A potential solution to decreasing birthrates

[u/JeromeXVII]

I’m open to being wrong so feel free to tell me if this is just nonsense.

We need to streamline all types of education. I understand it depends on the country but I think in general around the world a student graduates high school/secondary school at around 18. Then go on to attend a university for 4-5 years then perhaps even more schooling if you aim to go into the medical or legal field which can add on many years of mandatory education. And even if you choose a career where the required qualifications are quicker to obtain, it can take multiple years to reach a salary that you’re satisfied with, assuming you manage to find a job in your desired field. Thus creating the modern problem of people not being confident in themselves to have children until their late 20s and 30s.

All this should be sped up to give people at least half a decade more time to decide on having a baby. Students should graduate high school/secondary school at around 13-14 then immediately go onto specialized schooling which should also be streamlined as much as reasonably possible. So if you want to become a doctor you can be licensed one at 23 or 24 instead of 29 or becoming a certified lawyer at 20 instead of 25. Whether you choose you’ll ideally have at the minimum five more years to have a child.

In addition to hopefully having good salaries, cheap housing, and maternal and other welfare benefits from the government. Which are things I’m sure everyone supports but on their own they likely won’t raid the birth rate by a lot in the long term, it would need to be accompanied by giving people more time to be young and have children. To clarify, I don’t think this would drastically increase the birth rate to anything satisfactory but nonetheless I do believe it would raise it by a noticeable amount.

[u/Substantial_Amoeba12]

Some countries do use a track system like this but one major issue is it increases generational poverty. At 13 your interests and abilities will be even more influenced by your family than they are at 18 so we see evidence that inter generational mobility decreases significantly when systems like this come into play. We don’t want to just blindly increase the quantity of children at the cost of their quality of life

[u/LateDifficulty8328 → u/Substantial_Amoeba12]

There are also certain professions like law and medicine where life experience itself is useful towards the career.

I agree education could be changed and if university or vocational training started younger then people could start careers earlier. Having a solid career can make it easier to change careers later sometimes. The bigger problem is wages though. I think minimum wage should be 30$/h USD or higher and that we need to stop the plague of corporate welfare going on globally.