Governments are at it again trying to increase birth rates. Recent stories out of Russia and China reveal that these government are doubling down on their policies to incentivize or force childbearing.
Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader (the Chinese leadership is all male – not a single woman on the 24 member Politburo) – at a meeting of the All-China Women’s Federation in November stated that “we should actively foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture.” It is the role of party officials to influence young people’s views on “love and marriage, fertility and family.” China has over the past two generations gone beyond “influence” and had mandated family size through its One Child Policy. Are we to see a two or three child policy mandated? Whatever might happen, gender equality is not part of this culture. Currently some Chinese provinces offer cash bonuses for couples having two or three children.
Russian authorities are cracking down on abortion access, long a means of birth control in that nation, by cracking down on private clinics offering abortion. Russia reported about 500,000 abortions in 2022. The corresponding figure in the US for 2021 is over 600,000 (the CDC and Guttmacher differ in their estimates with Guttmacher reporting over 900,000). The US population is about 2.4 times larger than Russia, indicating a greater reliance on abortion in that country. Restricting legal abortion access puts women at risk when they resort to illegal ones – making them unable to have future children – a consequence it would seem the authorities would want to avoid.
At the same time, Russia is offering speedy citizenship to foreign fighters who immigrate to fight in the Ukraine, indicating the severity of their population decline and the attitude of the Russian males to being sent to certain death in a losing battle. It seems the authorities are desperate to preserve the Russian male to further and father their race.
Countries around the world have tried and mostly failed to influence birth rates with childcare incentives, cash bonuses, paid leave etc. These policies, at most, influence timing of births, not the number. Still, many couples say they are having fewer children than they want. Many social and economic factor come into play here, along with some basic biology.
In the US, the support for legal abortion has risen since the Dobbs decision, with 55% saying they support abortion for any reason. This is about the percent that supported abortion rights in the recent Ohio voting. This is a healthy response to the conservative attack on women’s rights.
One wonders also the connection to a recent study in the US indicating that millennial women are losing ground in health and safety, including rates of maternal mortality, suicide and homicide. But Millennial women have also seen improvement in education and earnings, with 44% completing a bachelor’s degree, up from 28% of Gen X women. Women now earn 89.7 cents per dollar as men, compared to 82.4 cents for Gen X women. No surprise that women on their own, making it on their own, with increased risk of maternal mortality and violence in their communities, support unfettered access to abortion, and that their families do too.
The US birthrate today has fallen to 1.6 (the white rate 1.6 and the African American is slightly higher at 1.67). If there is anything to be done about this (and there is scant evidence anything can or should be done), then maternal and child safety should be at the top of the list for policy makers, including the racial disparities in these statistics and including providing family planning and safe abortion services so that children are born when the parents deem it best and those giving birth aren’t put at increased risk.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67495969
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-population-births-decline-womens-rights-5af9937b
https://www.economist.com/china/2023/11/09/china-wants-women-to-stay-home-and-bear-children
https://www.vox.com/23971366/declining-birth-rate-fertility-babies-children
Alexander Sanger 