PORTLAND, USA, Oct 07 (IPS) – Countries around the world are facing low birth rates. By 2022, more than 100 countries, representing two-thirds of the world’s population, will have achieved fertility rates below the replacement rate of 2.1 fertility per woman.
Fertility rates below replacement level were not uncommon in the past. But today, many countries with persistently below-replacement fertility rates are experiencing demographic decline coupled with an aging population.
Many countries are trying to change their low interest rates. Their pro-natalist policies include paid parental leave, flexible work schedules, affordable childcare, cash incentives, supporting families, subsidized fertility treatment and promoting gender equality in housework and childcare.
By 2023, the United States’ fertility rate drops to a record low of 1.6 births per woman. That rate is two births per woman below the 1960 rate and half a child below the replacement rate (Figure 1).
Others, especially wealthy men in private business and Republican officials, have for years lamented America’s declining population and encouraged women to have more children.
Population decline due to low birth rates, some have warned, is a greater threat to civilization than global warming.
Contrary to the fertility measures adopted by many other countries, women who choose to have few or no children in the United States, according to many Republicans, is the reason for the country’s low birth rate.
Why do Republicans blame American women for the country’s low birth rate, which they say has created the scourge of civilization with disastrous results?
The answer, according to many in the American Republican party, is that across the country women in their prime childbearing years are increasingly rejecting the sanctity of marriage, the fundamental role of families and motherhood, and are avoiding the blessings and emotional satisfaction of childbearing and parenting. several children at home.
Despite their emphasis on the rewards of staying at home and raising children, Republicans continue to delegate the responsibility of raising children to their wives rather than to Democratic fathers.
It is also important to recognize the indisputable fact, which some in the Democratic Alliance reportedly often ignore or choose to minimize, that men cannot conceive and bear children. Only women have the ability to conceive, bear children and nurse.
Republicans have emphasized that a growing number of young women across the country are choosing to have fewer children.
Many women avoid pregnancy, childbirth and staying at home to raise children to adulthood. For example, among US adults under the age of 50 who do not have children in 2023, the proportion who say they are less likely to have children was 47 percent, up 10 percent from 2018 (Figure 2).
Instead of having children, Republicans say growing numbers of young women in America are choosing not to marry and are becoming childless cat ladies or dog ladies, a threat to American democracy.
It is reported that among the significant advantages of having a cat or dog instead of having a husband are that cats and dogs are not picky, easy to train and do not come with in-laws.
In the US, women are less likely to want children than men. As a result of women’s decisions about fertility, America’s fertility rate dropped below replacement level in the early 1970s and the rate has declined steadily since then.
Having children, which many women take care of, does not provide them with economic compensation or retirement money for their time and work. In contrast to fatherhood, women pay the price of motherhood by having children and raising them. Working mothers experience a lack of income and benefits compared to childless women.
More importantly, women like men in America want to be financially compensated for their work. They don’t want to just be ripped off their backs for having more children and raising them until they can have children of their own.
Rather than having children at an early age, women are increasingly choosing to be educated, join the workforce, seek gainful employment, earn their own money and therefore delay childbearing.
Most American women say they want to make their own decisions about having children. And they don’t want to be told by the Republicans to have more children for the good health of the nation.
The emergence of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s and the introduction of modern methods of birth control, especially the contraceptive pill, had a major impact on the decline of the American birth rate to well below the replacement rate.
In addition, US women have been demanding equal rights and opportunities, especially in education, employment and political participation, as well as control over their bodies and reproduction.
Republicans in the United States Senate, however, continue to block the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). And Republicans have been instrumental in overturning women’s right to abortion and supporting far-reaching bans on abortion, including those that legalize the procedure for rape victims and pregnant women.
Women want to enjoy their own freedom and make their own decisions about having children rather than others, especially men, telling them what to do and when to do it.
In addition, increasing numbers of women in America are choosing to marry later or avoid that traditional institution altogether. Some women postpone childbearing until later in life, decide to have few or no children and reject the patriarchal family structure.
Because of America’s low birth rate, the resulting natural rate of increase (births minus deaths) has been declining for decades. The current rate of natural increase in the US population is about one-fourth of the rate achieved at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In addition, immigration is expected to drive America’s population growth for the remainder of the 21st century.
According to many US business leaders and Republican party officials, the continued low birth rate and declining natural growth rate are having a negative impact on the country’s continued prosperity. Low interest rates and declining population are seen as a crisis, which seriously threatens the growth of the American economy and the power of the country.
A low birth rate in the absence of high levels of immigration often leads to depopulation, which many Republicans consider a statistical disaster.
Despite their anti-immigration rhetoric, efforts to build a wall on the country’s southern border and a clear call for the deportation of all illegal aliens, Republicans know that the American population and its workers are expected to decline without immigration. Without immigration, America’s current population of 337 million is expected to decline to 299 million by 2060 (Figure 3).
Instead of relying on immigration to grow the country’s population, Republicans and those on the right are urging women across America to fulfill their traditional responsibilities to their country, that is, by bearing at least a few children and raising them at home.
By doing so, they expect America’s fertility rate to return to replacement level or perhaps even rise, thereby ensuring sustainable economic growth and reducing the need for immigration.
To encourage fertility, some Republican officials have offered several recommendations. Those proposals include giving parents the power to vote on behalf of their children, looking after grandparents, aunts and uncles for those who have them and having higher tax rates for childless Americans.
However, such insinuations and blaming women for America’s low birth rate are unlikely to raise the country’s fertility rate back to replacement level.
Overall, according to many Republicans, America’s low birth rate and the resulting civilizational crisis and its disastrous consequences for the country can clearly be blamed on American women of childbearing age.
Joseph Chamie is a demographer, former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of many books on population issues, including his most recent book, “Human Standards, Trends, and Differences”.
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
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