Pro-natal policies might win Boris support in newly Tory seats

[CharlesHarris]

Perhaps of interest. Nationalism on the rise in many countries.

https://unherd.com/2020/02/will-britain-...&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3

Will Britain join the European baby push? - Colin Brazier

For anyone who’s stood on a packed train lately, the idea that Britain faces a population crisis might seem absurd. But the platform crush belies a demographic crash, little noticed when England and Wales recently posted its lowest birth rate figures – of 1.7 babies per woman – since records began.

We may hold our nose when nativists like Viktor Orbán describe his nationalisation of IVF clinics as a “strategic investment”, but across Europe tax breaks and cash handouts are everywhere and growing. This month Greece became the latest with plans for a €2,000 baby bonus, joining a long list of European countries now providing strong incentives for its people to have more children.

Indeed many demographers view Britain as oddly unsupportive of natalism, and of 41 OECD countries, the UK comes in 34th in paid parental leave. While in France mothers receive extra-long maternity leave and a cash bonus after their third child, and there are travel perks and reduced income tax for large families, in Britain child benefit is means tested and capped at two children. Oh Mon Dieu!

Former Eastern Bloc countries, once the family’s enemy, are now resurrecting the idea that parents must somehow be allowed to capture the economic rents of child-rearing. An outflow of young workers to the West, empty cradles at home and a reluctance to embrace immigration have produced an existential crisis...

Britain, too, has targets for the 2030s, but not for children. Indeed environmentalists behind our green carbon goals see population as a problem, even though — with the number of Britons living alone recently hitting 8 million for the first time — rising consumption per capita will be one consequence.

The green argument against children is popular, and it’s not just Harry and Meghan who fret about their minuscule contribution to population growth. A YouGov survey in January found that of under 35s who do not want children, one in seven cite fears for the planet’s future as their motivation. A fifth of British women are childless, the third highest proportion in the developed world.

Yet where this is a genuine sacrifice, it may also be unnecessary. Many demographers say global population is a lagging indicator and should top-out by mid-century, falling sharply thereafter. In many developed countries it’s already in free fall...

Breaking that cycle is the work of decades, and governments rarely think that far ahead. As Ross Douthat wrote in the New York Times: “It’s very hard to find a way to effectively place value on things like the creation of new workers 30 years from now. It’s just too long-term...”

China, having ditched its wicked one-child policy, is now in a panic about becoming the first country to get old before it gets rich...

But could Boris launch a British pro-natalism agenda, while staying true to his liberal roots and new northern electoral powerhouse?...

A Guardian survey in 2014 found a third of couples would have more children were they not so expensive; indeed if British women had all the babies they wanted, our birth rate would be above replacement level. In the US, which has seen huge falls in fertility in the past decade, 40% of women do not have all the children they wish...

...in the developed world a woman’s ability to achieve her stated fertility ambitions can be seen as a form of social justice and source of empowerment...

In his book, The Road to Somewhere, David Goodhart argued that Somewhere women had been ignored by a highly-educated elite of Anywhere careerists, who obsess about things like boardroom representation.