Indeed, more recent data appear to bear out this conclusion. In Poland, the 500 Plus program has lifted many families out of poverty, but the number of births and the fertility rates actually dropped in 2018. The population decline resumed after halting in 2017.
In Russia, meanwhile, the brief baby boom largely took place in areas with the least economic opportunity — those where the maternity capital went the furthest. Some of these areas are in the North Caucasus, a region with a high proportion of Muslims who traditionally have high birth rates. Big-city residents are more responsive to the general economic situation and to intangibles such as the level of freedom and a sense that the children will have a better future. So far, Putin’s policies haven’t produced much hope on any of those fronts — and even if they did, there’d be no guarantee that Russia wouldn’t follow the Western European low fertility trend.
Even though, in theory, pro-fertility policies appear desirable as global population growth slows, in practice there are no such policies proved to have a surefire effect. As Canadian political scientist Richard Togman wrote in “Nationalizing Sex: Fertility, Fear and Power,” his recent history of natalism: “Thus far, efforts to increase fertility have primarily led to a change in the timing of births but not in the overall number of babies born. Regimes as violent and totalitarian as Nazi Germany and Communist Romania have failed to increase long-term birth rates, as have a multitude of more moderate approaches of many other states.”
In Togman’s view, the problem with natalist politics is that they’re based on the manipulation of broad national statistics rather than on finding out why the birth rate is low in a specific nation or region. “Governments almost never make studied inquiries of various demographic groups regarding what it would actually take to convince them to have another child,” he wrote:
Only through a detailed study of local context and with input from those whom the programs are deemed to serve can natalist policy be truly effective. By its nature, natalist policy relies on the buy-in of millions of people, and truly consensual efforts to change reproductive practices might yield great benefit to individuals, their communities, and the state.
Because of this need for smart design and universal buy-in, illiberal governments such as Putin’s or Orban’s aren’t likely to come up with the best solutions. Ultimately, that means humanity may come up with other ways of ensuring an expanding store of knowledge and continued growth before it cracks the secret of increasing fertility.
Charles Jones, the Stanford economist, mentioned a couple of possibilities in his paper: Producing more ideas with the help of automation, or simply discovering a way to make people immortal.
This opinion piece was provided by Bloomberg News.