Basil Jarrett | Baby bonuses alone won’t fix this mess

Two weeks ago, I argued in these pages that Jamaica’s falling birth rate is partly a symptom of the financial and economic burden of having children and more a reflection of the quality, or lack thereof, of the men we are producing. Too many boys are falling behind in school, too many young men are struggling to establish themselves economically and socially, and too many women are increasingly looking around and hissing their teeth, asking, “Have children with whom?”

I argued then that if Jamaica genuinely wants more babies, one part of the solution must be to invest far more seriously in producing educated, employable, emotionally mature, and socially responsible men to meet the demand.

The discussion was prompted by the minister of health and wellness’ recent announcement of pending government incentives to encourage more women to have babies in response to our low fertility rate of 1.3 children per adult woman. But Jamaica is not the only country grappling with the problem and scrambling for answers.

Saint Lucia recently introduced a one-time EC$1,000 Newborn Grant programme to assist mothers with immediate postnatal expenses such as nutrition, transportation, and basic infant supplies. That programme took effect on August 1. Then Singapore entered the chat group with much more than just lunch money. The wealthy Asian state has announced an aggressive package aimed at arresting its collapsing fertility rate of just 0.87 children per woman in 2025. Under its new SG Child Support Package, Singapore will provide roughly S$70,000 in direct support per child from birth to age 17, including a S$10,000 Baby Gift, annual child credits, education support, and other benefits. It is also expanding parental leave and improving access to subsidised housing for families with children.

MONEY CAN’T BUY YOU BABIES

Now, this is where things get interesting. Singapore is not Jamaica or St Lucia. It is one of the richest, safest, and most efficiently governed countries in the world with world-class infrastructure, excellent healthcare, subsidised housing, and high incomes, things of which Jamaicans can only dream.

And yet its women are having even fewer babies than ours. That fact alone should finally put to rest the lazy argument that declining fertility is primarily a Jamaican cost-of-living problem. Of course, economics matter. But if money were the main determinant of fertility, wealthy societies should be producing children like Toyota produces Corollas.

Other wealthy countries are having the same problem. Japan has tried subsidies, childcare programmes, and family incentives. Much of Europe has generous parental leave, healthcare, childcare, and social protection. Nothing has worked.

THE BABY IS THE CHEAP PART

To be fair, the Singapore approach highlights a critical gap in many of these incentive-driven solutions, that is, a recognition that the economic costs of raising a child have changed in ways that cannot be measured by the price of Pampers and Enfamil only. St Lucia, for instance, focuses heavily on the needs of children when they are small such as formula, diapers, nursery fees, and maternity leave. Singapore goes further in extending support through age 17 rather than stopping at infancy. But how many countries can afford that approach?

In other words, the truly expensive part of having children starts when they stop creeping. If you think diapers and Pediasure are expensive, wait until you see the cost of books, ballet, piano, karate, and swimming. Then add school fees, uniforms, laptops, braces, transportation, extra lessons, football boots, birthday parties, university tuition, and the occasional emergency request for “school trip money”.

THEN THERE IS THE MAN PROBLEm

And all of this is before we even start addressing the man problem. A woman contemplating motherhood is not simply calculating whether Government will give her enough money to buy diapers. She is calculating whether the man beside her is capable of helping to carry this baby for the next 20 years. That is why Jamaica cannot seriously discuss fertility while ignoring what is happening to boys who continue to underperform educationally and otherwise.

If boys are neglected educationally, starved of positive male role models, denied appropriate vocational pathways and left to acquire their ideas about masculinity from social media, gangs, and dancehall, we should not be shocked by the finished product.

MAYBE SOCIETY IS THE THING THAT CHANGED

And then there is the elephant in the room: The nagging possibility that we are fighting a losing battle and that society is changing into something that can no longer support the social, financial, and economic systems that we have created. What if declining fertility is not simply a policy failure but a natural consequence of modernisation? Women are becoming more educated, people are marrying much later, if ever, and life in general is becoming more expensive. Children are now more burdensome and people more individualistic, with smaller families becoming the norm. If that is where modern societies are heading, perhaps we need to accept that our current systems need changing, too.

Our pension arrangements, for example, were largely designed around the assumption that each generation of workers would be large enough to support the retirees ahead of them. But what happens when it is not? Who funds healthcare in an ageing society? Who pays pensions? Who fills the workforce? Those questions may ultimately be bigger than baby bonuses. Instead of endlessly asking how we can encourage women to have more babies, perhaps we should be asking how the world must change if they decide not to.

Major Basil Jarrett is the director of communications at the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA) and crisis communications consultant. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Threads @IamBasilJarrett and linkedin.com/in/basiljarrett.