Holy Roman Empire - Chapter 458

Chapter 458: Chapter 31: Encouraging Childbearing

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The early morning sun gilded the earth with gold, the moist air intermingled with a hint of sweetness, and the withered trees began to sprout new buds, heralding the arrival of spring.

Today was another wonderful day. After a simple breakfast, Franz began his day’s work by opening a colonial development report.

Ordinarily, he would not concern himself with such details, but this time was a bit special. Last year, the New Brook area launched a significant project that attracted the attention of the Vienna Government.

For three consecutive years, the birth rate in the New Brook area exceeded 5.1%, a figure unmatched by any of the major European countries, except for Russia.

As a colonization area predominantly suitable for those wishing to have families, a higher birth rate was normal. However, maintaining this record for three years had caught Franz’s attention.

This era was one of a population explosion in Europe, with all countries experiencing high birth rates.

The Russians were naturally the European champions. According to data collected, the Austrian Population Bureau concluded that over the past decade or so, Russia’s lowest birth rate was 4.92%, while the highest climbed to 5.39%, the majority of the time remaining above 5.1%.

Well, that data was incomparable. Russia’s high birth rate was due to their equally high mortality rate.

In this era, Russia’s normal mortality rate hovered around 3.6% and occasionally even surpassed 4.0%, making them the European champions of this statistic as well.

If judged by the birth rate of an ordinary country, the Russian Empire would have long since been depopulated.

Looking at Europe as a whole, Austria’s performance was also commendable, maintaining a birth rate of around 4.1%, second only to the Russians.

Zooming in on specific birth rates, it becomes apparent that lower rates are recorded in the Central European Region, with some areas dropping to 3.6%; in contrast, Southern Europe has higher rates, with some localities reaching up to 4.5%.

The more developed an area, the lower its birth rate—this has become Franz’s most significant challenge. Without altering this situation, one need only look at neighboring France to understand.

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As the most liberal country in Europe, France’s birth rate lingered around 2.6%, and its mortality rate was not far off at 2.3%, maintaining a very modest growth rate.

If this were a later era, the French would be overjoyed with that birth rate. Unfortunately, in this age, it didn’t stand out at all, as this was a time when everyone was fully engaged in increasing the population.

Faced with persistently high mortality rates, those who dared not procreate were essentially courting the extinction of their race!

Franz had come to terms with the fact that birth rates could not match those of the Russians. Leveraging the advantages of medical technology and conditions, the population growth rate had just managed to even out with the Russians.

Franz had issued many documents encouraging fertility, but they yielded little effect. The birth rates in most colonies were not high, and coupled with the high mortality rates, the population growth remained very low.

With the explosive birth rate in the New Brook area, Franz naturally took notice. This concerned the great plans for the future—if this could be replicated elsewhere, it would be a major windfall.

The report in question did not come from colonial officials but was obtained by an investigative team personally dispatched by Franz.

The reason was simple. What if someone falsified the data?

Africa is not like Southeast Asia or America; mixed-race children are an impossibility. In those regions where a multitude of mixed-race individuals could be produced, it was indeed possible to deceive, provided the traits were not too distinct to easily identify.

Given the bureaucrats’ lack of integrity, cooking the books for personal achievement was all too common. Therefore, the birth rates in Southeast Asia and Central America have always been skewed higher, and as long as it wasn’t too exaggerated, the Vienna Government would not probe further. Africa, however, had no such conditions to emulate.

As a key area of focus for development, the Vienna Government’s interest in Africa surpassed the collective interest in other colonial regions.

To ensure control over the colonies, this region always received rigorous oversight, and bureaucrats had limited autonomy.

For example, a governor in other colonies had authority over the military on horseback and the civilians off it. Here, the governor also served as the highest commander, but only as a military officer responsible for military affairs, while local governance was managed by the civil government.

Not being able to pad numbers did not mean that falsification was impossible. The mortality rate in the colonies had always been relatively high, but it was continuously declining due to improvements in local development and medical technology.

If bureaucrats falsified birth rate data to inflate the figures and then used the previous mortality rates, they would in effect boost the death count.

Using artificially increased death tolls to offset the falsified birth records, the numbers would balance out on paper.

After all, as long as the mortality rate didn’t rise, officials could justify it, and the birth rate had become one of the performance metrics for local government officials.

The talent that devised this scheme was reportedly an accountant by trade, adept at manipulating financial records.

For the time being, Franz had reassigned this individual to an almost bankrupt state-owned mining company, with the stipulation that they may only return to the city once the enterprise revived.

Talent was precious and not to be wasted. Should they succeed, they would have salvaged a state enterprise; if not, they would have no choice but to spend the rest of their days working in the mines.

…

Having carefully reviewed the report, Franz was convinced that this time, the data had not been falsified. The measures listed above indeed could stimulate childbirth.

In the New Brook area, all welfare treatments are tied to having children—the more children one has, the more benefits one receives.

For instance, the unemployment relief funds distributed by the government are only available to parents who have had children. (This restriction does not apply to those who have made significant contributions to the state or society.)

Another very humane policy stipulates that one child counts for one portion, parents with two children can receive two portions, and so on, accumulatively without any cap. (Half will be given if one of the spouses is unemployed.)

This is just one of the incentives. As an immigrant city, the housing in the New Brook area is provided by the city government, which is one of the inducements for encouraging immigration.

Lands are not costly anyway, and the main expense is construction cost; thus, providing housing is feasible. The small houses provided by the New Brook City Government usually do not exceed fifty square meters.

Large residences, however, have been intentionally priced high by the government, nearly reaching the housing prices of Vienna. In short, they are unaffordable for ordinary people.

Then, the government introduced a rule: Families that have three or more children qualify for housing discounts. For each additional child, 40 square meters are gifted, and families with more than eight children are offered free interior decoration and a set of furniture as a bonus.

Besides these, there is a series of other preferential policies such as maternity leave, childbirth subsidies; and even though the money is not a lot, it still reflects the local government’s attention to the matter.

Even pensions have come into play. Austria has a pension system, but currently, only those who have contributed significantly to the nation are eligible to receive it.

The New Brook City Government expanded the eligibility criteria. Anyone who has given birth to five or more children qualifies for a pension, and this standard is based on the number of children birthed, increasing by thirty percent for each additional child.

This point can be overlooked since the average age in this era still hovers around forty, and those who live to sixty to collect pensions are rare indeed.

Austria has not established a pension insurance system, not because Franz does not value this issue, but simply because it is unnecessary.

Those who live past sixty usually have fairly good family conditions, and if they were so poor they couldn’t scrape together a living, they would not likely live to such an old age.

A series of pro-natalist measures are completely disharmonious for singles, DINK families, and families with fewer children. Unless they have made significant contributions to the nation, these social welfare benefits are unrelated to them.

Franz even suspected that this could be the work of a transmigrator, spooked by the low birth rates in later eras, and hence enacted such extreme measures to stimulate population growth.

Regardless, as long as it’s effective, and the people do not oppose it, Franz naturally had no objections.

Since these practices have been implemented in the New Brook area and have achieved results, it means that the resistance from the public will not be too strong.

Using limited funds to stimulate childbirth and increase the population growth rate is of great significance for Austria.

If this continues, Austria’s birth rate might even overtake that of Russia.

Franz highly doubted that if this policy became a national strategy, other European countries might follow suit. If everyone did this, the world might just go to ruin.

He soon dismissed this concern, as it’s essential not only to give birth but also to be able to raise the children. In this era, it’s common for families to have five or six children, but whether they can all be supported is the real question.

Before the advent of contraceptives, pregnancy was usually uncontrollable. Birth rates in all countries were high, and so were the rates of infant abandonment.

At this moment, Franz suddenly realized that Austria’s compulsory education system also spurred population growth, as schools provided meals during compulsory education, saving family expenses.

This was an unexpected blessing; the original decision for schools to provide meals was to encourage parents to send their children to school, and for a long time, students had to rely on sand trays for learning.

It wasn’t until after 1860 that all students could be guaranteed textbooks. It was only since last year that they began receiving free exercise books.

Austria provided the most frugal compulsory education, which will probably be lauded by scholars in the future. After all, a story is required for history to be remembered.

Even now, the sand trays have not been discarded. Given that paper is still quite expensive, the exercise books issued by schools still fail to meet the demand.

Franz decided there and then to preserve this meaningful tradition of sand trays. Whether or not to stage a show and have his sons use them was a question worth contemplating.

In the end, he decided to save face; it was just too fake, and spreading the story would breed disbelief and could lead to ridicule.

Franz had no intention of driving this extreme population stimulation plan forward himself and passed it directly to the Prime Minister.

A good Emperor must not encroach upon the Cabinet’s work. Since the Prime Minister was about to retire, it was a good time for him to implement this task before his departure.

Otherwise, if a new person came into office without sufficient authority, it would be hard to tell whether they could withstand the pressure to roll out the plan. Facing criticism was inevitable; at the very least, the liberals would denounce the government fiercely.

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