Many European governments have begun to enact “pro-natalist” policies (tax incentives, transfers, subsidized care, etc.) designed to promote fertility rates in order to alleviate demographic pressures. Many other countries provide more indirect family subsidies. Societies have interests in maintaining demographic stability, but the normative status of such policies is an important and widely unexamined question for political theory, especially in light of questions of global justice, environmental ethics, and questions about the legitimate scope of state powers. The case of the EU is further complicated by the complex relations between EU nations and because EU-level voting is based on national population. Can a state (in the EU or otherwise) legitimately use incentives, subsidies or even coercive methods to get people to have children? If so, what should be the domain of such prerogatives? My answers will draw on the parents’ rights literature, social contract theory and theories of legal legitimacy.
