Chrystia Freeland, in her latest column, notes that the United States birthrate has plunged to its lowest ever, following declines in Europe and even China.
Then she joins the debate over why, pointing out that researchers like Joel Kotkin lament that the falling birthrate is the central feature of †‘post-familialism,' a new form of social organization that prizes liberation, personal happiness and perhaps even a ‘hip' urban aesthetic over the more traditional values of community and self-sacrifice,†Chrystia says.
This cultural critique - made, not accidentally, mostly by men - misses the central fact about falling birthrates. They are, above all, driven by decisions by women. And, in the countries where we have seen birthrates drop, they are about decisions driven by women who face three defining facts.
First, women have the historically unprecedented power to c ontrol their own fertility.
Second, the old close-knit family and community ties that once supported child-rearing have been severed by industrialization and urbanization, and not much has emerged to take their place.
Third, women's economic circumstances have been transformed. Women in countries where birthrates have fallen tend to be richer than were previous generations with higher birthrates or their sisters in countries where the birthrate is still high.
Chrystia concludes that in middle-income and rich nations, falling birthrates are also a reflection of how deeply societies have failed to find a way to allow women to be both mothers and contributing members of the society outside the home. In essence, she says, with no solution on how to do it all, “now women are voting with their wombs.â€
Do you agree? Are falling birth rates more the response of a desire for personal freedom or more a reflection of women deciding, as s ociety has not helped them, that they cannot have it all?
