#GAP.11 - Serena Olsaretti "Who Should Pay for the Costs of Children?"

Ein Vortrag von Serena Olsaretti (ICREA & Universat Pompeu Fabra) am 13.09.2022 beim 11. Kongress der Gesellschaft für analytische #Philosophie (#GAP) an der #Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

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Abstract:
Liberal egalitarians, including those who believe the state should remain neutral among reasonable conceptions of the good, generally assume that in a just society some of the costs of children should be shared between the family and taxpayers. Family policies that are common in welfare states include publicly-funded parental leave, free or subsidised pre-school childcare and public schools, and child tax credits or family allowances. Upon inspection, however, formulating a case for the sharing of the costs of children within a neutrality-respecting liberal egalitarian framework turns out to be harder than first appears. This paper provides such a case after identifying the main challenges it must surmount. These include the limits of the appeal to gender equality; the fact that parents may not need incentives to have and raise children when children are public goods; and the fact that, given the negative environmental externalities of procreation, children may be public bads.