Another interesting cultural development here is that the scope of parental responsibility has started to extend into what is conventionally considered adulthood, obligating parents to pay for their child’s post-secondary education. By contrast, children have effectively no legal obligations to their parents in old age. This privileges those who invest in financial instruments in lieu of having children, since the instruments will (at least in theory) provide the investor with the resources necessary to hire help in their old age.
Is that actually a contrast though? Parents are generally considered to have some moral obligation to help their kids pay for college, but no legal obligation. Children are (generally?) considered to have some moral obligation to help out their elderly parents (in my family at least), but no legal one.
> Children are (generally?) considered to have some moral obligation to help out their elderly parents (in my family at least), but no legal one.
The level of this is very culture-specific, with a gamut spanning from "children have no responsibility for their parents once they're independent" to "of course the first destination to send cash once you've made it is your folks". The two cultures I've lived among (German and Korean) are very different in this regard.
My personal take is that you should only have children if it's something you actually want to do and consider its own reward, with no expectations on "ROI".
The policy question of whether this is also the correct society-wide social contract to adopt is very valid, though.
If you look at real life reality though -- the argument for stuff like public schooling almost always a dominating piece is "we will educate the kids so society can get a good ROI." That not only the kids are better off, but the people around them will be too. Sure it's nice that the kid gets something out of it, but public schooling would not get as much support as it does were it not for what society gets out of it.
Society never actually holds themselves to the moral standards they demand upon parents. But people are people, people respond to incentives, and individual parents are no different than society in this regard. The position now, and the mass rejection of parenthood, I think in part reflects the outcome of this hypocrisy and doublespeak.
In Canada you cannot get subsidized student loans if your parents’ income is too high. You can’t get student loans at all unless they co-sign. If they don’t want to pay and you want to go to school you have to cut off communication and convince a judge you have no relationship.
There is case law which establishes a legal precedent obligating (usually divorced) parents to provide tuition for post-secondary education. I’m not aware of any such case law obligating a child to care for his aging parents.
> children have effectively no legal obligations to their parents in old age
I don't know which country you are talking about, but at least in France and Belgium they do.
Parents do not have an obligation to pay for their children's post-secondary education though (but they have to provide for them if they are not financially independent).
Single people in Belgium often complain that they are more taxed than families and that it's some kind of injustice.
>Single people in Belgium often complain that they are more taxed than families and that it's some kind of injustice.
On face this is true in the US. If you dig down into it in the slightest though, at least for a middle class family, it is extremely misinformed.
Society puts all kinds of burden on the parent that they would not otherwise have to spend
1) Car seats, safety equipment,
2) Employment and corporate taxes, regulatory overhead (including any government-imposed insurance and bond requirements), and licensing costs on daycare. And daycare is required because in US leaving children alone is illegal and providing unlicensed childcare for money is also in many cases illegal. (this one likely completely eats up the child tax credit)
3) Taxes charged on items of utility for the child, often even food.
If you are a single person you are not paying sales taxes for all the shit a kid consumes, you are not paying all the overhead taxes of childcare and child healthcare workers, you are not paying for all the costs associated with licensing requirements of child services providers, you are not paying sales taxes for car seats and all those goodies. You are also paying increased property taxes for the real estate the child needs, although this one is less questionable since you are more likely to consume public schooling which is usually a major component of that.
When you sum it all up I have zero doubt whatsoever a middle class parent pays way more in extra taxes and government imposed overhead than they get in tax breaks. And this is ignoring the fact that the single people in the end still ultimately benefit from the pyramid scheme we have going where social security is paid upward, and the investment to make that possible is mostly born on parents who in the end get the same stake on the returns as someone who did not raise a kid much beyond the scraps taken out of their property taxes.