If we are going down that line of commentary-- Large families with lots of children are usually more efficient than small single or two child families, since large families tend to spend less per person and the children learn to make do and be resourceful. Resources are pooled, everything is used, hand-me-downs are used multiple times. Reducing, reusing and recycling are parts of daily life out of necessity. More activities and entertainment are undertaken in the house and less vacations/travel are used. Things like boardgames are more feasible on a daily basis, etc. Home production is also more economical.
The wealthy people with one child lavished with entertainment, travel, and resource expenditure learn to be wasteful and buy every new fashion and gadget.
Of course, I believe we should generally leave people alone and let them go about their business instead of imposing arbitrary government requirements; but if we go down that road, then the poorer families with lots of children should just get a free pass since they are more efficient by nature.
Good point, I guess. But what is the consequence of it? Do we allow only some families to have more children, while others are not allowed to have any, to get this effect of more efficiency of resource usage? How do we get there in a fair way?
I think the point is that we don’t specify how many children people can have at all. In addition to being ethically dubious, it has a high chance of backfiring as it had in China, and likely will be ineffective, as most population growth is currently relatively localized to a few areas of the world like the Middle East and Africa. Places like the US or Europe or East Asia have already largely stabilized population wise. What remains to be done is making the emissions per person sustainable, which isn’t true especially in the West. This in turn will make the technologies required for reducing emissions cheaper and more widespread for those countries that are still growing to utilize before their emissions per capital grows to that of current rich nations. Population control is a non-starter.
Just wanted to be clear that I think everyone should have the number of children they want to have. I don't think the government should interfere in that decision and it should be up to the couple whether they have lots of children, one or two, or none. Just wanted to point out an interesting point about efficiency of some families as a response to the parent. And I'm not even definitively saying that I'm right, but it is a perspective.
I think even families with only a few children _can_ be more efficient, but it is not the natural thing to do, and people with fewer children often do so because they prioritize higher resource consumption from a perception of quality of life or other factors.
I guess the main point is that these things aren't clear cut, there are reasons for both depending on a person's perception of life and pursuit of happiness. That's the tricky thing, even when we believe a problem is simple from out perspective, it usually isn't.
The wealthy people with one child lavished with entertainment, travel, and resource expenditure learn to be wasteful and buy every new fashion and gadget.
Of course, I believe we should generally leave people alone and let them go about their business instead of imposing arbitrary government requirements; but if we go down that road, then the poorer families with lots of children should just get a free pass since they are more efficient by nature.