Headline, April 08 2022/ ''' WORLD -'' FERTILITY RATE ''- WORKS '''

''' WORLD -''FERTILITY

 RATE''- WORKS '''

IN DECEMBER - THE POLITICAL DIRECTOR FOR Prime Minister Victor Orban tweeted, ''women who become mothers before turning 30 will be exempt from paying personal income tax!''

That's on top of a raft of other initiatives meant to boost the number of Hungarian babies, including allowing mothers of four or more children to be permanently exempt from paying taxes -

A mortgage repayment plan for families with two or more children, a subsidy program for larger families buying seven-passenger cars and allowing grandparents to be eligible for payment for caring for their grandchildren.

COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD ARE trying to raise fertility rates. Will anything work? In the past month, The Times has published several articles about different countries facing the same constellation of issues :

A silver tsunami of older citizens in Italy, a falling birth rate among young South Koreans - per the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, South Korea's is an interestingly low 0.81 children per woman - and a shrinking population in China.

These three countries aren't alone in experiencing this demographic crunch. Only two O.E.C.D. countries - Israel and Mexico - have total fertility rates [ the average number of children born to each woman ] at population replacement levels [the average number of children needed to replace the current population.]

According to the demographer Jennifer Sciubba's 2022 book, '' 8 Billion and Counting : How Sex, Death and Migration Shape our World,'' while globally the population is still increasing because many countries have ''young and rapidly growing populations,'' by the end of the century :

''70 percent of developed countries and 65 percent of less developed countries, will have shrinking populations.''

Ms. Sciubba, a fellow at the Wilson Center, explained to me that there's a general pattern societies have historically followed when incomes rise and and the quality of life goes up : They move ''from lots of births and lots of deaths to fewer births and longer life experiences.''

In the past that often meant dropping them, let's say, five or six children per family to two or three.

What's newer is the super-low fertility we're seeing in wealthier countries because women are starting to have kids later, are having few kids overall and don't want many to begin with, according to Ms. Sciubba. As a result, these countries are aging quite rapidly :

In Ms. Sciubba's book, she notes, ''In 2020, the median age of developed countries was 42,'' up from 29 in 1950.

The reason we're seeing a lot more media attention paid to the topic now, Ms. Sciubba says, is that more people are waking up to the fact that this isn't a fluke or isn't affecting just a handful of nations.

This is a permanent and global phenomenon,'' she argues, though she makes it clear that there isn't a consensus on the point of permanence.

The fact that the fertility rate among developed nations is falling is often framed as a crisis because of the way many economies are structured. In the United States, fewer working-age Americans paying into Social Security makes our system less sustainable.

Fewer working age Americans also means a potential dearth of caregivers for the aging population. As Ms. Sciubba writes, there are four options to fix this problem : ''increase immigration, raise retirement ages, cut benefits or get more people already in the country to work.''

Most of these solutions are politically unworkable; ask the French. As a result,many of the articles we read about this ''demographic time bomb'' suggest that the most feasible solution is for the citizens of these countries to have more babies.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Fertility Rates, Populations and the world ahead, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Jessica Grose.

With most respectful dedication to Mankind, Leaders, Grandparents, Parents, The Global Founder Framers, and then Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

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