This article explores the global decline in birth rates, examining the societal and cultural factors contributing to this trend. It challenges the traditional narrative that blames women for the baby bust and advocates for a more inclusive and expansive approach to parenthood.
We\u2019re officially in the depths of a full-blown birthing crisis. The total fertility rate – an unlovely clinical term which means the number of births necessary to sustain current population levels – should hover around 2.1 children per woman. In England and Wales, it currently stands at 1.4, We\u2019re not alone. From Saudi Arabia to South Korea, Belgium to Bhutan, the baby bust is all systems go in most places around the world.
By 2100, researchers have predicted that the population of countries like Spain and Japan could even be slashed in half. (Spare a thought for the poor Spaniards – it\u2019s bad enough they won\u2019t have grandkids, let alone a shrinking society.) It\u2019s not quite right to lay all the blame at the feet of couples who don\u2019t want to reproduce or are too anxious about the climate crisis for a bun in the oven though. “Falling birthrates are increasingly downstream of a relationship recession among young adults,” notes Data Points columnist John Burn-Murdoch. Where rising rates of singledom go, plummeting birth rates follow. In short, it\u2019s not that couples have a problem with kids, the problem is getting into a couple at all. As a newly single person, I can indeed confirm that dating is the pits. Elizabeth Barrett Browning would probably have stabbed herself in the eye with her quill if she knew romance now consists of swiping until you\u2019re cross-eyed through profile after profile of “laidback chillers” looking for “curious + sexy playmates”. But that doesn\u2019t mean a “relationship recession” is a bad thing. Decades ago, women were expected to stay in unhappy marriages. Advice columns from the 50s and 60s provide a sobering reminder that entire generations of women once had to put up with philandering husbands, marital abuse and rape and total financial dependence. Thankfully, this is no longer par for course for young women. Instead, many of us are able to go to university, attain formal qualifications, pursue careers and take charge of our wallets. We don\u2019t just hold the purse strings any more; we earned the money and paid for the purse ourselves. If financial independence means that women are able to be more selective about their choice of partner – or the idea of coupling up at all – that should be celebrated by everyone. Singledom and being your own breadwinner isn\u2019t directly opposed to the desire for children – in fact, the number of single women having fertility treatment in the UK has over the past 10 years. The problem is that bearing and raising a child by yourself is so financially challenging – just ask any single parent. But the sad truth is there are plenty of people who want to have children but who are locked out of parenthood. I know broody singletons – of all genders, not just women – who would like a sprog of their own but are intimidated by the idea of raising a child solo. There are older women who are struggling to conceive but cannot afford to go private. There are LGBTQ+ people who would like families of their own but are lost in the labyrinthine maze of fertility treatment – and many more who lack the money to do so. In England, for instance, same-sex couples face a postcode lottery when it comes to accessing fertility treatment. Of course, it\u2019s a good thing that governments are looking at ways to incentivise and support would-be parents. Baby bonuses, better childcare provision, equal parental leave and an end to the maternity penalty that accompanies women in the workplace – feminists have been campaigning on this stuff for decades. But even birth rates in Sweden and Norway, those Nordic havens of parental support, are dropping, which suggests that throwing money at coupled-up heterosexuals isn\u2019t going to fix the problem.Women are often blamed – explicitly or not, as with US vice-president JD Vance\u2019s comment about “childless cat ladies” – for falling birthrates. Implicit in that critique is that straight, coupled-up women are somehow unilaterally gatekeeping their own fertility. But it takes two to tango, and male partners are just as capable of feeling too financially insecure or climate anxious to want kids. Rather than press ganging these people into having children, we should think about making parenthood as inclusive and expansive as possible. Unfortunately, the declining birth rate has become something of a right-wing talking point – no thanks to blowhards like Elon Musk claiming that “” if we don\u2019t fix it. But the answers we seek are ones that won\u2019t oppose women\u2019s hard-won agency and empower their ability to choose. Fund better fertility treatment and research to help those struggling to conceive, offer free IVF to single women (as the Scottish government is now considering), and stop thinking of a man and a woman as the necessary prerequisite for a kid. The baby bust is a 21st-century problem, and it needs solutions that look to the future – not the past
Women's Issues Family Planning Birth Rate Decline Relationship Recession Singledom Fertility Treatment Gender Equality Parental Support Climate Anxiety Social Change
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