Childless singles who spend their money on entertainment receive the same pension and medical benefits as people who raise big families. Without other peoples’ children, to be sure, the childless singles would starve in old age, because there would be no one to pay the taxes that fund their benefits. But nothing in the social safety net discourages free riding on other people’s child-rearing. If everyone decided whether or not to raise children on purely economic grounds, everyone would opt to keep child-raising costs to a minimum—in other words, to have no children at all—and let others pick
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