I have a real gripe with this kind of politics.
“The peasants are so poor they can’t even afford their basic necessities. Let’s take one commodity and subsidise it, but only for one certain group of people we’re targeting in the next election.”
They can look generous, but they don’t have to touch the overall problem. You could argue that subsidising one thing worsens the poverty, because it causes inflation in other products.
Yes I guess there’s that too. France has been very successful in “nudging” women to work fulltime and leave their children in childcare. It is normal in france for children 6 months old to be in childcare 9 hours a day. This is a good cultural shift, because it depresses wages.
It also pushes up house prices, increases people’s stress, and gives people less free time to think and socialise and plan a democratic uprising (which seems to be a real national passtime).
Encouraging contraception is certainly intended to have the same effect.
That’s debatable. Most women don’t exactly enjoy being stuck at home 24/7 taking care of an infant. While I don’t deny that this also has a bit of an impact on the things you describe, in other EU countries you have pretty much the same and nearly no children born because of the lack of day-care.
there’s definitely some controversial bits to my comment. which part do you say is debatable?
i don’t think most parents would chose to put their children in childcare, if they could afford otherwise. it’s hard to know though. but they should be able to afford to chose, and they aren’t.