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The Insolvency of the Social Security System is a Fertility Crisis as Much as a Financial Crisis

The Real Third Rail in Politics: Fertility

By Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D

Social Security is often described as the Third Rail of Politics. You touch it, you die of electric shock and exit the political stage in a hearse. Incoming Secretary of Treasury Hank Paulson tested this proposition by giving his first major address on the subject of "entitlement reform," aka Social Security. But behind the Third Rail of Social Security is the Real Third Rail: a subject so toxic, no one even wants to think about it. But if we could deal with this Forbidden Topic, the Social Security problem would largely solve itself.

That Real Third Rail is fertility. No one wants to mention that the insolvency of the Social Security system is a fertility crisis at least as much as a fiscal crisis. It is considered rude to mention that the collapse in the fertility levels, particularly striking among the most gifted women in society, is a contributing factor to the insolvency of our entitlement programs.

America's total fertility rate peaked in 1957 at 3.68 babies per woman. Today, our fertility rate hovers right around the replacement rate of 2.1. The fertility of college educated non-Hispanic white women is now around 1.7. Since these are the women whose children are most likely to become productive taxpaying citizens, their fall in fertility takes a particularly large toll on the future taxes paid into the Social Security system.

According to Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns, authors of The Coming Generational Storm, the Social Security system does not recognize the contributions of working spouses. But the problem is even more acute: the system doesn't recognize the contributions of non-working spouses either. Nobody gets any credit for raising children.

When Social Security was established, people got married and stayed married for a lifetime. Most women stayed home and raised children. At the end of their lifetimes, most married couples were still together. The Social Security system took these family arrangements for granted.

In effect, both spouses made contributions to the Social Security system. The husband paid taxes. The wife raised children. When the family collected the pension, based on the husband's income, both spouses shared it.

As most people now realize, however, the husband's taxes don't go into a little account with his name on it. Those taxes go to pay the benefits of the currently retired generation. The children, raised by the wife, become the taxpayers who actually make the contributions which support the parents in their old age.

People who never have a child can still collect the taxes paid by other people's children. Ditto for people whose children are all losers, spend a lifetime "finding themselves" and never hold a job. The Social Security of the 1930's took for granted women's contribution of raising productive adult children. The result is fewer children. Economists Isaac Ehrlich and Jian-Guo Zhong found that countries with generous social security systems have lower fertility rates, marriage rates and higher divorce rates.

The most needed reform is that benefits should be based on both kinds of contributions, not just financial contributions. Phillip Longman is one of the few commentators to address the fertility problem of Social Security reform. In The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to do about it, he proposes to link a couple's benefits not only to the income of the primary earning, but to the number of children they raise.

Today, it is considered politically incorrect to mention the obvious contribution of motherhood. Feminism taught us to believe that motherhood is for ninnies, and that no self-respecting educated woman should be caught dead changing diapers. Public policies to encourage women to have more children are considered unacceptable infringements on women's freedom.

Feminism also taught men to keep their mouths shut about women's choices. Men have no opinions that women are bound to respect. Once a woman chooses something, all men are required to bow down three times in adoration of the goddess of Self-Determination.

Well, I am one woman who is ready to say that raising children is a good and socially constructive thing to do. Having more than one one or two children can be a lot of fun. And it is for certain that raising a large family to productive adulthood will use all the gifts of even the most gifted woman. Having a family is a worthy life endeavor, deserving the educated woman's most serious consideration.

The Social Security system should recognize this fact, and link benefits to child-rearing. When Secretary of Treasury Hank Paulson gets specific about Social Security reform, I encourage him to consider fertility "on the table."

I'll stick up for him when the screaming starts.

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is the author of Smart Sex: Finding Life-Long Love in a Hook-Up World.

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