Could the baby bust lead to erosion of women’s rights?

[StarGoddess]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately but there is very little reporting. Many first world countries have an impending retirement crisis on the horizon and yet women are having very few children.

While this is great for the environment I feel it is happening way too fast and it’s going to cause a very turbulent economic downturn.

This would put a very big burden on reproductive age people as there will be a sandwich generation that will feel a great deal of pressure to make more children but also care for their elderly parents and somehow pay taxes for their retirement and that’s a lot to juggle.

Many third world nations are catching up faster than we are giving them credit for as many of them are realizing the benefits of women’s rights and birth control and while they are still producing a lot of children at the moment the numbers are starting to slow down.

Some countries like canada are patching up the problem with immigration but I don’t really see how that is sustainable in the long run? Eventually we are all going to be in the negatives and then what? I can see no easy solutions.

It will hurt women and elderly alike. I can see many elderly being severely neglected while women are highly pressured to make children. While some countries may gently push women others make take a more aggressive approach that could be traumatizing for generations.

I think this is something we should be paying attention to.

The problem is that reversing women's rights (E.g. abortion) is no guarantee that you will retain a healthy birthrate and/or economic prosperity. For example, the South America's had stringent anti-abortion laws until recently, so women would opt to have their tubes tied right after their first or second child (it was so common, it was included as an extra on C-sections).

A quick Google at Saudi Arabia's birth rate showed it to be 2.46, whilst Iran's is just 1.71. Countries are up against urbanisation and female education - two very difficult trends to reverse unless you want to impoverish your country. People can order pills and condoms off the web and go abroad for operations. You can't put this genie back in the bottle.

Looking ahead, most countries are hoping for a soft landing and slow decline. Because humans are creatures of culture, there's every chance a baby bust will turn into a boom in the future when there are more resources and more space.

We managed most of history with numbers under a billion. Even if we halve the current global population, we will still have plenty of humans.

Having said all of that, the "elder crunch," with not enough young workers to look after the generation above is a real problem and one that's going to get worse in the next decade. We are going to have to be smart about how manage it. Forcing reluctant people into care won't be the answer.

I can see anti abortion (or as I like to call it 'forced birth') movements using this as an excuse to push their ideas. And I doubt anyone will put money and effort into improving provision of benefits etc for extra babies born.

But one way or another, yes, I can see women bearing the brunt of ageing population issues - we are so stuck in our ways that even after decades of women in the workforce being the norm you still see the clear expectation for women to stay at home and yes, for working women to do elder care. So often I hear about families with an aging parent where there's a son who lives locally and a daughter some way away, but somehow the daughter is the one who seems to be expected to do all the elder care.

I expect conversations around euthanasia getting more airtime, the high cost and high need years of elder care are often people living with medical conditions they would chose to die rather than go through, especially if quality of care is going to fall.

woman will be expected to fill the gaps of care though.

I think the opposite actually, we’re going to have to reframe how we see being a mum and having kids in the U.K.

Here, having children (or more than 2) is seen as:

1. Uncool, why would I want to be wiping arses when I could have a glittering career and 3 holidays a year? (Before changing their mind late and popping just the one out after 40)
2. Bad for the environment
3. A drain on public services
4. Indicative of a woman who is needy and has no confidence, shouldn’t she be out working and slaying it?

UK doesn’t see children as future adults and taxpayers like they do in other countries. If they want women to have more children they’re going to have reframe it as a good choice which will be supported by society.

yes I think reframing it is key, and always has been- having children has successfully been portrayed as a lifestyle choice, an indulgence, with any costs to be borne by the couple (or more often in reality by the woman)
whereas in fact it has always been the case that childbearing and rearing is absolutely vital to the whole of society

I do like this take on it and I hope this is the direction things go in. The United states is very similar. They almost see children as an annoying nose picking burden.