Hungary is opting for the latter:

The scheme—designed to boost the Hungarian birthrate—was announced at a recent government press conference in the Hungarian Parliament building attended by the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office, János Lázár. The scheme will see the state grant a non-repayable aid package of 10 million Hungarian Forints (HUF) to all couples agreeing to have three children within ten years. According to the Global Property Guide, the average detached house price in Hungary is HUF 9.3 million. Minister Lázár said that the grant was part of the extension of the government’s “family first home benefit.”

10 million forints is about $35,000.

You may recall that this is the exact same sum that George Soros is demanding that the EU pay each immigrant during just their first two years there. No wonder he and his minions hate Orban so much.

Seems that supporting natality is much cheaper than supporting immigration and will result in a great deal less racism and Islamophobia besides. Everybody wins.

Besides, its something that Hungary needs regardless. It is a real demographiz disaster zone. As seen in the chart right, deaths started outnumbered births there since 1981, a full decade ahead of trends in most of the rest of East-Central Europe.

A reminder that Russia managed to reverse an analogous state of affairs with not inconsiderable help from “maternal capital” – about $10,000 worth of housing aid for each child above one – implemented from the mid-2000s. The total fertility rate (TFR) went from 1.3 children per woman then to about 1.8 now. This flew in the face of demographic conventional wisdom, which tended to dismiss the efficacy of such pro-natality schemes. Hungary currently has a TFR of 1.4 children per woman. It would be interesting to see if it turns out to be another counter-example.