Social Security Reform and Childcare Support*

This paper examines how social security reform and childcare support affect fertility and social welfare, based on a simple overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility. In an open economy with no altruism, introducing a childcare subsidy is the second-best solution under an aging population. However, in a closed economy and/or assuming the household’s altruistic bequests, childcare support is not necessarily desirable and the case that curtailing a pay-as-you-go social security system reduces social welfare cannot be ruled out. In addition, we show that social security reform and childcare have different effects on the transition process to a new steady state. JEL Classification: H55, H31. Key words: Social security, childcare support, fertility, and bequests