By Mr. Right
France is using an unorthodox and very personal method to encourage younger citizens to make babies: personal letters.
The government plans on dashing off letters to 29-year-olds, reminding them, specifically women, that they have a biological clock and should have children before it’s too late. According to the health ministry, hundreds of thousands of young French citizens will receive a letter that provides “targeted, balanced and scientifically based information on sexual and reproductive health” to “avoid the ‘if only I had known’ mentality.” (RELATED: US Fertility Rate Plummeted To All-Time Low In 2024, New Data Shows)
I admire the creativity, but will the letters actually make an impact?
I think it’s doubtful. So far, no government policy, including tax credits, has really worked to stop the decline of fertility rates in wealthy, educated countries across the world. Letters probably won’t do the trick.
If the United States government sent Americans letters encouraging them to have sex and make babies, I’d reckon at least a third of the country would call it a perverse invasion of privacy by the state, the other third who already have kids would celebrate it, and the last third would be totally indifferent.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think it is impossible to boost fertility rates to the levels we saw after World War II during the baby boom. No government intervention will fix it. At least in America, our culture is geared very much toward delaying children as long as possible. People want to focus on their careers and spend their income on consumer goods and vacations. It’s hard to see that changing anytime soon.
Speaking from personal experience, my wife and I have been married for over six months now. We haven’t pulled the trigger on kids yet because we are waiting to buy a house and have more space. I think a lot of married couples or young families who want to get bigger are in the same boat.
So, yes, it’s a cultural thing, but also an issue related to housing scarcity and affordability. People don’t feel secure about the future anymore. We all have the sense that the world has changed drastically in the last decade or so, and that the pocket of American prosperity and the growth of a booming middle class after WWII was an exception to history, not the rule.
