Intergenerational Poverty in America

Debate Question: Should government adopt policies to affect fertility?

Governments around the world have adopted different policies that implicitly or explicitly aim to modify the marriage and fertility behaviors of their citizens. For example, governments around the world have attempted to control fertility. China's One Child Policy is an example of an attempt to curb the fertility rate of the population. In many rich countries (Germany, Denmark, South Korea), governments have attempted to do the opposite: they give baby-bonuses to those that have children in the form of direct checks or tax breaks. In the US government involvement with fertility touches upon very delicate issues. One set of issues concerns whether the government should fund access to contraceptive care and abortion. Another set of issues is whether government policies should penalize or incentivize individuals to have (or not to have) children.

You have been assigned a position for this debate. Your job is to put together a five-minute PPT recording in support of your position. If you argue against, please make sure you consider the arguments of those that argue in favor and address them and vice versa. If you are in favor of adopting policies to affect fertility, please specify which policies you support and whether they would be directed to all individuals in the population or to subgroups. Please specify what problem the policy is solving. If you are against it, please make arguments against specific policies that have been adopted around the world and in the US and clarify why. Specify whether you are against any government intervention in this area or whether there would be some circumstances under which you would favor such policies. Your presentation should pay particular consideration to how these policies are likely to affect children and intergenerational mobility.

In this assignment you are asked to

1-Submit a 5-minute recording of a PPT presentation containing your main arguments and be ready to present it in class (or have it shown).

• This presentation should be 5 minutes max. you can have back up/appendix slides.
• Ideally all members of the group will participate in the presentation.
• Your group should be ready to answer questions about the content of the presentation.
• Economic and non-economic arguments are allowed.
• Make sure to cite studies in support of your claims.
• Please provide citations for all the facts that you include. If your claims are unsubstantiated (or not subject to empirical support) please explicitly state as much.
• Graphical evidence is encouraged