[xerxesaa]

I lived in Singapore for a little while and this was one thing I noticed they did there. For example, by giving preference in subsidized housing to people who were married and further preference to those who had kids.

In the U.S. (and broadly, the western world) we seem to have a really hard time using economic incentives to encourage certain behaviors. I think it's partially because we don't want to implicitly judge a given lifestyle choice as better than another.

However, I think there is much we can learn from a place like Singapore. Singapore simply does not stick to any single political dogma - they choose a mishmash of policies based on the outcome they want to achieve.