As birth rates fall, women’s autonomy will be further at risk

History tells us that all freedoms are conditional. In 1920, the Soviet Union became the first country in the world to legalize abortion as part of a socialist commitment to the health and welfare of women. This decision was reversed 16 years later, when Stalin was in power and realized that birth rates were falling.

The pressure on all nations to maintain population levels has never diminished. But in 2025, this demographic crisis will become more acute and the victim will be gender rights. In both United States of America and Great Britainthe birth rate of babies has been falling sharply for 15 years. In Japan, Poland and Canada, the birth rate has already fallen to 1.3. This is the case in China and Italy 1.2. South Korea has the lowest level in the world 0.72. A study published by the medical journal The Lancet predicts almost exactly that by 2100 every country on the planet will not produce enough children to maintain its population.

The upside is that women have greater access to contraception, are better educated than ever before, and are pursuing careers that are more likely to avoid or delay childbearing. Parents invest more in every child they have. The patriarchal expectation that women are little more than babysitters is thankfully breaking down.

But the original dilemma remains: How do countries produce more children? Governments responded with pleas and incentives to encourage families to reproduce. There is Hungary abolished the income tax For mothers under 30 years old. In 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was seen. crying on TV she urged the National Conference of Mothers to do its part to stop the decline in birth rates. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni supported the campaign to at least reach Half a million births per year by 2033.

Since these measures do not have the intended effect, the pressure on women takes a worse direction. Conservative pro-natalist movements they encourage old-fashioned nuclear families with many children, which can only be achieved if women give birth earlier. This ideology at least partially informs the devastating restrictions on abortion access in some US states. Anyone who thinks abortion rights have nothing to do with public concerns should note that in the summer of 2024, Republicans in the US Senate also voted against legalizing abortion. contraception is a federal right. This same worldview is fueled by a growing backlash against sexual and gender minorities whose very existence, for some, poses a threat to the traditional family. The most extreme pro-natalists also includes white supremacists and eugenics.

The more nations worry about birth rates, the greater the risk for gender rights. In China, for example, the government took strongly anti-feminist position in recent years. President Xi Jinping told a meeting of the All-China Women’s Federation in 2023 that women should “actively cultivate the culture of remarriage and childbearing.”

For now, most women at least have choices about whether, when, and how many children they have. But as fertility rates fall below replacement levels, there is no telling how far some nations can go to increase their population levels. 2025 looks like the year they could opt out.