They are the most productive in the world. If they worked as much as America they would be richer.
By contrast Italy and Spain are much less productive. And East Asia even less productive than that. You could basically map first world TFR and productivity together.
It's not a welfare state thing. Italy and Spain spend a lot. East Asia has universal healthcare, etc.
I think having a productive successful economy is just good for fertility. We see fertility rise and fall with economic growth.
I also think it's wrong to describe the Nordics as "progressive" on family matters. At least within the context it is debated in the USA.
1) Nordics generally have school choice including private school options with public money.
This would be considered extreme right in the USA.
2) Nordic family benefits don't seem to discriminate against people who provide care themselves at home.
By contrast, in the USA it's usually the right that prefers that flexibility and the left that only wants reimbursement for licensed daycare.
3) Nordics provide universal child benefits that everyone can use. Some even scale up with income (salary replacement).
By contrast there is a pretty stark divide between left and right on child support in the USA. The left generally wants to means test child benefits so that many people are excluded from them (MN provides a child tax credit that only people in poverty can access, NY provides free daycare but only if you have a below median income).
By contrast conservatives generally push for universal family benefits that apply to everyone equally. I can for instance qualify for pre-school and special needs subsidies here in Florida that I would not qualify for in most blue states.
4) During COVID (aka the two year world war against children) the left was strongly in favor of anti-child and anti-school restrictions in pretty much every country accept the Nordics, where they engaged in a COVID policy that would have been considered extreme right in America.
As a comparison, Hungary has a very left wing fertility policy.
1) It provides tax breaks to working mothers, but not their husbands.
2) It provides subsidies only if you want to put the kids in state daycare centers so you can work.
3) It tends to provide subsidies to goods in kind which is less efficient then cash.
4) Homeschooling is close to illegal in Hungary.
5) Many of the benefits are means tested, some even favor single mothers.
Hungary feels more like what a Warsaw Pact functionary would come up with for "pro-natal" policy. It's a lot more like that the left in America would propose then the right, at least in terms of how the spending is deployed. it's very far from what the Nordics do.
Wow, this was long, but the subheadings were really working for you! I feel like I followed your argument, pretty well, and it's hard to disagree with the basic premise that this is a complex problem that needs to be approached from many angles.
I appreciate how carefully you considered my argument, and it is definitely one of the things that most inspires me in my career: knowing that there are babies born that perhaps wouldn't have been born if I hadn't provided their moms good care as a midwife.
I wish there were a word that meant "pro helping people want and see the value in children" and "pro helping people have the family size they want to have." Then I might be on board!
I sign off on 90+% of this view of what the pro-natalism movement should be about, but insisting on sticking behind the widely unpopular banner of "pro-natalism" is still such a misstep. A name like “pro-child” is much harder to co-opt because the name carries intrinsic meaning and emotional resonance. Plus, the name pro-natal has already been co-opted.
It would take a tremendous effort to get the name "pro-natal" to have broad public appeal, and the effort could easily be undone by the people who have already co-opted the name. You also go into great detail about the importance of systems, but if you think about the role of the word “pro-natal” in the system, it is alienating potential allies, dampening public support, and making the pro-natalist movement much easier to ignore.
The pro-natal movement is good, but it can be much stronger and much more likely to succeed if it changes the name and more directly acknowledges the concerns of the women who ultimately have to decide to have kids. I wrote more about why the name is so counterproductive here, if you're curious: https://modernshakers.substack.com/p/ill-never-call-myself-a-pro-natalist
This is really comprehensive and useful - thanks for writing it!
The Collinses should be banished from pronatalism discourse forever.
My personal view on the Nordics is that they are just good at everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity
They are the most productive in the world. If they worked as much as America they would be richer.
By contrast Italy and Spain are much less productive. And East Asia even less productive than that. You could basically map first world TFR and productivity together.
It's not a welfare state thing. Italy and Spain spend a lot. East Asia has universal healthcare, etc.
I think having a productive successful economy is just good for fertility. We see fertility rise and fall with economic growth.
I also think it's wrong to describe the Nordics as "progressive" on family matters. At least within the context it is debated in the USA.
1) Nordics generally have school choice including private school options with public money.
This would be considered extreme right in the USA.
2) Nordic family benefits don't seem to discriminate against people who provide care themselves at home.
By contrast, in the USA it's usually the right that prefers that flexibility and the left that only wants reimbursement for licensed daycare.
3) Nordics provide universal child benefits that everyone can use. Some even scale up with income (salary replacement).
By contrast there is a pretty stark divide between left and right on child support in the USA. The left generally wants to means test child benefits so that many people are excluded from them (MN provides a child tax credit that only people in poverty can access, NY provides free daycare but only if you have a below median income).
By contrast conservatives generally push for universal family benefits that apply to everyone equally. I can for instance qualify for pre-school and special needs subsidies here in Florida that I would not qualify for in most blue states.
4) During COVID (aka the two year world war against children) the left was strongly in favor of anti-child and anti-school restrictions in pretty much every country accept the Nordics, where they engaged in a COVID policy that would have been considered extreme right in America.
As a comparison, Hungary has a very left wing fertility policy.
1) It provides tax breaks to working mothers, but not their husbands.
2) It provides subsidies only if you want to put the kids in state daycare centers so you can work.
3) It tends to provide subsidies to goods in kind which is less efficient then cash.
4) Homeschooling is close to illegal in Hungary.
5) Many of the benefits are means tested, some even favor single mothers.
Hungary feels more like what a Warsaw Pact functionary would come up with for "pro-natal" policy. It's a lot more like that the left in America would propose then the right, at least in terms of how the spending is deployed. it's very far from what the Nordics do.
Wow, this was long, but the subheadings were really working for you! I feel like I followed your argument, pretty well, and it's hard to disagree with the basic premise that this is a complex problem that needs to be approached from many angles.
I appreciate how carefully you considered my argument, and it is definitely one of the things that most inspires me in my career: knowing that there are babies born that perhaps wouldn't have been born if I hadn't provided their moms good care as a midwife.
I wish there were a word that meant "pro helping people want and see the value in children" and "pro helping people have the family size they want to have." Then I might be on board!
I sign off on 90+% of this view of what the pro-natalism movement should be about, but insisting on sticking behind the widely unpopular banner of "pro-natalism" is still such a misstep. A name like “pro-child” is much harder to co-opt because the name carries intrinsic meaning and emotional resonance. Plus, the name pro-natal has already been co-opted.
It would take a tremendous effort to get the name "pro-natal" to have broad public appeal, and the effort could easily be undone by the people who have already co-opted the name. You also go into great detail about the importance of systems, but if you think about the role of the word “pro-natal” in the system, it is alienating potential allies, dampening public support, and making the pro-natalist movement much easier to ignore.
The pro-natal movement is good, but it can be much stronger and much more likely to succeed if it changes the name and more directly acknowledges the concerns of the women who ultimately have to decide to have kids. I wrote more about why the name is so counterproductive here, if you're curious: https://modernshakers.substack.com/p/ill-never-call-myself-a-pro-natalist