Spending money on families hasn't been shown to help in any way whatsoever in increasing the birth rate. You have countries with close to free day care and generous monthly child subsidies with the same or even much lower fertility rate as countries that give just about nothing at all. I still support these kinds of policies just for the sake of helping families and their kids, but doing it for the only purpose of helping the fertility rate is futile. Honestly I don't think the government can do much at all to help the fertility rate. It's a cultural issue first and foremost. And the government can't (and I think shouldn't!) do much to change the culture of our society. You see people living in poverty with 9 kids just because they belong to a certain religious or ethnic group who values children above all else. That's the main issue. How important is children to the culture? Is it prestigious to be a dad or a mom? Is personal success measured in how you've built your family or is success measured in how much money you make?
