According to many Republicans, America’s low birth rate
and the resulting civilization crisis with its disastrous
consequences for the country can squarely be blamed on America’s
women in the child-bearing ages.
Countries around the world are experiencing low birth rates.
In 2022, more than one hundred countries, representing two-thirds
of world’s population, experienced fertility rates below
the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman.
Fertility
rates below the replacement level were relatively uncommon
in the distant past. But today, many of the countries with
sustained rates of fertility below the replacement level are
facing demographic decline accompanied by population aging.
Many
countries are attempting to reverse their low fertility levels.
Their pro-natalist policies include paid parental leave, flexible
work schedules, affordable childcare, cash incentives, support
to families, subsidized assisted reproductive treatments and
encouraging gender equality in housework and caregiving.
Some, especially wealthy men in the private sector and U.S.
Republican officials, have been ringing alarm bells for years
about America’s population heading towards extinction
and have urged women to give birth to more children.
Population
collapse due to low birth rates, some of them have warned,
is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.
In
contrast to the pronatalist measures adopted by many other
countries, women choosing 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
are Republicans blaming America’s women for the country’s
low birth rate, which they claim has created a civilization
crisis with catastrophic consequences?
The
answer, according to many in America’s Republican party,
is because across the country women in their prime childbearing
ages are increasingly rejecting the sanctity of marriage,
the foundational role of families and motherhood, and avoiding
the blessings and emotional satisfaction of giving birth and
raising several children at home.
Despite
their emphasis on the rewards of staying home and raising
children, Republicans continue to delegate more of the responsibility
of child-rearing to their wives than Democratic fathers.
It’s
also important to recognize the indisputable fact, which some
in the Democratic party are reported to frequently ignore
or choose to minimize, that men cannot get pregnant and deliver
babies. Only women have the capacity to become pregnant, give
birth to babies and breastfeed them.
Republicans
have stressed that increasing numbers of young women across
the country are simply choosing not to have several children.
Instead of having children, Republicans claim that growing
numbers of young women in America are choosing to remain single
and are becoming childless cat ladies or dog ladies, which
are a threat to American democracy.
Reportedly,
among the notable benefits of having a cat or a dog rather
than a husband are cats and dogs are nonjudgmental, relatively
easy to train and they don’t come with in-laws.
In
the U.S., women are less likely than men to want kids. As
a result of women’s decisions about childbearing, America’s
fertility rate fell below the replacement level in the early
1970s and the rate has been headed largely downward ever since.
Having
children, many women maintain, provides them neither economic
compensation nor retirement savings for their time and labor.
In contrast to fatherhood, women pay a motherhood penalty
for having children and raising them. Working mothers encounter
disadvantages in pay and benefits relative to childless working
women.
Also
importantly, women like men in America want to be compensated
financially for their work. They do not want to be simply
patted on the back for giving birth to several children and
raising them until they are able to have children of their
own.
Rather
than having children early in life, women are increasingly
choosing to become educated, join the labor force, seek rewarding
careers, earn their own income and consequently postpone childbearing.
Many
women in America say that they want to be able to make their
own personal decisions regarding having children. And they
definitely don’t want to be told by Republicans to give
birth to several children for the well-being of the nation.
The
emergence of the women’s liberation movement in the
1960s coupled with the introduction of modern birth control
methods, especially the oral contraceptive pill, contributed
considerably to the decline of America’s birth rate
to far below the replacement level.
In
addition, women in the U.S. have been increasingly 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 passage
of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). And Republicans were
instrumental in overturning women’s right to abortion
as well as supporting extreme abortion bans, including those
that criminalize the procedure for rape victims and pregnant
children.
Women
want to enjoy their personal freedoms and make their own decisions
regarding childbearing rather than having others, in particular
men, tell them what to do and when to do it.
Moreover,
growing numbers of women in America are choosing later marriage
or avoiding that traditional institution altogether. Some
women are also postponing childbearing to later ages, deciding
to have few or no children and rejecting the patriarchal family
household structure.
Due
to America’s low birth rate, the resulting level of
natural increase (births minus deaths) has been declining
for decades. The current level of natural increase for the
U.S. population is approximately one-quarter of the level
experienced at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Moreover, immigration is expected to drive America’s
population growth for the remainder of the 21st century.
According
to many U.S business leaders and Republican party officials,
the sustained low birth rate and the decline in the rate of
natural increase are adversely impacting the country’s
continued prosperity. Low rates of fertility and population
decline are considered catastrophic, seriously threatening
America’s economic growth and national strength.
A
low birth rate absent high levels of immigration typically
leads to depopulation, which many Republicans consider to
be a demographic disaster.
Instead of relying on international migration for the country’s
population growth, the Republican party and those on the far
right are urging women across America to fulfill their traditional
obligations to their homeland, namely, by giving birth to
no less than several children and raising them at home.
By
doing so, they expect America’s fertility rate to return
to the replacement level or perhaps even go higher, thereby
ensuring sustained economic growth for the country and reducing
the need for immigrants.
To
encourage childbearing, some Republican officials have offered
a number of suggestions. Those suggestions include giving
parents the ability to cast votes on behalf of their children,
looking to grandparents, aunts and uncles for those who have
them and having a higher tax rate on childless Americans.
However,
such suggestions and blaming women for America’s low
birth rate are unlikely to raise the country’s fertility
rate back to the replacement level.
In
sum, according to many Republicans, America’s low birth
rate and the resulting civilization crisis with its disastrous
consequences for the country can squarely be blamed on America’s
women in the child-bearing ages.
also
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