March 18th, 2013
In the course of talking about how great our low-fertility future is, Froma Harrop argues:
Scaremongering over demographics is a divide-and-conquer strategy: Convince younger workers that they are paying for plush programs sure to collapse by the time they get old, and they’ll bring them down. And as a double-scoop, say that these programs make the “demographic winter” worse by having government replace the children who traditionally supported their elders. For example:
“The most insidious effect of the Social Security and Medicare regimes is that they actually shift economic incentives away from having children,” Jonathan V. Last, a writer for the conservative Weekly Standard, says in his book, “What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster.”
Here’s a counter-argument: These programs reassure parents bearing the considerable expense of raising children that they won’t be destitute if they can’t save enough for their old age.
In general, I find that arguing opinions over these sorts of matters isn’t particularly productive–people usually wind up suggesting that their preferred policies will produce the best outcomes. Funnily enough. That’s why What to Expect is heavily data-driven, and relies almost entirely on research. (For example, I wish that abortion was illegal–and I think there are compelling moral and philosophical reasons to ban it. But the data suggests that abortion does not today play a significant role in depressing fertility rates in the United States.)
Anyway, the reason I suggest in What to Expect that Social Security may be crowding out incentives for having kids is that there are two recent studies that have looked at the question closely and tried to isolate the effects. Both teams came to the conclusion that Social Security depresses the American fertility rate by about 0.5 children. (You can read them here and here.) These studies are, of course, referenced in the notes. If Harrop had read What to Expect a little more closely, she would have seen them.
Mind you, this isn’t to say that these two studies are the final word on the subject. I’d go further and suggest that we shouldn’t delude ourselves about the power of social science to provide definitive answers to such big, complicated questions. As I say in the book, the limits of social science are even nearer than we think.
All of that said, however, it strikes me that starting the discussion from a base of data is probably more fruitful than beginning with your ideological preferences and just riffing from there. I like Policy A, therefore Policy A must create better outcomes.
I don’t mean to cast aspersions on Harrop here. Maybe she’s made intensive study of entitlement policy and the fertility rate and is basing her counter-argument on research. And certainly, like in the case of abortion, there are moral cases to be made for Social Security and the entitlement state–it may be that such programs are worth having despite whatever costs they incur in terms of fertility. That’s certainly a defensible position; one that I probably agree with, actually.
But in that case, it would be more helpful for Harrop to simply make that moral case without trying to delude people into believing that the good she is selling comes for free (in terms of fertility). Whatever your preferences on entitlements are, the evidence suggests that it does not.
-
“I don’t mean to cast aspersions on Harrop here.”
Don’t worry, it’s already been done quite effectively . . .
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-12-2012/civil-disservice
-
Right, AKB1 – that’s where her confusion of theory and reality becomes most obvious. [Poco Warren said something similar as the justification for a min wage – productivity is higher (even though work is generally easier for all), so we have to force min. wage up since production is a constant, absolute value. If we force wages up to match production, the system becomes self-sustaining – sustainability is ensured by enforced measures of progress.]
Our system is supposed to change organically, over time, through its own dialectic as circumstances and resources and capabilities and understanding change. Froma is merely reciting our common creed.
It does sound implausible as a principle of wages and taxes, but what about tech progress alone? Is it fast enough to catch up with our needs? Can the growing need for robots, biotech, and clones give rise to their mass production and acceptance in time to take care of grandma? Will the singularity save us from ourselves and our lack of fertility? This was always supposed to be the solution to our inevitable decline in fertility and work.Q: JVL does a good job showing how, all things held constant, we are doomed – but does he take any form of our faith in progress seriously? Can our robots or clones save us, or does he think science itself is too much a hostage to the declining economy and innovation of an aging society?
-
I am a Liberal, who enjoyed the book but did not agree depopulation is a problem.
I do not care if the US economy goes from 18% health care to 30%. Yes, other industries will get smaller ie. Housing construction is 10% if the population is shrinking that will go down to just refitting old places so it may go from 10% to say 2%. But a guy who is a construction worker can be a nurse. How is that the end of the world if our construction workers become nursing home assistants.
Yes we will have to work longer (lock box), and yes the democrats should agree to raise the retirement age. Again working until I am 68 is not that big of a deal and most young Americans expect to happen at some point.
I guess 500-1,000 years from now when the world is shrinking below 5 million I suppose I would worry about extinction then. That is a long way off, even if the whole world goes to to a TFR of 1.1
It would make a great Sci Fi story. If JVL made a sci fi book about this I would totally buy it. And that would have way more affect on changing the culture than a policy book.Some guy on the internet who likes JVL’s writing he is fun to read.
AKB1 March 19, 2013 at 12:43 pm
I was struck by the following 2 sentences from Froma Harrop’s essay:
Productivity gains traditionally result in higher pay for workers (though workers have seen little of those benefits recently). This is why Social Security remains afloat as the ratio of workers to retirees continues downward.
If I understand correctly, she is arguing that workers will become more productive, so they will get paid more, so they will pay more tax, and they will be able to afford paying more tax. That sounds like a good plan, but she also states that “workers have seen little of those benefits recently”, which sounds like a problem for the rest of her argument.