Does taxation affect population growth?

Taxation/subsidisation have nothing to do with population growth. Think about it, would lower taxes mean people have more children...?

Lower taxation tends to allow for better social mobility (i.e. POPs promoting upwards), and is generally desirable for your economy. The tariffs system is actually broken, it doesn't work like real life, so slightly negative tariffs are actually the best for the economy.

If you want your population to grow, invest in medicine tech in the military tree (this will lead to inventions that allow for higher population growth), and build your healthcare with the political reform page. Both of these will increase the birth rate, and by making your country democratic, with an effective economy you may create some immigration which will cause your population to increase.

No, it doesn't affect it.

Ftang said:

Thanks for that. Back I go to tax the poor then.

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Just make sure that they have enough money for 80% (can't remember what the actual threshold is, I'm sure someone else can post this since Im at work) of their life needs.

It does, just in a roundabout way. If your POPs aren't doing well enough to survive, they leave the country. This obviously is a bad thing for your population size. The higher you tax them, the less well off they will be. This is especially noticeable on the poor class. Once you get a decent sized rich class, you should start taxing them a ton because they will still have plenty for life needs and stick around, and your poor will be able to live and therefore won't leave the country.

Ftang said:

They may have had more children simply because better fed mums would survive childbirth better. Also more children would have survived infancy in the 19th century simply by being better fed. Increasing infant mortality by massive taxation is a real economic effect.

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Not sure the game captures this subtlety though. The poor in the 19th century were poor outright, obviously they could have used the extra little they were getting taxed for food, but they would still have been desperately poor...