I guess it also depends what job you have before quitting. I was an application specialist working for a medical company, so I was travelling let’s say 3weeks out of 4 every month and I was away (Europe-Africa) from monday to friday. So basically even the decision of having a child completely killed my opportunity of going back to my job after maternity leave.
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I think we should not put kids and cars or holidays together :). As @xorfish correctly mentioned - someone has to work in the future to make things rolling…
On the other hand I really don’t understand why married couples should pay more than unmarried ones. Not to be accused of wanting to live in a socialist country ;), I think it should not matter at all and the taxes should be the same…
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Well, yes and no… children contribute to growth (so your dividends) and don’t forget that
our kids will probably wipe your butt when you will be old 
If it is financially too discouraging for parents (mainly mothers) to make kids it leads to other issues in the long-term
With 2 kids and no grand-parents to babysit (not their role anyway), childcare costs around 50k per year in Zurich until the kids are more or less independant… not asking to get it for free, but damn 50k 
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Beyond factors like profession, salary, and childcare expense, what also matters in some cases (atleast us) is that our families and childhood friends are thousands of miles away. So going to work becomes essential part of social belonging and interaction. My wife would like to find a ~60-80% job (as a scientist in academia/industry). It might not bring in much in terms of money but help her stay professionally relevant and hopefully get some good social interaction.
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That’s not socialism. Government funded kitas and schools are a result of social policies. It doesn’t follow that the means of production are suddenly owned by the state.
People with no kids also pay taxes which fund the schools. I at least would like our future generations to be educated. That feeds directly into a more productive workforce which we need in the future.
Supporting kitas allows for the already educated parents to continue contributing to the society. That generates more tax revenue and more wealth. I find it a terrible loss of skills when one parent is forced to stay at home. They most likely received an education, had work experience, and now are blocked from working. If they were working, their taxes would also go towards paying for the kita. 
In the end every one of us pays taxes or insurance for something we don’t use and it’s still not socialism.
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I feel for you. As the father of two children I know it’s an expensive road to travel. The only financial benefit are the sizeable tax deductions.
Not really. If you want to work full time you still have to organize (pay) the following in primary school and kindergarten:
- lunch (not offered at school)
- afternoon and/or evening care on the days they get out early (usually Wednesdays always finish before noon)
- the seemingly random days when the teachers decide to have a training day and there is no school
- vacations (1-2 week every 6 weeks)
- public holidays which don’t match your days off work
It gets more complicated if your kids have different afternoons off like mine do. They both only have morning school on Wednesday but the younger one also has a short day on Monday. In kindergarten she had more of those but not every day.
Finally, when your kids grow up the other costs grow with them. It’s not a winning equation but it also shouldn’t be considered as such.
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This! My wife is highly educated and was very successful in her job. She had to sacrifice a lot, not just the professional life but also the pension which is not accumulating at home. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a huge loss of opportunity for the society when one parent has to stay at home. Even worse is that it’s usually the mother.
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The reason why we make less kids nowadays isn’t cost. My brother had 3 kids, hise wife works 20% and they both earn 90k in total. They are still able to have a family car from Dacia, go on holidays 5 weeks a year. It’s all about setting priorities in life and adjusting your expenses.
Main reason why we don’t make kids anymore is because we realized that kids aren’t the only purpose in life and you can die happy without ever having them. I’ve never heard of anyone saying “I would love to have kids, but they are too expensive”.
P.s. Immigration won’t ever stop. By the end of this century there will be 4 billion people in Africa and still rising. More than enough human capital, no need to make your own to sustain society.
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Personally I would extremely happy if my wife gets a scientific job of her specialization in academic facility /pharma/biotech (she has PhD + 4 years of good work experience in EU). And we both work 80% for few years, maybe forever. That would really be a good for our family and professional/financial lives. Better spend more time with children as they grow up. Let’s see what future brings.
I’m with @Cortana on this.
When you put aside the emotional aspects, from a purely practical standpoint it doesn’t make any sense spending billions to marginally increase local “production”, when the same resource is abundantly available basically for free elsewhere in the world.
And from a global perspective I think the global population growth rate is still too high to be sustainable (and will likely remain too high in the foreseeable future).
Back on the expense topic, at least in Neuchatel child care is very expensive only for high earners.
For low and middle income families it is very heavily subsidized and certainly doesn’t push out of the job market anyone who really wants to work.
I’m sure this can be very different in other cantons though.
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you clearly haven’t lived in Eastern Europe yet 
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that’s what we do now. Wife pharma PhD, works 80% (up from 60% last year), I work 80% (down from 100 last year), the kid goes to Kita 60% with 1 daddy and 1 mommy day in between. It works and we manage to still accumulate wealth, but I don’t yet see how this will continue once the second one arrives.
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you magically get better, more efficient when the second one arrives? 
Honestly I have no clue. My mental models cannot accommodate second one just yet 
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Oh yes, I second that. There is a negative correlation between wealth and number of kids. Back when you didn’t have a pension system, kids were your pension system. And since many kids died, you had a lot of them. Now you don’t need kids anymore. I would have no financial issue to support a wife and as many kids as I please. Still I don’t do it. Why? I don’t know myself. It’s just a big step and it reorganises your life in a big way. Also, you want to have kids, be 100% about your partner.
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This is the lie our parents tried to push. 
The truth is that everything gets more complicated. Instead of spending half the effort it’s more like the same effort to the second power. I love my kids but I’m also brutally honest about parenthood.
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@Cortana
I think you might underestimate that having offspring is quite a basic human/animal need for many (not everyone).
If we accept this as preferences we want to respect, there might be a trade-off between
- decreased economic productivity if people have to stay home because they can’t afford childcare
and
- decreased economic activity through the distortions caused by the taxes needed to pay for (partially) government funded childcare.
The first child changes your life, the second one takes it completely away. I guess from the third on you start to get used to it (I won’t do that experience).
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It sure sounds pretty, but I’m not convinced that it actually works. Raising your own kid is also contributing to society. If you can make more money than the kindergarten costs, only then is there actually an added value to the society.
I’d add the value of (mostly) mothers having a continued career thanks to Kitas.
Kitas are also not the choice between “raising your own” and “letting the state raise them”.
Most parents who send their children to Kita would probably consider themselves as “raising their own kids”.
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I fully believe that.
That’s why I’m in the “One and Done” Club! 
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