Family Free-Riders
Posted by Shannon Love on March 3rd, 2006 (All posts by Shannon Love)
Economically, every society needs children.
Children are the producers of the future This means that children are in a sense a necessary economic good. [Update: I mean "good" in the sense of a created product like steel, not in the sense of a positive or negative] A society that does not produce enough children, or that cannot produce enough children who grow into economically productive adults, is doomed to poverty. Every long-term investment we make, whether in the private or public sector, is predicated on the idea that there will be a future generation which will actually produce a return. It doesn’t matter what economic or political system rules the present, it will need children to secure its future. Even the most self-centered individual would eventual realize that if the next generation cannot produce, his own welfare will suffer.
So, collectively we all need children and benefit when they grow into productive adults, but the cost of raising children is increasingly being borne by fewer and fewer in the general population.
Childless adults are rapidly becoming economic free riders on the backs of parents.
In the pre-industrial era, children almost always contributed to the economic success of the family directly. Agriculture depended heavily on the labor of children, and children brought further benefits by extending support networks via marriages. In the industrial era, however, children began to contribute less and less while consuming more and more. Nowadays, children usually return very little if any economic benefit to the parents.
Being a parent costs one economically. Although we socialize some cost, such as education, parents pay most of the cost of raising a child. Parents also lose out in non-monetary ways such as in a loss of flexibility in when and where they work. If an individual sets out to maximize his lifetime income, avoiding having children would be step one.
In our atomized society, children do not provide a boost in status, networking or security that offsets their very real cost. I think this economic loss may explain why many people shy away from having children. Many people simply do not want the loss of status that will come from having their disposable income consumed by rug rats.
Like all free-rider situations, this one will eventually cause a collapse that hurts everyone. As the percentage of parents in the population shrinks, the cost of being a parent will rise. More and more people will be tempted to conserve their own resources and let someone else shoulder the burden of creating the next generation. Eventually, the society will either produce too few children or, probably more likely, will not produce enough children with the skills and habits needed to carry on the economy
There is already grousing in some blue zones by the childless that they shouldn’t have to subsidize the “breeders’” children. How long before child-hostile places like San Francisco become the norm?
I’m not sure how to address this problem from a public-policy perspective, but the next time you run into someone bragging because he chose not to have children, call him a parasite and see how it works out.
[Update: In looking at the comments I thought I would make some points more explicitly.
(1) This is an argument about economic behavior. Individuals may or may not have what others would think of as valid personal reasons for not having children but that is irrelevant to the economic argument.
(2) Except for some trivial income tax deductions, parents pay all the taxes that the childless do plus all the significant cost of rearing the children. Children provide no economic return to their parents. The entire population benefits from the productivity of the next generation but only parents pay the very real economic cost of creating the next generation.
(3) History has shown that individuals will gravitate towards the wealth maximizing behaviors in the short-term even if every individual understands that long-term the behaviors will be self-destructive for everyone. The free-rider problem is just the inverse of the tragedy of the the commons. The only difference being that instead of consuming a resource free-riders avoid expending resources. In the modern world, childlessness maximizes an individual's wealth. It is reasonable to presume that more and more people will avoid having children in order to maximize their own individual wealth. This is a textbook free-rider problem.
(4) Carried to extremes, this free-rider problem could have significant economic consequences. If productivity growth does not match the shrinking population then the economy will falter.
(5) My "parasite" label was directed at those who are arrogantly proud of their childless status and contemptuous of parents. Their attitude is all the more grating because most of them are Leftist who demand that the state coerce my children into paying for their retirement.]
[Update 2006-03-03 18:38:09: I find it interesting that although I make no policy recommendations in this post, many commentators feel free to criticize me for the recommendations they imagine I imply, some even go so far as to evoke Reductio ad Hitlerum.
Secondly, people who claim that the childless subsidize the children of the parents misunderstand the matter on two points: (1) In this context, any subsidy that the childless provide in the form of taxes, which parents do not also pay is trivial. Stop deluding yourself. You're making out like bandits. (2) We are talking about economic return here, not quality of life. Children today provide no significant economic return to the parents. So, even if the childless were providing a significant subsidy to parents that wouldn't provide any economic benefit to the parents. The disparity in wealth that drives the free-rider problem would still exist.]
[Update 2006-03-03 18:38:09: whoops, the next to last line of the previous update should read So, even if the childless were providing a significant subsidy to children that wouldn't provide any economic benefit to the parents]
[Update 2006-03-03 18:38:09:You can often identify a free-rider problem by asking the simple question, "what would happen if everybody chose the suspected free-ride?" For example, suppose the fire department was supported purely by voluntary contributions. If everyone contributed equally, the fire department could function to some level. If everyone chose not to contribute it couldn't. Not contributing to the fire department while others did would be a free-ride.
The same applies to child rearing. If every adult cranked out at least one kid, that might cause its own set of problems but we could confident that the human race and the economy would continue to survive. However, if every adult sought to maximize their own short-term economic benefit by avoiding the cost of rearing children, then the economy would eventually collapse.
Clearly, not having children and assuming the real cost of turning a fetus into an economically productive adult is a free-ride in the economic sense.]
[Update 2006-03-03 18:38:09: I have made another post with more thoughts here.]
March 3rd, 2006 at 7:16 pm
Excuse me but this is just silly… You don’t have children because you must create the next generation, that’s what a soviet central planner or a robot from Mars might think… you do it because you want to, need to, feel strongly about it. Children are “consumption goods” to their parents and future capital goods for the labour market.
Lifetime income is rather neither here nor there. What’s the marginal value of a child? That can only be revealed in action so it’s tautological.
And as for your free rider worries, it’s simple, desocialize it. Let everyone pay for their own expenses, remove the moral hazard component of welfare and allow private and voluntary help programs.
Also, ignoring the holism/collectivist elements in talking about what’s right for the economy of the community or whatnot, if there will be a shortage of children then we can expect the price to rise, in other word, children with be more valuable so people will have more of them until a new equilibrium is reached.
It’s an “atomized world” because it’s a world of atomized preferences. Let people live their lives according to theirs, not yours. Techno-babble based on “market failures” literature can’t disguise the collectivist and authoritarian bias of this text.
Nice try, though. ;-)
March 3rd, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Gabriel,
Were you being ironic in that first paragraph? At first you deride the idea of reducing the idea of children to abstract societal or economic terms, and then classify them as “consumption goods.”
March 3rd, 2006 at 8:10 pm
My point is that if we are to model them as goods or bads for the purpose of estimating the parents’ choices, then it would be most realistic if we would see them as consumption goods, consumption which also generates a positive externality as the author noted.
As far as externalities go, I’m one of those wacky people that don’t see the legal case for taxating the free rider if the system if not contractual.
In that sense, I don’t support taxing gays, for example, because they get an advantage from interacting with the next generation created by and at the cost of others simply because they didn’t sign any contract with the parents.
March 4th, 2006 at 4:55 am
I’ve been thinking about it and I must appologise to the author. My initial critique completely fails to address the point of the text. ;-)
My initial thought was that parents are being subsidized by the taxes of non-parents but obviously that was not the intent.
As for the actual point, that non-parents benefit from the children of parents, well, that’s a particular case of the idea that we all benefit from the existence of others. Children benefit from the existence of non-parents, parents benefit from the existence of non-parents, and so on.
You don’t have any contracts and you can’t even begin to expect to be able to price all these externalities. On the whole I suggest we’ve even, more or less.
I think that the error starts here: “Economically, every society needs children.”… I would say that, economically speaking, there are no needs, only preferences. That’s the lesson of Econ 101.
Sorry, again, for my initial hasty comment.
March 4th, 2006 at 9:38 am
Yes, and the very next thing my Econ 101 prof said was, “You don’t need to live, you only prefer to live.
Having children might only be a “hypothetical” imperative, but it’s a darned strong one, given that species extinction isn’t on most people’s agendas, nor is starving to death when you become too elderly to labor on your own behalf, and find that everyone else is in the same boat.
March 4th, 2006 at 10:05 am
I love economics, but there are plenty of things in life that do not lend themselves to economic methods of thought. The objectivists make the same mistake the Marxists did. Homo economicus died childless.
March 4th, 2006 at 10:21 am
One of my students, clearly repeating his father’s complaints, said that his father shouldn’t have to pay any school taxes. None of his kids were going to school in his district, since his parents were divorced. Yes, I said, others’ education makes no difference to your father.
Everything out there isn’t some idiot like Bemmish; education also means that the guy can give you change at McDonalds and someone is coming up with another energy source for your father’s tractor. And college isn’t just Ward Churchill; for instance, that kid was sitting in a class where his seat was subsidized pretty hugely by the state and then by the taxes paid by those in the county in which his father lived, if not his mother. And his father had clearly not taught him to look at the world tribally, willfully - this guy needed an education that broadened his horizons a bit. He also needed to learn to look at facts that didn’t support his own thesis, not to just throw them out.
That example, which has stayed in my mind, is ironically posed by a parent who wanted no responsibilities for any other’s child (and I suspect little for his own) rather than my childless friends who are more likely to keep such opinions (if they have them) to themselves.
Yeah, my kids are taking goods out of the common pot, but, if I raise them right, they will be putting a hell of a lot more into that pot than they’ve taken. And, sure, Hillary’s view of the village raising a child is deeply flawed, can be deeply irresponsible, can be deeply & tragically ideological - but there is some truth to it. A good society reinforces a good family’s teachings, it respects the vulnerability & potential of children.
March 4th, 2006 at 10:47 am
From the original post (with my emphasis added):
Children who are raised poorly are the ones most likely to become wards of society (e.g. incarcerated criminals), as opposed to productive members, in adulthood. It seems to me that societal wards are the real free-riders and economic drags, not childless adults who are otherwise economically productive. For this reason, my view is that if you really aren’t inclined to raise children to the best of your ability, with all that doing so entails, then it’s probably in society’s best interest that you don’t, well, breed any.
March 4th, 2006 at 11:13 am
We don’t need to talk criminals, some are driven to disrupt workplaces & marriages; high maintenance adults (low productivity on the commercial & domestic fronts as well) come from troubled children. But a society that doesn’t reinforce & value the importance of children & child raising is more likely to produce such children.
March 4th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
“Having children might only be a “hypothetical” imperative, but it’s a darned strong one, given that species extinction isn’t on most people’s agendas, nor is starving to death when you become too elderly to labor on your own behalf, and find that everyone else is in the same boat.”
I don’t think that species extinction was what Sharron or Gabriel were talking about. Human species birth rates are way above replacement rates right now. The only place you can argue that birth rates are below replacement rates is in specific cultures. We are not facing the extinction of the species, only the possible extinction of some cultures.
Regarding starving to death, well, there are lots of folks doing that right now. Once again, the issue is not whether humans are going to starve, but which cultures are going to go from being self-supporting to non-self-supporting. Sharron’s point, if I understand it correctly, was that people who don’t have children are not bearing a fair share of the cost of maintaining the prosperity of the society, because children are a necessary component of that prosperity.
My problem with the “free ride” argument is that children are a necessary but not sufficient component of prosperity. I don’t know how to compare the cost of raising a child to the cost of any other un-compensated activity that a person engages in that contributes to the prosperity of the society. For example, Adam Smith used the differences in the amount of policing in London and Paris in his lectures in jurisprudence. The police force in Paris was much larger because there were far more crimes in relation to the size of the population than there were in London. There was a direct relationship between the costs of government and the libery, independence, and prosperity of the people in those two cities on the one hand and the public morals of the citizens on the other. Civic virtue is an un-compensated activity with a direct impact on societal prosperity.
In other words, how do I compare the cost to the prosperity of the society of people who don’t have children, to the cost to the society of people who raise a brood of serial murderers?
Even in the area of specific cultural demographics, I’m very reluctant to extrapolate data into the future. My favorite example of the dangers of invalid extrapolation is from Mark Twain:
“In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
- Life on the Mississippi -
Finally, I would like to be there when Sharron calls the Pope a “parasite.” I’m not sure that was where she was going, but he certainly fits her definition. Around here, the epithet is “DINK” for Dual Income, No Kids. I was a Dink until last spring when my wife’s best friend died unexpectedly (on Mother’s Day by coincidence) leaving a ten-year old daughter. I went from having no children to being a surrogate parent at the age of 50 in a single weekend. My personal experience has been that the time commitment far outweighs the financial burden.
March 4th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
People who have children and raise them to child bearing age pass their genes on. People who live long enough to make sure their children also have children and make sure their children’s children grow old enough to reproduce have a reproductive advantage over everyone else.
People who live in societies have a reproductive advantage over people who live as hermits.
Reproductive advantage determines whether societies survive. Societies which encourage unlimited reproduction do NOT have a reproductive advantage. A scoiety must make sure that just the right number of children are born. Too many cildren and scarce natural resources needed for food and shelter are used up. Too few children and the society is unable to defend itself against more populous neighbors.
The US in the 1700’s and 1800’s is a perfect example of the impact of reproductive advantage on the existence of a society. The aborigines used a stone age technology to balance their population perfectly with available resources. The European interlopers who had an infinitely more developed technology realized that America had unlimited resources and so while the aborigines reproduced at replacement rates the Europeans bred faster than rabbits.
So the Europeans won because they had more children. Because resources were unlimited, for the first time in history, the Europeans kept the losers around.
Societies which lose the reproductive advantage either disappear from history or end up owning wagering parlors.
March 4th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
There’s nobody here named “Sharron”, but there is someone named “Shannon”.
March 4th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
“There is already grousing in some blue zones by the childless that they shouldn’t have to subsidize the “breeders’” children… the next time you run into someone bragging because he chose not to have children, call him a parasite and see how it works out.”
The particular link that comes to mind is that under the current system my investment in productive children will be the source of his/her social security check…
March 4th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Oops. Sorry Shannon.
March 5th, 2006 at 6:05 am
Oh, is it now a fact that I, who opted not to have a “family,” am “a parasite?” How uppity and critical! Personally, I saw the world as it was and is and forever shall be and decided not to persue the production of progeny. How dare you insinuate I’m a parasite. If you were to face reality, children are parasites. Much the same for ridiculous, house-bound cats and dogs. Pets would sooner devour you, if and when they had the chance. Children do much the same, in their own inimitable way. Welfare cheats are parasites. Crooked politicians are parasites. Liberals are parasites. Journalists and writers are parasites. Would you like to confront me with your absurd accusations at a proper venue, perhaps? Parasite, indeed!!! If you find yourself so concerned with the paucity of population numbers, do decide to add a few of your own pups to diminish this “new” dilemma. But, please, contain yourself and keep your own house in order.
March 5th, 2006 at 6:10 am
Oh, is it now a fact that I, who opted not to have a “family,” am “a parasite?” How uppity and critical! Personally, I saw the world as it was and is and forever shall be and decided not to pursue the production of progeny. How dare you insinuate I’m a parasite. If you were to face reality, children are parasites. Much the same for ridiculous, house-bound cats and dogs. Pets would sooner devour you, if and when they had the chance. Children do much the same, in their own inimitable way. Welfare cheats are parasites. Crooked politicians are parasites. Liberals are parasites. Journalists and writers are parasites. Would you like to confront me with your absurd accusations at a proper venue, perhaps? Parasite, indeed!!! If you find yourself so concerned with the paucity of population numbers, do decide to add a few of your own pups to diminish this “new” dilemma. But, please, contain yourself and keep your own house in order.
Posted by: Enoch on March 5, 2006 06:05 AM Permalink
March 5th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
Not all who choose to be childless are parasites. Consider such examples as career soldiers, clergy, and spies — people who give great benefit to society in one way or another, but often choose not to have children for one reason or another.
On the other hand, there are those who choose not to have children simply so they can consume more themselves. I used to be active in the online “overpopulation” communities, and I was always amazed at how utterly selfish some people could be while hiding behind the veneer of “doing what’s best for the planet”. Very often, their arguments came down to “I want to be able to use as many resources as possible, so I’m not going to have kids. If you don’t have kids, that leaves even more resources for me. So stop having kids.”
The problem nowadays is simply that far too many people have made that choice — they’ve chosen not to have many children because they don’t want to spend the money. This leads to a major demographic shift, where extra strain is put on my generation (20-somethings) to care for previous generations.
There’s nothing wrong with an individual choosing not to have children. But there is something wrong with a society greatly reducing the number of children they have without ALSO changing their habits as they age.
March 5th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
With the greater portion of the population being net recipients of public largess (see much earlier posts re. who pays taxes) and not contributors it’s clearly arguable that a smaller population would be a more economically efficient.
(Really, it’s far more likely that the “producers” per capita are greatly reduced in larger poplulations).
Enoc has a point that’s driven home by the portion of real estate taxes home owners pay toward education - kids in the home or not.` In my area it’s aprox. $8000/kid/year to educate the population. A twenty classroom school, then, brings in a cool $5 million/year. Following these rates for 16 years of education and $80 million is spent to get 600 or so kids through the system.
Will these monies be returned to society, with interest? I doubt it, maybe someone else will break it down.
March 6th, 2006 at 12:40 am
Tyouth, the problem isn’t with the size of the population… it’s with the distribution. When society as a whole decides to increase or reduce the average number of kids, we have to understand and deal with the consequences of that. The Baby Boom had consequences in terms of education costs — new schools had to be built, new teachers had to be hired, and so on. People deciding to have significantly fewer children has its costs too — the percentage of people in the workforce will shrink, and therefore there will be less production (for everyone), unless changes are made to the timing of retirement.
Larger populations have greater “momentum”, in some sense… it’s harder to change course when each person has less effect. Other than that, I don’t think size plays a significant role.
Two things to remember when you’re calculating cost of educating a child: first, he’s expected to pay quite a bit in taxes throughout his lifetime, and second, the teachers whose salaries account for most of that $8k/year do generally spend that money and put it back into the economy. As much as I like to argue that we need a more competitive (and therefore lower cost) education market, I think providing education for everyone at least up to a point is a positive-value transaction. (We can argue about exactly at what age no-strings-attached free education should be cut off, of course.)
If the ratio of working adults to children is high (because we’ve had low birthrates), we can probably reasonably afford to educate every child for much longer than if the ratio is low. If we’ve got 30 adults paying for each child’s schooling that’s pretty different from having 1.2 adults paying for each child’s schooling.
This effect may, in some sense, cancel out the later strain on the smaller, younger generation — a lot of the childless paid for my education, so it makes sense that I shouldn’t be upset at paying part of their retirement. The only question is how much of their retirement I should pay. That’s where the demographic questions come in — if a generation decides to have (more/fewer) children, how should retirement age, retirement planning, etc. change in order to not unfairly burden either generation?
If a whole generation decides to have fewer children, they also need to invest more intelligently or else work longer in order to balance that out so that the younger generation doesn’t get screwed. Each individual needs to do their part, though. Whether “their part” was producing children who are now paying for their retirement, or investing so they’ve got a comfortable amount of stored wealth, or paying taxes that covered my education, it’s all good. My worry is that, in aggregate, the generation nearing retirement didn’t do enough of these things (because a large number of them chose not to do enough), and that’s going to negatively effect my generation.
March 6th, 2006 at 4:48 am
The looming Social Security crisis is largely caused by people choosing to not have children. If participating in SS was contingent upon having at least two children or at least adopting children to raise, then the system would become more stable, not perfect, but better.
March 6th, 2006 at 5:05 am
There is always an alternative to suffering the “economic cost” of having fewer children that are expected to support an ageing population - and that is to import additional workers into the economic system.
The arguments presented here suggest that failing to have children will reduce the ratio of workers to ageing non-workers at some point in the future. This is true - if the system is closed and the only future workers are those that are raised from childhood within the system. But that is very unlikely going to be the case.
I doubt very much that the western economies will really allow themselves to fall into unsustainable ratios between workers and non-workers. Instead, they will allow the rapidly reproducing populations (India, Muslim societies, etc.) to enter their economies as workers to support these ageing pensioners.
This is exactly what has precipitated the changing cultures of France, the Netherlands and even Denmark. The pressure to keep a sustaining workforce will be great.
So, “No,” the real costs of reduced reproductive rates will not be economic as portrayed here - workers will always be found… Instead the real cost of reduced childbearing will be borne in the form of cultural dilution.
March 6th, 2006 at 5:29 am
Social Security is based on the premise that everyone would have kids. When it was created the only way to NOT have kids was separate bedrooms. Childless couples and unmarried people were the objects of pity. Now the situation is reversed. Why should my kids go to work to support people who never had kids? The DINKs and swinging singles should ge able to retire quite nicely on the money they saved NOT raising kids. What? They forgot to save it? Too damn bad for them.
March 6th, 2006 at 6:09 am
To take out a broad brush and impugn without knowing each and every case is to sit in judgement of those that have made very personal decisions for very personal reasons. To further go and decide that such individuals that have been impugned are parasites, free-loaders and, in general, non-contributers to society is to paint with an extremely broad brush, indeed.
I honor my ancestors as best as I am able and must needs give what little I can to help others. My family and extended family I help as best I can, though now my means are very limited. These means are limited by the faulty flesh that houses me and I deem that even half my problems are not worth passing on to another generations via the way of my flesh. I do not nor ever had the energy to be promiscuous and so leave no progeny behind me. I do my level best as I am capable with what the flesh has left me to pass on things I think of value to future generations as best I can. I look around me and, as a whole, see no dearth of children and, indeed, a welcoming attitude towards those with families to come and take up the values of liberty and freedom.
In elden days I would take extreme umbrage and would let that wild beast of my forefathers have its way. I understand very well how, in a duel, Andrew Jackson would shoot a man clean through if they wasted their shot and expected same from him. In such days one who tarred indiscriminantly was expected to back up their accusations with their life. He protected the honor of his wife as he saw fit and to many it seems a brutal way.
I understood the problems that were likely to beset me and prepared *well* not to be a burden upon others. I expected different than what I got, but the preparations serve me well and I am no parasite though my flesh falters and takes some small part of my mind with it.
And now, to have that forethought, those plans and the thinking and acknowledgement of those plans to be disparaged so broadly by one unknowing… I wish for a few minutes to have better flesh than was bequeathed to me, to have the spirit and faith of my forefathers and mothers in Poland who know and value liberty, and to have the bear shirt and battle axe and strength of resolve of that other part of my family and let them speak through my flesh one last time, though in taking up such I would likely perish from its use.
And I would hope that the accuser would have the honor to stand so similarly and prepared to back up their words. And if they chose not to do so, then the thoughts and deeds of Mr. Jackson would remind me where honor lay.
We live in times when some peoples are broadly accusing others of being many dishonorable things. Our Constitution was laid upon foundations to give each their say, but that they own up to their responsibilities so that they understood the effects of what they say. And if the words are meant to incite, then one must bravely accept the repurcussions of them as words have meanings to many beyond the horizon that you see in these latter days.
If Shannon Love wishes to join the barbarians roasting cartoons, defiling territories of other people and generally giving cause for unrest and violence, then so be it. They, like Shannon Love, stand in judgement without knowing or caring of each that hears their words. There is but one end to that since we have removed the means and methods to enforce the belief of such words save upon the role of nations.
Disparagement is not free, nor never has been as it disquiets the discourse with vituperation and impertinance. To do so freely and to not acknowledge that one is degrading the fabric of society, a fabric set to give each individual their due in how they lead their lives with repsect to themselves and others, is to speak irresponsibly and to tear apart that which has been given to us as a gift from those before.
And in this case to those who ask if the question were to bring up a general problem, I would respond that that can be done without disparaging the choice of free people to exercise their rights and liberties and responsibilities. For that is what has been done upon me and I, for myself only, resent it bitterly and deeply.
I am sorry to any that I have I may have hurt with my feelings and such impertinance as I have responded with, save Shannon Love. That one may take them as is their wont.
Good day to all, save that one.
March 6th, 2006 at 6:19 am
So I can I stop paying my Social Security taxes to support childless parents?
This got me thinking about the actual contribution of childless parents to society, and I think that there is a very simple way to end this little problem once and for all. If an adult has neither adopted a child nor raised one of their own, nor made a…
March 6th, 2006 at 6:50 am
Nonsense, you’ve got it exactly backwards. I, as single guy, SUBSIDIZE other peoples’ children. You are aware of that, aren’t you? I pay higher income taxes than some parent with the same salary same because I don’t have a couple additional personal exemptions to report on my 1040; no child care tax credit for me either.
Who do you think pays for YOUR kid’s eductation? I do, that’s who. I pay property taxes and sales taxes and God knows what other taxes to pay for the education of little slackers who I don’t know and who are probably not learning anything.
Then when your shiftless brat winds up in jail, I have to feed him.
I know a woman who moved away from Utah because the state tax burden of supporting all those Mormon children is so onerous.
And mind you, though I subsidize other peoples’ children, no couple has ever yet come to consult with me about that prior to having sex.
March 6th, 2006 at 6:54 am
Not having children? Try living in my apartment building!
Mostly immigrants with little or no skills (or English) they have HUGE families
They do leave notices on Muslim prayer meetings, so they are having plenty of offpsring to propagate THEIR ideology
I pay my taxes to subsidize education, cheaper bus passes for kids, parents to leave work early because junior got a tummyache. I am NOT a parasite
On the other hand, the uneducated, uneducateable masses in my building get welfare
Now, who’s the parasite?
(oh, just for reference, the wife of Mahommed Fara Aideed was living in Canada on welfare when her husband was prolonging the civil war in Somalia)
March 6th, 2006 at 7:02 am
“I’m not sure how to address this problem from a public-policy perspective…”
Immigration and natural selection.
March 6th, 2006 at 7:16 am
BRAVO Paul K.! Beyond the fascinating, provocative discussion on this site comes his reminder that whatever our individual choices, we can respond to basic human imperatives. I hope his and his wife’s rescue of an orphan shows him a child is a desirable “good,” but however this sudden change in his life turns out for him, he did a wonderful thing. And the rest of us who depend on there being a productive next generation or who just care about the suffering of children (that is, whatever position one takes on Shannon’s claim) should thank him.
March 6th, 2006 at 7:22 am
OK–I’m a parasite. I didn’t ask to be; but assuming it’s true, what–as I think Lenin liked to ask–is to be done? What, in other words, do I do with that information? Should I go out and father a kid or two just for the sake of doing my “share”? Given the fact that unless my novel gets published and my agent gets me some sweet deal for the movie rights, I am barely able to support myself, isn’t that going to make me a bigger parasite when I have to depend on the State to subsidize my breeding? And wouldn’t it be preferable that I marry first? (And fat chance of that happening even if I were of a marrying termperment: the so-called “starving artist” is about as desirable to most women as a herpes virus.)
March 6th, 2006 at 7:29 am
It’s hard to read Shakespeare’s first 15 sonnets with any biological insight and still conclude the man was a mere mortal. For example, from Sonnet XIII,
“O, that you were yourself! But, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself live here.
Against this coming end you should prepare
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
It beggars the imagination to think he could have written something like that 250 years before Darwin. He’s right, you know. Objectively speaking, does it make more sense to conclude that “we ourselves” are our conscious minds, which will exist but a moment, or the genetic material we all carry, which has been alive for upwards of three billion years, and is, potentially, immortal?
With that in mind, it makes little sense to penalize those who don’t have children. After all, “they themselves” will die. They will suffer the ultimate ignominy of being the weak link in that three billion year old chain of life. Morality, like everything else that is an essential part of us, is there because, in the past, it helped us to survive. Failure to survive is the ultimate act of immorality, and it is self-punishing. It hardly behooves us to heap coals on the fire. What would be the point?
The consequences of a declining population are not necessarily so grim. Europe did not implode after the Black Death. Far from it! We are far too prone to think in the inconsequential short term, rather than the essential long term. Would you be moral? Would you give your life purpose? Have children! Do you prefer status? Do you prefer nice things? Do you prefer a career? Do you prefer keeping up with the Joneses? Then, with a smile and a wink, I wave goodbye.
March 6th, 2006 at 7:30 am
I’m too am a parasite who’s been paying property taxes for years that benefit the education of other people’s children and society as a whole. Because I don’t have the $1000 per child tax credit, I pay more in income taxes as well. I could go on and on…it’s all a wash.
March 6th, 2006 at 7:31 am
“If participating in SS was contingent upon having at least two children or at least adopting children to raise, then the system would become more stable, not perfect, but better.”
If that were the case I would have stopped at one.
Who would voluntarily join SS?
On a note to Kevin, and others, while you are paying for other kid’s education, who do you think paid for yours?
The costs and benefits of children spread over a lifetime and between generations. The older generation paid for your education, and you will pay for their SS and the education of today kids, who will pay for your SS.
March 6th, 2006 at 7:50 am
I think Shannon got it right in a broad sense and all the comments not-withstanding, a society that does not produce children will suffer from a lack of people to supply services such as doctors, people to operate utilities, and so on. While any single person deciding not to have children is of no consequence, when society as a whole does it, we all suffer. So in that sense the broad thrust of the article is right.
March 6th, 2006 at 7:51 am
I suggest the following arrangement: give parents a claim on part of their children’s future earnings, say a fraction of the federal income tax paid by those children. This will act as an incentive to not only have children, but also to raise them and educate them in a way that enhances their future earning potential. It might also encourage single mothers to find the most genetically promising fathers.
March 6th, 2006 at 8:05 am
The older generation paid for your education, and you will pay for their SS and the education of today kids, who will pay for your SS.
So I guess I made the point — that I am in fact NOT a free rider as accused, but rather a subsidizer of other peoples’ children? Good. After all, *I* would never have accused all the childless people of the 1970s and 80s of being free riders. Thanks for paying for my education. You paid for my college too.
And, I’d much prefer a system in which *I* pay for my social security. In other words, privatization, with me given a chance to contribute throughout my working life to a segregated private account. Being very well informed in matters financial and economic, I don’t suffer primitive irrational fears and superstitions about such an excellent solution.
March 6th, 2006 at 8:08 am
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the rapid increase in infertility of the modern world. I actually find it a little hurtful to be called a parasite or a free loader or whatever when myself and any number of my friends just can’t have kids. (yes, of course there is adoption as an option but that doesn’t solve the essence of the problem here, just re-distributes it.)
Any quick search will show the numbers. This on has a quick graph to peak at.
March 6th, 2006 at 8:12 am
I’d say it is a non-starter for singles to whine about paying taxes to subsidize others. Married couples with children pay the same taxes (often times even more (eg., AMT and marriage penalty due to our wonderful progressive tax system) AND pay out of pocket (with aftertax dollars) for raising children up through collefe and beyond.
The non-economic point, however, is that singles and childless couples are free-loading on society/culture. Yes, we can import fast-breeding immigrants, but at the cost of debasing our culture. Where a heartbeat equals a vote, demography=destiny, and childless people are on the wrong side of history.
March 6th, 2006 at 8:16 am
Perhaps the appropriate “public policy perspective” to the issue is to abolish public policy.Endless carrot and stick tinkering by auhoritarian central planners has likely exacerbated(if not created) the problem.
Does it matter how “society” replaces/increases its productive members? Immigration adds to population and if the demographics hold favorable what does it matter? We ,as a “society” can simply replace the production of offspring with the importation of younger citizens.
March 6th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Of course, to really complete the analysis, Shannon needs to account for the economic costs of all the idiot children bred by less than capable parents . . .
March 6th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Yes, we can import fast-breeding immigrants, but at the cost of debasing our culture.
Oh real good point, Adolf. Sig Heil!
March 6th, 2006 at 8:28 am
M:
“Yes, we can import fast-breeding immigrants, but at the cost of debasing our culture.”
Kevin:
“Oh real good point, Adolf. Sig Heil!”
If the immigrants worship at the same shrine as Hitler,