Red states should engineer policies to encourage higher birth rates and to attract large families.
ount me as one of those generally skeptical that tax breaks, tax credits, housing allowances, and other economic incentives for parents will decisively increase birth rates. In general, values like honor, pride, and shame affect how people behave more than any economic incentives. When family life—especially motherhood—is dishonored, birth rates decline; when honored, they rise.
South Korea has been throwing billions at families to encourage natality for more than a decade, only to see birth rates crater to historically unprecedented lows. Israel has the same family incentives it had two decades ago, but its total fertility rate has skyrocketed to more than 3.0, making it the only developed nation in the world whose population is growing exclusive of immigration. Family-friendly economic policies such as those in Hungary and Poland are not irrelevant, but not as important as other normative factors.
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