturns.

In macroeconomics, even the slightest changes to the birth rate would perplexingly impact supply and demand and the unemployment rate. At a certain period (either short, medium or long-term), fertility rates bring out a particular effect (whether positive or negative, further explanations in the comment section below).

That said, long-term population drops, as a rule, spearhead labour shortages, reduced supply and demand, tax losses and thereupon a sluggish, or even depressed economy.

The world, however, is convoluted. Leveraging the birth rate is not addressing these problems, nor a shrinking birth rate does forecast gloominess. Inasmuch as it’s still is controversial whether fertility rates could actually exert grave impacts on everyone.

Given that the preferential childbirth policies may, in the short term, encourage the society, not all policies is capable of catalyzing one-day changes to this perplexing intermingled world.

Econometric models were leveraged to analyze the economy’s impacts on the birth rate. Economists thereafter figured out one reason for its downturn: the contrasting upsurge in women's income. Which has run them into a more nerve-racking birth problem: a birth can cost an arm and a leg, not only for the child but also for the opportunities the mother might miss.

Feminist activists argue that the feminism is pretty much a pronatalism movement. Accordingly, given the shrinking birth rate due to the mounting pressure on women, men's roles have remained to play pretty much the same role.

Women are counted on to outstandingly coevally perform as businesswomen and housewives.