I bet these five could easily get birth rates above 2.0.
- Reasonable maternity leave allowances.
- Good affordable (or free) healthcare.
- Good affordable (or free) child care until school age.
- Free education to university graduate level.
- Affordable housing.
The super-rich have no interest in allowing this to happen, so countries where having a child is a significant cost will continue to have low fertility rates.
All of those may help (and arguably, European birthrates would be much worse if they didn't have them) but I don't think they're alone enough to turn around the zeitgeist of the country as a whole.
The two main hurdles to increasing birthrate are:
1. Convince couples with no kids to have one.
2. Convince couples with two/three kids to have one more.
The list might help but the question is how much for each.
- Reasonable maternity leave allowances.
- Good affordable (or free) healthcare.
- Good affordable (or free) child care until school age.
- Free education to university graduate level.
- Affordable housing.
The super-rich have no interest in allowing this to happen, so countries where having a child is a significant cost will continue to have low fertility rates.