Comments for Incentives Matter at http://www.adamsmith.org , comment 1 to 4 out of 4 comments http://www.adamsmith.org Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:22:00 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/misc/incentives-matter-200806231594/#comment-500 I think the panick decision by the liberals to include teaching kids from the age of seven sex-ed in their list of radical changes is ridiculous. Making uneqivocal codes on an out-of-hand problem, such as stopping young-mums receiving benefits when living with parents, is the only proven form of reducing teenage pregnancies. Also, we need to look at the tone of sex-ed courses; are we encourging young adults to have sex? Shouldn't we be sending a pretty clear message that having a baby before you're old enough, let alone before marriage, a bad thing? - Will Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:47:13 +0100 http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/misc/incentives-matter-200806231594/#comment-485 I don't buy this argument that Child Benefit encourages people to have children. Not by direct causation anyway. The poor have always had lots of children. They bred a lot before the welfare state existed in Britain and they are prolific breeders in developing countries where there are no social security systems. There are various reasons for this. They predict that a certain number of their children will die before adulthood, more children means more people to send out to work to earn money for the family, and parents want to make sure that there is somebody to look after them in old age. Evidence suggests that the better educated people are and the better standard of living they have the fewer children they have. This may explain why the wealthy are less likely to have teenage pregnancies. - jezzer Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:06:34 +0100 http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/misc/incentives-matter-200806231594/#comment-482 Tim, I expect you have hit on THE major explanation for the differences in teen pregnancies. Further evidence might be differences in adoption rates -- do you know if there is a difference in those rates between England and The Netherlands? - EclectEcon Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:55:15 +0100 http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/misc/incentives-matter-200806231594/#comment-480 You don't need to look as far as The Netherlands to support the idea that single mums are doing it for financial reasons. This article says that the rate of teenage pregnancy is 18 times higher in poor areas that in wealthy areas (OK, the article is about pregnancies rather than live births, but it's the one I found first). - Mark Wadsworth Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:28:33 +0100