Parents only be allowed to have one child. That one child receives an allowance of $300 or $500 a month until they are 18 or 22

Posted by Best-Medium1931@reddit | CrazyIdeas | View on Reddit | 55 comments

Hi,

I recently have this idea where parents should only be allowed to have one child. That one child receives an allowance from the state until they are 18 or if they wanna continue their education then 22.

The allowance goes to only the child and in their own bank account. If they aren't old enough to spend on themselves then the parent should spend on them for their and only their care.

The allowance is the primary booster of having children, especially if you don't have money for them.

What do you guys think?

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Mircowaved-Duck@reddit

china did this, they refret it now and pay you to have more children, because this caused a societal colapse we will see within the next 10 years.

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ddollarsign@reddit

Why will it lead to societal collapse?

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Mircowaved-Duck@reddit

because a society needs to be at the replacent level, meaning every woman needs at least 2,1 children on average.

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ddollarsign@reddit

Or what? So the population goes down a bit. Why would that lead to total collapse?

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djdogjuam2@reddit

Because the services one needs from society later in live are paid for by taxes in civilized and developed nations. Taxes are paid by working people of working age. A doubling(!) in demand on that per working person has huge impacts to everything done by that society.

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ddollarsign@reddit

Demands don’t necessarily equal collapse.

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Mircowaved-Duck@reddit

the population is truly colapsing in the most litteral sence of the word, when there are less people born.

The population is colapsing.

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ddollarsign@reddit

I get that, and I’m just trying to understand what that means for the society, because it could be a huge problem or it could be not a big deal (insofar as something affecting a billion people can be not a big deal).

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Mircowaved-Duck@reddit

What happens with a society when the working population get taxed so much that they can't afford rent and food, deapite working for it. Because otherwise the state can't pay the retired workers?

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ddollarsign@reddit

At a guess, they petition to control food and housing prices, build more housing, improve the efficiency of the food supply chain

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Mircowaved-Duck@reddit

who builds the houses when everyone is in retirment?

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ddollarsign@reddit

Everyone? Robots, I guess. I think China started 3D printing buildings, so they’re on the way there.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

[removed]

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djdogjuam2@reddit

But it doesn't mean prosperity, which is why it was brought up as a counter argument. Now stop being the poster child of a Redditor, being such a pedant over word choice.

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ddollarsign@reddit

If you don’t have evidence for this coming collapse or light to shed on the situation you can just bow out of the discussion, rather than accusing me of things I’m not doing.

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Mircowaved-Duck@reddit

universe 25, mouse utopia

this is what awaits us, we are past the population peak already

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ddollarsign@reddit

i for one welcome our new rodent overlords

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Mircowaved-Duck@reddit

...i highly recomend looking into that... it is not about mice taking over mankind....

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bb5e8307@reddit

Group society into 3 groups: The young that don't work, the workers and the old that don't work. If you are far below replacement level then you will end up with a lot of people that don't work and very few workers.

You can look at it also on a micro level. Imagine that you and your spouse are both only children. When your parents get old, the expectation is that you will support 4 elderly adults and one child. That is a 5:2 ratio of workers to non workers.

It cannot be fixed by retirees having savings. That savings needs to be spent to be useful, and the cost of hiring workers is very very expensive since there are so few.

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ddollarsign@reddit

Obviously there’s a point at which this is unsustainable as stated, if nothing changes. I’m asking why it’s inevitable that the actual conditions in China right now leads collapse in ten years. Their population pyramid is top heavy, but there is a level at which that’s manageable as is, and a level at which other mitigations could manage it.

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Independent-Summer12@reddit

From a micro perspective, most of China’s Millennials are only children. Those that are married are married to other only children. Now imagine being in your late 30s and early 40s, in your prime income earning years. But you’re also responsible to take care of 4 aging parents. And possible your own children.

From a macro prospective, as boomers and Gen X reach retirement, it’s a dramatic drop in available work force, which means significantly reduced productivity, market demand, and tax base.

It will be interesting to see how the onset of ai and advanced robotics will impact this current trajectory.

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ddollarsign@reddit

There are also retirement homes that could take care of more people with fewer workers than a nuclear family situation.

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Independent-Summer12@reddit

That’s not a cultural norm in China. It’s viewed quite shameful to put elderly people nursing homes. That’s a common view in many parts of the world.
Even so, it would still be a financial burden both in the family and in society. Old people are expensive.
Still have the dramatic reduction of labor force issue.

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whatthepfluke@reddit

Specifically with China's one child policy, everyone wants a son that will bring honor to the family and take care of them when they are old. So, they were either aborting their girls or abandoning them to orphanages. As a result, decades later, their population growth is suffering and their male to female ratio is an absolute joke and there are many frustrated bachelors. You think it's hard getting a date now? Wait til there's 1 woman to every 5 men (a statistic i grabbed out of thin air- no clue how true it is but you can get the gist.)

So no. Your idea is dumb and already been tried and failed.

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ddollarsign@reddit

What idea? I haven’t proposed an idea.

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Best-Medium1931@reddit (OP)

Owwww damn

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Toothless-In-Wapping@reddit

I don’t know if $6000 a year is enough to raise a child

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giraflor@reddit

It is not.

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JoshuaSuhaimi@reddit

i wouldn't do it for $6000 a month

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

[removed]

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PhoenixBisket@reddit

"booster of having children"

This cuts the population of the next generation in half. You need 2 children minimum to keep even, but a little more to account for deaths and stuff. 2.2 iirc was the number to keep a steady population.

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Melohdy@reddit

Do you one better. You need to obtain a license to have a child which costs 5K. Now let's see how many welfare kids there are?

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CherryCuddleBug@reddit

Black markets for extra kids would 100% exist. Humans love rules but they love loopholes more.

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crashingtingler@reddit

I don't even get that much

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JoshuaSuhaimi@reddit

i don't think most people get more than $300 a month as an allowance

except for like disability insurance, unemployment, social security, etc maybe

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xandrachantal@reddit

Why only one?

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FinancialElephant@reddit

What is the point of this?

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Mondai_May@reddit

I would be sad because I love my siblings but if that policy was in place I would be an only child. (Or I guess my brother would be an only child since he was born first. And I would not have been born.)

Also is it one child per person or one per couple, like if person A has child with person B, but they break up, now person B is with person C, can person B and C have a child together too? It'd be the first for C but the second for B

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JoshuaSuhaimi@reddit

i don't understand if you're trying to boost or limit population, because the allowance would boost population but the 1 child cap limits it

and i hope you don't mean people who don't want children are forced to have a child

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yanccnay@reddit

that's literally China's One Child Policy