“ And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury”
I never quite understood this. Who exactly will pay into social security to benefit the next crop of retirees that seem to think it’s selfish to have kids?
Many people think overpopulation is a legitimate concern. I suspect the argument would be "who cares about social security if we kill the planet" (or something along those lines).
Not my view, just suggesting who might believe the "children as selfish luxury" line.
Social security is well failed in my country, we are paying both for the retirees and for our future selves. So if tomorrow ends up like children of men, sure, no problem.
I would hope that my own current contribution to the fiscus would pay for my eventual old age pension. And my hypothetical children's future contribution would pay for their own retirement. But alas this is probably not the case.
It couldn't possibly be the case. The only way that could make sense is if your contribution were paying for something like automation of the services you will one day need. Otherwise, at the end of the day, the services you'll need will require labor, and if there's insufficient labor available because not enough people had kids, then the amount of money you contribute today is irrelevant, and it's ultimately unfair to expect a future generation to devote most of their available resources to taking care of a previous generation.
Money is a grease to help direct resource utilization. You can't expect the big bucket of grease you saved for the future to mean much if there are no resources to flow. You cannot rely on a financial abstraction to "invest" in the future without everyone also actually concretely investing in creating a future.
it's better than paying for natal care and education for a local-born child who will still have a high carbon footprint, and might also not be as productive as the immigrant
And one could argue that:
1. Immigrants typically have higher TFRs that within years wipes out the gains you allude to
2. Productivity depends on how skilled the immigrants are; much of Europe has a large chunk of immigrants with lower productivity than the native born.
Anyway, this is a low signal discussion on both sides; this is my last comment on this matter
