Parent shaming causes the demographic collapse

No one likes to be shamed by their peers. One easy way to avoid it is to abstain from children.

Francesco Villamena, Ashamed. Engraving, about 1576 - 1624, Italy. Wikimedia Commons 

Part 2 in a series of 3 on the fertility crisis. Part one here. 

In the fertility debate, the saying more and more goes something like this:

Governments have tried everything to raise fertility. Tax exemptions. Paid parental leave. Subsidized daycare. And nothing works to raise fertility over replacement level. The only thing that is left to try is very heavy cash payments. 

I think it is nonsense. Almost nothing has been tried. If governments actually wanted to raise fertility, they could start by saying “having children is good”. And they don't. They only say things that mean “having children is good provided you are a, b, c, and d.” Married, employed, mature, psychologically stable, you name it. Everybody knows that if you can't live up to a certain minimum standard, having children is a bad thing. That minimum standard is very vaguely formulated, but most would agree it has been creeping upwards for the last fifty years, putting ever more prospective parents in the potential zone of shame.

In general, shaming people for lifestyle choices is taboo in individualistic, Western societies. But there is one exception: Parents. Since they don't act as individuals, but are responsible for the wellbeing of other individuals, parents are legitimate objects of shame. All moralists know this. Whoever feels like shaming some group of people, is likely to pick parents who are not good enough one way or another. In itself, this makes people anxious not to have children before they have assembled enough social capital to parry all or most shameful situations. This probably explains a good deal of the increase in the age of new parents. 

No society ever supported everyone who wanted to have children. There have always been barriers to reproducing within the norms of society. The difference is that before, it was sexuality that was being shamed. That had many adverse sides. But it had one advantage: It suppressed sexuality, which is, for society, something neutral. Today's shaming pattern suppresses parenthood, which is, for society, something essential. 

Erring on the infertile side

The social norms of mainstream Western society in no way intends to shame all parents. Only parents who are too young, too poor, too irresponsible, too selfish, too busy, too uneducated…Many people could easily have one more child, or could have had children earlier without being shamed. 

But people can't see into the future. They can never know for sure that they will not be shameful parents in some way. If they choose to have children when close to the shaming threshold, they risk falling below it by some accident and become shameful parents. If they are cautious, they wait for another few years in order to be more sure not to become shameful. After all, there is no shame in waiting. There is also no shame in having only one or two children or in having no children at all. So for people who are anxious over their social status, the choice is clear - they should err on the infertile side. 

Look south

There is only one developed country with consistently above-replacement fertility: Israel. Even secular Israeli Jews have almost about 2.2 children on average, which is more than in any other OECD country. 

I have never been to Israel and I hardly know any Israelis. I am not the best placed to offer an explanation to how Israel does it. Still I think I have a clue to what’s going on. 

In Israel a not insignificant portion of the population are Haredim, ultra-Orthodox Jews. The Haredim have a lot of children, almost 7 on average. Many countries have small minorities with very high fertility rates. What makes the Haredim in Israel special is partly that they are not so small, encompassing an eighth of the population, but mostly that they are not shunned but respected as a pious part of the community. 

I believe this is important. The Haredim show the Israelis that you can be a respected member of society even if you house your kids in bunk beds in small apartments and deny them all leisure activities except Torah studies. 

This shows the majority of Israelis that every child does not need a room of their own and does not need to be driven to after-school activities every day. And even if you personally believe that your children should have their own room and a stimulating leisure time, the fact that these things are not taken for granted means that you will never risk public humiliation if you for some reason fail to provide them.

Paying in status

Ultimately, money is just a piece of paper (or not even that anymore) to achieve what people want: Resources to maintain their bodies and achieve a social position. The richer society gets, the more resources people are free to spend on the last point: Maintaining a social position.

I don't mean that all people are always trying to outdo each other. Most people are not fiercely competitive. But they want to do OK. They want to be respectable, functioning citizens. They strive for a position in the cozy middle, where they are no worse off than normal people. People don't want to see themselves as outcasts that have fallen below the level of respectability. 

If children are considered status symbols in themselves, parents will be able to afford more of them. If children are a source of shame for people in diverse situations, people need to make up for potential shame through acquiring a number of status symbols before having children. If having children is considered somewhat trashy, people will have to buy a Tesla before having children to show they are not trashy. In societies where people are praised for having children they can have their children without first getting a flashy car. 

Shame on shame

The problem with shame is that it mostly affects people who are prone to feeling shame. Which usually are well-functioning members of society. The very same people that society wants to have children. Conversely, the people who society does not very much want to procreate, the misfits and the outcasts, do not care very much about shame at all and hence feel less inhibition to have more children. 

This can be solved by turning the incentive structure around. Instead of shaming bad parents we should be praising good parents. The people most prone to appreciate praise are the same people that are most prone to feeling shame: the well-functioning members of society. If children are a source of praise instead of shame this will disproportionately affect the well-behaving majority.

Keeping the current level of parent-shaming and adding big monetary subsidies for parents is a very bad idea. Then there are great incentives for people who are badly integrated in society to have numerous children: They get money they can't get elsewhere and they feel little shame for not reaching all social norms for taking care of those children. Meanwhile, well-integrated citizens will be much less interested in taking the government money and have many children, because they have other opportunities to earn money but they still feel fearful of breaking any social norms for when having children is suitable. 

Praising people for having children is both an old concept and a new concept. People have never really been outrightly praised for having children - they have been praised for fulfilling a certain social role based on a certain kind of sexual behavior. There is no need to go back to that system. What deserves praise is the act of taking care of children in itself. To solve the problem with low fertility once and for all the Western world needs a whole new cultural mindset. A mindset where the social risk of children is significantly less than the praise parents receive for them.