05-25-2010, 01:25 PM
Worried about falling birthrates? Then drop that sexist attitude 24
BY Lisa Hymas
23 MAY 2010 12:01 PM
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GINK, Italy, Living Green, population, shameless self-promotion
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Photo: streunna4 via Flickr
I've been happy to see my recent posts on childfree living and population growth spark discussion on topics too often avoided. We've had spirited conversations in the comment threads on Grist and Grist's Facebook page, and that's percolated out to Andrew Sullivan's blog and the Guardian website, among other spots. The latest outlet to join the conversation is AOL News, where reporter Dave Thier does a better job than most of putting the issues into context. (Compare to MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan Show, which erroneously boiled down my message to "Kids are killing the planet." Never look to cable TV for nuance.)
And the conversation has spread beyond the English-speaking world via articles published in Italy and Brazil. My Italian and Portuguese language skills are rusty, but from what Google Translate tells me, these authors seem to understand "the advantages of a life led without putting the light of little children." (Or something like that. I welcome further insight from our cosmopolitan readership.)
It shouldn't come as a surprise that Italians are receptive to the GINK message. Italy has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world -- 1.32 births per woman. There's lots of hand-wringing over the graying populace in Italy and some other European countries (see, for example, this article in today's New York Times), and that's an issue I'll delve into in a later post.
For now, I want to point out one interesting factor that contributes to low Italian birthrates, as described by Fred Pearce in his new book The Coming Population Crash -- And Our Planet's Surprising Future; Italy's baby bust can be blamed in part on "the dysfunctional roles of the state and church," he writes. The Vatican has tried hard to keep birth control out of women's hands (Frances Kissling reports on its efforts in a recent Mother Jones article) -- but even in Italy, the cradle of Catholicism, that campaign is backfiring. Pearce explains:
[The Catholic church and the Italian government] both promote an old patriarchal ideal of large families in which the wife stays at home. The state denies any responsibility for child care or helping mothers into work. The church, despite losing its influence in the bedroom, retains power over the political climate and public services. This, the demographers said, turns out to be a lethal combination for baby making. Where women are grabbing their new rights but men are not taking their new responsibilities, the result is ultralow fertility. [Emphasis mine.]
Pearce compares this to the situation in more egalitarian Sweden, where the fertility rate is 1.67 children per woman -- "not at replacement levels, but not set to demographic meltdown either." He describes the situation of a woman named Astrid who lives in Stockholm:
She got a year's maternity leave when each of her [two] children was born. She works a flexible thirty-hour week and can put her children in a nursery at the office when she needs to. Her partner, Sven, is adept at changing diapers and takes turns with the four a.m. feeding. ...
The Swedish lesson is that [in European countries] where employers, the state, and men are more flexible, national fertility rates are higher. ...
A lot of this comes down to power, says Scandinavia's top demographer, Gosta Epsing-Andersen. These days, most couples have a "bargaining process in order to reconcile employment and child care." Women who work, especially those with good jobs, can drive a better bargain. They also have the pick of available men -- choosing those who will change a diaper as well as be good in bed. In Scandinavia, 85 percent of the best-educated women have children, compared with only 60 percent in more conservative and patriarchal Germany.
In short: You want more kids in your country? End entrenched chauvinism and start supporting working moms.
This is, of course, just one piece of a complicated puzzle. In the developing world, it's been demonstrated time and again that more rights and opportunities for women lead to lower fertility rates. More to come in future posts about how all of these pieces fit together.
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-05-24-...-attitude/
BY Lisa Hymas
23 MAY 2010 12:01 PM
READ MORE ABOUT
GINK, Italy, Living Green, population, shameless self-promotion
Share
41
Photo: streunna4 via Flickr
I've been happy to see my recent posts on childfree living and population growth spark discussion on topics too often avoided. We've had spirited conversations in the comment threads on Grist and Grist's Facebook page, and that's percolated out to Andrew Sullivan's blog and the Guardian website, among other spots. The latest outlet to join the conversation is AOL News, where reporter Dave Thier does a better job than most of putting the issues into context. (Compare to MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan Show, which erroneously boiled down my message to "Kids are killing the planet." Never look to cable TV for nuance.)
And the conversation has spread beyond the English-speaking world via articles published in Italy and Brazil. My Italian and Portuguese language skills are rusty, but from what Google Translate tells me, these authors seem to understand "the advantages of a life led without putting the light of little children." (Or something like that. I welcome further insight from our cosmopolitan readership.)
It shouldn't come as a surprise that Italians are receptive to the GINK message. Italy has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world -- 1.32 births per woman. There's lots of hand-wringing over the graying populace in Italy and some other European countries (see, for example, this article in today's New York Times), and that's an issue I'll delve into in a later post.
For now, I want to point out one interesting factor that contributes to low Italian birthrates, as described by Fred Pearce in his new book The Coming Population Crash -- And Our Planet's Surprising Future; Italy's baby bust can be blamed in part on "the dysfunctional roles of the state and church," he writes. The Vatican has tried hard to keep birth control out of women's hands (Frances Kissling reports on its efforts in a recent Mother Jones article) -- but even in Italy, the cradle of Catholicism, that campaign is backfiring. Pearce explains:
[The Catholic church and the Italian government] both promote an old patriarchal ideal of large families in which the wife stays at home. The state denies any responsibility for child care or helping mothers into work. The church, despite losing its influence in the bedroom, retains power over the political climate and public services. This, the demographers said, turns out to be a lethal combination for baby making. Where women are grabbing their new rights but men are not taking their new responsibilities, the result is ultralow fertility. [Emphasis mine.]
Pearce compares this to the situation in more egalitarian Sweden, where the fertility rate is 1.67 children per woman -- "not at replacement levels, but not set to demographic meltdown either." He describes the situation of a woman named Astrid who lives in Stockholm:
She got a year's maternity leave when each of her [two] children was born. She works a flexible thirty-hour week and can put her children in a nursery at the office when she needs to. Her partner, Sven, is adept at changing diapers and takes turns with the four a.m. feeding. ...
The Swedish lesson is that [in European countries] where employers, the state, and men are more flexible, national fertility rates are higher. ...
A lot of this comes down to power, says Scandinavia's top demographer, Gosta Epsing-Andersen. These days, most couples have a "bargaining process in order to reconcile employment and child care." Women who work, especially those with good jobs, can drive a better bargain. They also have the pick of available men -- choosing those who will change a diaper as well as be good in bed. In Scandinavia, 85 percent of the best-educated women have children, compared with only 60 percent in more conservative and patriarchal Germany.
In short: You want more kids in your country? End entrenched chauvinism and start supporting working moms.
This is, of course, just one piece of a complicated puzzle. In the developing world, it's been demonstrated time and again that more rights and opportunities for women lead to lower fertility rates. More to come in future posts about how all of these pieces fit together.
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-05-24-...-attitude/