Why did people want to have them in the past, and what shifts do you think could undo industrialization enough to return to that?

The economic value of kids and the relative surety that kids will provide for you in your old age are I think very hard to reclaim now, and that was a pretty strong motivator for most of history. You could end all retirement funds and pension systems and so on, maybe?

> Why did people want to have them in the past

Most people are biologically wired to want children. "Survive and reproduce" is pretty much the driving motivation of all living things. Most children weren't conceived as a carefully planned retirement strategy. No cost/benefit calculation is required to convince most people to have children, but you can certainly force them into a position where they have to start thinking in those terms. We've just hit a point where societal and environmental factors are discouraging people from doing what they'd normally do.

Hard wired to want children and hard wired to want sex are two very different things.

When given the choice there are plenty of people putting the latter over the former, and the number of women stuck at home while their husband went out to have affairs suggests the reality of kids doesn't actually interest most people. Plenty of folks just want a status symbol, not the responsibility of raising a child.

I think just about everyone wants more sex than children. That said, many people would love the responsibility of raising a child but don't feel like they can afford it.

That's valid for sure.

I don't mean it as a cost benefit thing, but people thinking that family is important, that they want and need family there for them in their old age, and so on.

The need for all of that is considerably different in modernity and more people choose to live without their family close by, and certainly don't depend on them for housing and care as often?

how about making your pension depend on the number of kids? take an average pension now: X=100%, take half of it as a base, and then add a quarter or one fifth per child. so a childless person gets half the current pension, 1 child gives you 75% or 70%, 2 children 100% or 90%, 3 children 125% or 110%, etc...

Sounds good, until you start arbitrarily punishing people who, for one reason or another, just can't have kids (reasons can be many, for one, biology is a bitch).

that's a defeatist attitude. it's not like we can't make exceptions. or arrange for other ways to earn your pension. besides, if you don't have children you get more time to work, so you pay more, which means, the benefit for parents is actually offsetting lost work time.

which is another approach. how about for each child you get automatically accounted a number of years of payments as if you had earned money. if it takes 30 years of work to earn enough for a decent pension, and every child counts for 5 years then 3 children would allow you to get the same pension with only 15 years of work. how is that?

btw, the global infertility rate is 5%. the global disability rate is 10%. those people are also affected by not being able to work. in other words, 15% of the population are unable to fully contribute to pension funds. where a full contribution means work and having children. but making children a pension contribution actually helps a number of disabled who are still able to have children. so now they are able to contribute more than they would if we ignored children as a contribution.

seriously, this constant shooting down of ideas just because it appears that one group is disadvantaged is tiring. try thinking a bit more creatively and help come up with a solution.

We don't have pensions any more