Quote from: JoelKatz on October 09, 2012, 11:05:38 PM

Quote from: herzmeister on October 09, 2012, 09:41:14 PM

The observation is rational and objective that due to biological reasons, women are more likely to conceive than men. A woman has to invest time and resources during childbearing that she cannot freely choose. The free market does not compensate this undoubtedly indispensable service to society.

She doesn't "have to" do anything she doesn't wish to. If she thinks the costs outweigh the benefits, she need not get pregnant or she need not carry the pregnancy to term. However, women have the option of conceiving if they think the benefits outweigh the costs, a choice men don't have.

+1
It's not that hard to understand. They actually have an advantage, a choice men don't have.

Quote from: herzmeister on October 10, 2012, 07:11:23 AM

So there'd be insurances to compensate her temporary inability to carry out a job in the marketplace, insurances that a man would not have to contract.

Nor women! Nobody would have to contract them, since nobody would have to be a mother.

Quote from: herzmeister on October 10, 2012, 07:11:23 AM

Then what are the (material) benefits anyway? The child owns itself.

Here you make it clear why having a kid is a "disadvantage" under your values.

Quote from: herzmeister on October 10, 2012, 07:11:23 AM

The bottom line still is that the market does not incentivize procreation in any form.

Try to understand something before criticizing it. Visibly you don't really get how market incentives work.
Market incentives will push people to satisfy others with their actions, in order to have themselves satisfied. Market will "incentivize procreation" as long as people believe such procreation satisfy them.

Relax, the human race will not voluntarily extinguish itself, despite some environmentalists outcries.

Quote from: herzmeister on October 10, 2012, 07:11:23 AM

There is no guarantee that a guy would stay and form a family, especially in these modern times.

In a free society, contracts could be made to give that guarantee, if that makes people feel better. These contract could foresee things like pensions, sharing of rights/responsibilities, conditions under which one of the parents would lose his parental rights etc. All this can be foresee in an enforceable contract. But it must be contractual (i.e., voluntary). Nobody should be forced to be a parent.