Our falling fertility problem is worse than I thought:

We analyze a staged expansion of subsidized child care in Norway. … There is little, if any, causal effect of subsidized child care on maternal employment, despite a strong correlation. Instead of increasing mothers’ labor supply, the new subsidized child care mostly crowds out informal child care arrangements, suggesting a significant net cost of the child care subsidies. (more)

It is harder than you might think to pay people in cash to have more kids. Alas paying them in status is much harder to arrange.