The fear of climate change has led to couples having fewer babies; about one in five female climate scientists say they will have no children or fewer children because of the crisis.**It’s not the only reason for what governments and headlines are calling a baby crisis, a population crisis, a fertility crisis, a demographic crisis, an ageing crisis and an economic crisis. The cost of living, housing security and a lack of opportunity also play their part.The upshot is that all over the world..., governments are concerned that women are simply not having enough babies....It’s fairly clear that, when women are more educated, more liberated, and more able to access contraception, they start having fewer children. What’s not clear is how to convince them to have more. Cheaper childcare? More flexible workplaces? More help from the menfolk? Affordable housing? More optimism about the future?Statistics show most countries are now below replacement rate – that’s 2.1 children per woman, enough to replace the existing population with a bit of a buffer...“Governments must plan for emerging threats to economies, food security, health, the environment and geopolitical security brought on by these demographic changes that are set to transform the way we live,”“The blame gets placed on women. Women are seen as the gatekeepers of population and are seen as hedonistic and selfish if they do not populate.”
** as an example, I'll offer this excerpt from the transcript of a podcast from To The Best of Our Knowledge, entitled "Love in the Time of Extinction":
Heather teaches environmental literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her students are 18 and 20 year olds. And she told me about a day when she realized just how scared they really are.- [Heather] Basically, this woman said, "This poem gives me hope." And I said, "Oh, tell me more about that." And she said, "Well, most of the time, I don't feel any hope at all and I don't wanna bring a child into this world." And she said, "But that poem makes me feel like maybe I could." And I said, "Oh my goodness, you're nervous about bringing a child into this environmental moment?" And she said, "Yeah." And I said, "Oh my goodness. How many other people in the room feel that you wouldn't have children because you're afraid of the environmental things that we're facing?" And all of them raised their hands. I don't have any interest in pushing people to have children. It wasn't about that. It was that I realized that they were not seeing a future that they could imagine anyone surviving in.
What’s not clear is how to convince them to have more.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that there is no motivation on why women should have more children - not even in the whole article. There's only some panic about there not being enough people for .... what exactly?
Also it's sexist to pretend it's on women, instead of couples, to have children.
Furthermore, a whole bunch of very practical reasons are glossed over. Low wages, lack of decent housing, lack of child care, poor access of health care. The solutions for those problems only come in small subsidies which only move the needle a little, instead of solving the underlying problems.
Finally, there is zero acknowledgement that the vast majority of those problems have been caused by politicians, i.e. men.
“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” -- Herb Stein.
ReplyDeleteOver the next 10-40 years, there could be major consequences from the current low fertility rates. But in the long run? Well, eventually the population density will drop enough to make large families attractive again.
Large families will never be by choice until one person can earn enough to support the whole family. With both halves of a couple working more kids is a huge strain.
ReplyDeleteWatching wildlife on BBC or PBS every animals goal is survive to reproduce. The human animal wants more and the more they see possible the more they want to experience. Humans are the only critter with a bucket list and that usually doesn't include more kids that would negate the rest of the list.
xoxoxoBruce
Something I don't remember seeing or hearing anywhere is anyone discussing how a lower population number (or at least growth rate) might be a good thing; we have so many people now that we're not taking care of. Do we really need *more* people? The planet, at least, would probably appreciate fewer of us.
ReplyDeleteSandra
The human species is much more sustainable at lower population levels. As we are now, we are doomed.
ReplyDeleteYou've bolded a lot of text in the block quotes from the article, but you have left out the most important sentence: "Governments must plan..." You cannot incentivize your way out of the "problem" of low birth rate (not an actual problem, IMO), you can only you can only prepare and execute a plan to deal with the very obvious, completely foreseeable effects. See South Korea, Japan, and China (and to a lesser extent, Italy) for examples of what not to do.
ReplyDeleteI'm a woman, and I have lost all hope. The earth is dying. It's over 95 degrees today in the Midwest. The tornados are expected tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like poetry. Sad poetry, but very visual. I'm thinking of the 1930's dust bowl.
DeleteJapan is offering women from Tokyo $4k if, takes a deep breath, they move from Tokyo and marry a man living in the countryside. $4k to give up your career and, presumably, have babies. I don't think the Japanese govt get "it".
ReplyDeleteThe two big pressures on increasing birthrate are 1. most societies take care of the olds by taxing the young (I appreciate that America handles this with a mixture of gladiatorial games, Logan' Run-esque culls and steep flights of stairs into hospitals) and 2. Yes, really. It's a lot harder for companies to have constant growth if the population is falling. See also, Governments talking about how much more they're spending on something, when it barely keeps up with population growth. Ireland, Britain, France have positive population growth, even factoring out immigration. The USA doesn't, I think, but has positive population growth when you account for immigration - so, abstinence birth control and ban abortions.
I have wonder about falling populations resulting in an inability to maintain the infrastructure in place. Sewers, roadways, power-plants, factories etc falling into disuse and abandoned. There would be a tipping point where getting back to where things are now would take a huge effort. There would also be the dangers of toxic materials leaking out and making the problem worse.
ReplyDeleteMaybe our time has come and we rejoin the endangered species list.