The problem is that [pension] insurance weakens the economic reasons for having children since it almost fully socialises the contributions of the children to the generation that preceded them

To me the article was very convincing, so I posted in reddit with a somewhat provocative title, that “Childfree people in countries with strong social security are free-riders”, and have the natalist community give their thoughts on it. (/r/childfree blocked it right away). I made this claim, because the childless usually receive around the same pensions as parents, yet because of now less children being available the burden is increasing on the next generation. The pension as Hans said is a childlessness insurance, which originally was meant for those that were unable to provide or loose their offspring and need someone to take care of them. This is now being exploited as a lifestyle benefit just like health insurance, where people don’t take preventive measures (e.g. sport & healthy diet), since they don’t have to bear the financial consequences.

However many disagree and these points I want to address here:

I am a social worker, I contribute just as much if not more to society

Social workers are often paid by taxes (e.g. Police, nurses and teachers). You provide a service for money, just like anyone who is employed. One could phrase it differently: You receive income from society (you owe) and you provide a service in return (you pay back). Some part of it you keep and the other you pay as taxes (just like everyone else). There are some amazing teachers, that inspire and act as multipliers to productivity of the generation, but I have come across many that are just treating it as a job and inspire as much as the old moist and smelly mop for cleaning floors. It’s therefore not entirely black and white and it’s probably hard to reward being a good teacher in order to build a fair pension system. Some jobs are more valuable to maintaining society than others, but almost all jobs contribute to society in one way or another, otherwise people wouldn’t pay for the service provided. In a free market supply and demand will handle the rest (e.g. filling any gaps).

I pay taxes, more than those with children, therefore I did my part.

The first part may be true, the second is short sighted. It’s true that a childless couple where both have income will end up paying a higher absolute amount of taxes and social contribution, than parents with less total income. However did you also pay for your own pension? So far you have been paying the pension of the preceding generation (your parents and grandparents). I will take Germany as an example: 60k yearly income for 49 years, this would yield you a pension of ~1.4k/month over your pension which on average would last 13 years totaling to ~218k€. To compensate for that you would need to pay almost 8% more from your income into pension to compensate. The extra contribution in Germany is however currently at 0.6%. You rely on the children of others to pay your pension, increasing the burden on the next generation. Also, we have only looked at it from a financial perspective. Work is not being paid equal. Some work (police, nursing, teaching) is underpaid relative to the value it provides to social stability. It takes parents more than 8 hours a day to raise children. If we looked at it purely from a work perspective (the fundamental currency), then you would be paying far less of your time for a higher pension. Of course you may now ask …

Why do I need to pay the pension twice (both the preceding generation and for myself)? I was never asked for this!

Indeed, this was decided for you. However the reason is actually simple and is well illustrated by the island paradox. It says your money is worth nothing if no one is there to provide the services you want to pay for. There just is no one else who can take care of the old than the next generation. It has been like this for the entirety of human history. The island paradox is an extreme allegory, but it in practice it would mean more expensive services for everyone (shrinking supply and increasing demand) during your pension, which is even more unfair, considering you were able to accumulate sufficient wealth to pay for these more expensive services, while parents weren’t. All work currently required needs to come from the current economy (Mackenroth Thesis) and that is also my main critique of the original article. These 8% only provide incentive to make and raise kids, but might not actually solve the problem, which is simply labor shortage due to some people preferring to live a more pleasant life at the cost of everyone else. Savings Accounts Can’t Replace the Next Generation. There could be one way out though, which is voluntary consumption reduction or self-funding end-of-life care without relying on state infrastructure.

It should be a personal decision whether to have children or not.

Don’t get me wrong. I know there are some people who are unsuited to or cannot raise children and that some people are better utilized to focus entirely on their work. However not everyone can become an astronaut. So far society has not agreed to provide pension for such such roles and the pension system is built on the assumption that there is always enough children to maintain the current population and labor force. However where the freedom of one starts is where the freedom of another ends. It is no longer a personal decision if it affects the next generation negatively. There is a limit to how many people can be childless and expect pension without them burdening the next generation.

I am childless and help out in the community, contribute to charity and occasionally take care of my friends kids.

This is indeed where my original statement is probably too one sided. The reality is grey and there are people of different types. However more often than not this is not your average childless couple. Additionally the work of raising children is

• often more exhausting
• dirtier
• less praised (comparatively little social validation for raising a child well)
• and more expensive (not just ability to accumulate capital, but also opportunity cost of missing out on career steps and the ability to get credit for a house)

which combined with low incentives is why birthrates are decreasing rather than remaining stable. Frankly, unless a helper is treating it like a second full-time job, pitching in occasionally (even if sometimes a great help and much appreciated by the parents) is just a fraction of the work while leaving the actual heavy lifting to the parents.

We can use selective immigration to solve the problem

This is a temporary solution and you are effectively advocating for cultural replacement, since you can’t expect a person to change their values and way of life just because the ground underneath them changed. Too much can also go very wrong. To maintain workforce levels you would have to import the difference of missing births as educated people every year. With an average life expectancy of 80 years you are looking at 250–500k people every year. You would also be draining the origin country of its the most educated and capable people (brain drain). Over time even high fertility countries tend to reduce their child count.

Children consume more resources and are bad for the climate

Yes, parents with children consume more resources (school, libraries, additional doctors, …) than childless parents, but the consumption usually leads to a net positive contribution to society. Therefore the amount of resources consumed compared to the value provided is the same as that of the childless. Humans are carbon emitters, but they will also be the only ones capable of reversing climate change by developing the technology, building the infrastructure, making and enforcing the policies to make the change or providing for those that do. To stop having children is to give up on humanity and is an extreme disappointment to all of our ancestors in the past who were fighting to keep their children alive; only for the last generation to give up. You of course have no obligation to continue their goals; just don’t discourage others for the sake of “saving the planet”, otherwise I classify you as an enemy of humanity for actively pushing for its extinction.

Children shouldn’t be made a commodity or thought of purely in their economical worth, but rather as part of what makes life beautiful.

Children's growth and well being is threatened if the economical base falls apart. You can’t have “worthless” children and expect a healthy economy at the same time. These two go hand in hand. Reducing children to something that simply makes life ‘beautiful’ shifts the focus entirely onto the parent’s emotional payoff. If we don’t actively prioritize building their competence and securing their economic future, we aren’t caring for them — we are just consuming them as a lifestyle asset.

Voluntary and involuntary childless should be distinguished

I agree, there are those that the pension insurance is built for and there are free riders exploiting the system. Most childless people are somewhere in between.

Some kids are a net negative to society

From a purely economic standpoint, our public infrastructure and pension models already account for this variance. Social insurance works precisely because the higher contributions of productive workers offset the costs of those who, for various reasons (illness, disability or structural barriers), become a net draw on public resources.

The problem isn’t the pensions, but unfair distribution of wealth

While unequal wealth distribution underlies almost every modern crisis, raising it shifts the focus away from actionable policy. A well-designed pension system should inherently act as a preventative measure.