[extropy-chat] [SALT] The DEpopulation Problem, this Friday (for forwarding)

Brian Lee brian_a_lee at hotmail.com
Thu Aug 12 17:02:28 UTC 2004


In the US, the tax burden decreases with each additional child. So 
theoretically, the higher the local tax burden, the greater the tax 
incentive would be to have children (as the deductions would be more 
valuable).

Additionally, other tax-like expenses like healthcare do not increase with 
additional children. So where there is a large incremental cost for 1 child, 
a 2nd and 3rd child do not each cost as much as the previous child.

I suspect that the decreasing birthrate in developed nations can also be 
caused by the prolonged adolescence where it make take someone 25 years to 
complete college and postgraduate work prior to beginning a career. This 
means that a woman is not ready to have children until 28-35 or so. This 
would limit the number of children possible to further lower the birthrate.

BAL

>From: Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
>To: Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com>,   ExI chat list 
><extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: Re: [extropy-chat] [SALT] The DEpopulation Problem,this Friday 
>(for forwarding)
>Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 09:49:32 -0700 (PDT)
>
>--- Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Do you think this (depopulation caused by people choosing to have
> > less children) is a function of the cost of having children?
>
>This is not a foregone conclusion. China has over a billion people, all
>living under a one child law, allowing no choice to mothers, and that
>one child rate seriously skews the worldwide average.
>
>I would instead say that a woman's tendency to reproduce is
>proportional to how expensive *governments* make child rearing, via
>either statutory limitations on child bearing, or indirectly via
>burdensome tax regiemes that raise the cost of living to excessively
>high levels. Germany, for instance, has one of the most costly tax
>regiemes, and a terrible reproductive rate. Here in the US, outside of
>immigration, the population growth is better because our tax regieme
>isn't as severe, though that varies from state to state. It would be
>interesting to study reproductive rates in US states relative to their
>state and local tax burden....
>
>=====
>Mike Lorrey
>Chairman, Free Town Land Development
>"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
>It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
>                                          -William Pitt (1759-1806)
>Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism
>
>
>
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