If I was dictator of Bulgaria (Bulgaria, if you're interested, I'm available), here's what I would do.
Every year the fertility rate is below 2.1, I would decrease taxes for parents, and increase them for everyone else. I would massively increase property taxes in desirable city centers for non-parents, but eliminate them for parents. This would make it ultra-affordable for parents to live there, and ultra-expensive for everyone else.
If you have 4 or more kids, all tax benefits are locked in for life.
Universities would be free for people with children and much more expensive for everyone else. First have kids. Then go to college. Not the other way around.
Basically, I'd take all the luxuries that make being childless so amazing, and flip them on their head.
Extreme? Probably. But this is an extinction level crisis for countries like Bulgaria.
Well, one thing to note is that a large reason for Bulgaria's massive population decline is the emigration of Bulgarians to other European countries because of Bulgaria's quite poor quality of life.
Massively increasing taxes for a large part of the population, like you propose, would probably only increase the emigration.
You'd have to raise the standard of living for everyone, so that people would feel secure enough to stay in their country and have children without artificial means like increased taxes.
Emigration and brain drain is hitting the Balkans pretty heavily, ironically worsening conditions and perpetuating the cycle. It's a tough situation to be in.
Speaking of brain drain, I'm surprised there are no quizzes on the subject.
Well, that sounds pretty good, at least at first glance. I even wonder why this is really not used? Most likely, because of the unethical and undemocratic nature, but given the demographic bottom in which Eastern Europe is located, this is better than how they are fighting it now. In Russia, for example, they are trying to fix this with HUGE (by the standards of Russians) money for the first three children, support for large families and heroine mothers. But it's pouring in... unexpectedly, the poorest have a bunch of children for mercantile reasons (at best, a series of loan repayments, and at worst, alcohol for money), get a lot of money, squander it, and then raise a dozen children in terrible conditions. And it ends with the fact that seeing this, children who have grown up in such conditions have at best one child to raise them in proper conditions or do not have them at all. Yes, the vast majority raise children in good conditions, but such families are not unique
On the other hand, this may become economically impractical, because soon the minority will contain the majority (after all, we are trying to have large families?), and then conditionally 80% of the population will be simple freeloaders, which is unacceptable in a capitalist society (in general, the idea of Quizmaster is very similar to the communist strategy). It won't be possible to cancel it once — imagine what would happen if it sent families with an expensive cargo of children on a free voyage? How much discontent there will be, and again, how many dysfunctional families will be formed (and in Eastern Europe and Asia, with their general well-being, there are a lot of people at the social bottom). Therefore, as you clarified, only some dictator can cope with such a bottom (and even China does not have the proper scope for this).
While indirectly, this would be forcing people to bear children. That's quite barbaric in my opinion, extinction level threat or not. Even if this crisis wasn't emigration based, there are plenty of other ways you could approach this, like monetary benefits to parents– which I've seen you suggest elsewhere– rather than punishments for those who don't conceive.
I'm curious, what would happen for same-sex couples and people with fertility issues under your regime? Would someone have to "prove" that they're gay somehow?
This would also be effectively forcing marriages at whenever the age of adulthood is. If you don't have a good relationship by 18 you just gotta roll the dice and hope they're not horrible I guess, or be forced into poverty.
I believe this policy would be globally reviled (except among literal, self-identified fascists and ultra-hardcore religious fanatics). I'm really hoping you just didn't think it through.
The dictator could provide incentives to same sex couples to rear children no matter who produces them or how they are produced (and I guess in some cases through surrogate, IVF, etc.). Or maybe we can skip this and go "the Handmaid's tale " route and forget the incentives of the dictator as it might just be too soft core of an approach. Nations, empires and even cultures - come and go. As the saying goes ....tribe follows tribe, who knows when or how a nation will disappear. Natural disasters, wars, severe droughts, internal infighting, changing of cultural values, and all sorts of things (and some we have yet to image) can destroy nations - it's kind of like store closure sometimes, new ones pop up! And unless it's your store or nation people just look for the new one and see what it has to offer.
maybe EU is the problem. balkan people don't have too work to hard to be able to afford to move to more well to do European countries. there is literally no reason for them to stay back, and literally nothing to stop them from going
Jamaica's projections must be mostly due to emigration I'd imagine? The birthrate is currently slightly below replacement level but it's higher than for any of the other countries on the list
Migration of many. Many leave between 25 to 45 years old. Plus a significant shift in birth trends: more persons being intentional in their birth control practices - quite noticeable after the announcement of a spike in HIV rate, shops observed increase in contraceptive sales; significant increase in university attendance since around 2005, and Family Planning Board recorded a significant increase in the average age of 1st pregnancy for university graduates for the past decade - they are having kids, just in their 30s and far less kids than before. Then majority of these college graduates are leaving in their late 20s and 30s. Birth rates also took a huge dip during the Zika Epidemic around 2016 onwards
Migrants. Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan will ensure our growth... excluding migrants from Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Moldova and China, they are insignificant against the background of the first three
Data from real time population for Serbia are incorrect. According to the 2022 census, Serbia had 6.6 million people. And that is half a million people less than in the mentioned data.
Take into account how fast the African population is going to grow. From the source, Mauritius was the only African country to decrease in total population by 2070. On the other hand, Niger nearly quadrupled in population by 2070, and many others doubled or tripled their populations.
I wonder if this is only about fertility and replacement rates, or if climate change generally and sea level rise in particular are accounted for. Maldives, Nauru, and others will certainly be feeling the effects by 2070 which will certainly change population dynamics in those places.
Every year the fertility rate is below 2.1, I would decrease taxes for parents, and increase them for everyone else. I would massively increase property taxes in desirable city centers for non-parents, but eliminate them for parents. This would make it ultra-affordable for parents to live there, and ultra-expensive for everyone else.
If you have 4 or more kids, all tax benefits are locked in for life.
Universities would be free for people with children and much more expensive for everyone else. First have kids. Then go to college. Not the other way around.
Basically, I'd take all the luxuries that make being childless so amazing, and flip them on their head.
Extreme? Probably. But this is an extinction level crisis for countries like Bulgaria.
Massively increasing taxes for a large part of the population, like you propose, would probably only increase the emigration.
You'd have to raise the standard of living for everyone, so that people would feel secure enough to stay in their country and have children without artificial means like increased taxes.
At least that's how I see it.
Speaking of brain drain, I'm surprised there are no quizzes on the subject.
While indirectly, this would be forcing people to bear children. That's quite barbaric in my opinion, extinction level threat or not. Even if this crisis wasn't emigration based, there are plenty of other ways you could approach this, like monetary benefits to parents– which I've seen you suggest elsewhere– rather than punishments for those who don't conceive.
I'm curious, what would happen for same-sex couples and people with fertility issues under your regime? Would someone have to "prove" that they're gay somehow?
This would also be effectively forcing marriages at whenever the age of adulthood is. If you don't have a good relationship by 18 you just gotta roll the dice and hope they're not horrible I guess, or be forced into poverty.
I believe this policy would be globally reviled (except among literal, self-identified fascists and ultra-hardcore religious fanatics). I'm really hoping you just didn't think it through.
red=asia
orange=north america