Obviously not. The number of people mentioned as affected in that article is tiny relative to the population, tens of thousands of people affected over a century in a country with a population of almost ten million today, and millions at the policies’ peak. Fluctuations in immigration policy, nutrition, education, pollution, subsidized childcare, and gender equality would collectively dwarf any effect of those policies on Sweden’s population composition.
What small effect = no effect? I’m pretty sure that on average their welfare state would have been burdened by those children. Cost wise it was probably a win even with the later paied reparations. Are you willing to take a small effect = no effect position in general for say welfare state policies?
Read advancedatheist’s comment. It wasn’t about benefits exceeding costs, or the fact that successful Sweden adopted a policy providing Bayesian evidence for the quality of the policy. It explicitly offered the hypothesis that Sweden turned out better than average because of the policy, i.e. that it was a but-for cause rather than a tiny irrelevant effect in that direction.
There is no straw-man here, the difference is important. Policies with small maximum benefits are not individually worth huge political efforts or fixed costs. Policies with large benefits can be.
Obviously not. The number of people mentioned as affected in that article is tiny relative to the population, tens of thousands of people affected over a century in a country with a population of almost ten million today, and millions at the policies’ peak. Fluctuations in immigration policy, nutrition, education, pollution, subsidized childcare, and gender equality would collectively dwarf any effect of those policies on Sweden’s population composition.
What small effect = no effect? I’m pretty sure that on average their welfare state would have been burdened by those children. Cost wise it was probably a win even with the later paied reparations. Are you willing to take a small effect = no effect position in general for say welfare state policies?
Read advancedatheist’s comment. It wasn’t about benefits exceeding costs, or the fact that successful Sweden adopted a policy providing Bayesian evidence for the quality of the policy. It explicitly offered the hypothesis that Sweden turned out better than average because of the policy, i.e. that it was a but-for cause rather than a tiny irrelevant effect in that direction.
There is no straw-man here, the difference is important. Policies with small maximum benefits are not individually worth huge political efforts or fixed costs. Policies with large benefits can be.