Feminists have started to worry that if populations shrink too quickly, it might cause the welfare state to collapse under the weight of the older generations who rely on the young to support them. Therefore, they call for populations to decline in a "very slow, totally manageable way". France's fertility rate is 1.99 births per woman; Sweden's, 1.89; and Norway's, 1.78. Feminists claim that these "incredibly high" rates are the result of giving generous handouts to single and working moms:
They say abandoning traditional sex roles is the key:
This includes giving working moms more ways to outsource childcare to non-family-members:
But wait, there's a problem; despite all this, France's birth rate just hit its lowest level in 40 years:
Also, for some reason, women who take advantage of France's legally-guaranteed, employer-paid four-month-long maternity leaves sometimes get a chilly reception upon their return:
I think the limitation of these pro-natalist policies is that if women are still delaying having kids till after they've gone to college and gotten established in their careers, even if their original plan was to have three or more kids, they may abandon or undershoot that goal. Career women are more likely to become narcissistic and look down on most of the men around them as unworthy. At the same time, they themselves are approaching the wall. That sounds like a pretty good recipe for having trouble locking down a man who meets their standards.
By the time they want to have kids, their fertility may be gone. Women often think, "So-and-so had a kid at 45" but there are outliers on the other side as well; some women are unlucky enough to become infertile in their 20s. So if they put college and career first, they lost their opportunity to have kids.
Also, lacking a husband, women may decide that even with the state's help, it's just too much of a burden to be a working mom of more than two kids. Child care can be outsourced, but actually raising the child (e.g. giving him acceptance, praise, teaching, and discipline; teaching him right from wrong and how to how to be successful; etc.)? Not so much. I think a lot of these single moms are going to find out that they're ill-equipped to do everything that's involved in parenting, without the help of a husband. When young women see the older women struggling with parenthood, it's not going to be a very effective advertisement for having a bunch of kids.
Also, the taxes to provide these benefits for single and working moms have to come from somewhere. If the taxes are coming from men, then that takes away from men's ability to support women and kids, which further weakens the family unit. We can expect that this will lead to there being more single and working moms in need of handouts.
In the end, even "natalist feminism" isn't able to bring fertility rates up to the replacement rate, so it will have to be abandoned at some point in favor of patriarchy, unless we're going to resign ourselves to gradual extinction. In the short term, western countries can stall for time by bringing in young third worlders to make up for the declining birth rate, but eventually, they're going to run out of third worlders.
Feminists can seduce the third world by telling them, "Here, accept these funds to educate your women and lower your birth rate, so you can be rich like us." Any woman who prefers to marry and have kids instead of going to school and riding the carousel is viewed as low-class, and no one wants to be that. These countries want to do everything they can to NOT be viewed as primitive and backward, so they can be taken seriously in international politics. That means getting rid of patriarchy and adopting the culture of the first world.
Once that reservoir of human capital dries up, first world feminists are going to be even more frustrated than they are now, because they won't have any sex tourism hot spots they can visit for trysts with Javier. What are feminists going to do after they have emasculated the entire world, and thereby eliminated their penis paradises like the Caribbean, the south of France, etc.? Those are going to be dark days for the Eat, Pray, Love crowd.
Quote:Women's E-News Wrote:
In a 2002 article, “Gender Equality: A Key to Our Future?,” Lena Sommestad, a women’s historian and then Swedish Social Democratic minister of the environment, explained why Sweden’s “gender equality policies built on a strong tradition of pronatalist and supportive social policies” were relevant to a Europe faced with declining birth rates and aging populations.
According to her, Sweden‘s combination of pronatalism and feminism accounted for the success of Swedish pronatalist policies. She urged feminists elsewhere to overcome suspicion of pronatalism. By enabling women to both work and have children, Sweden maintained high birth rates, unlike countries that supported traditional views of women’s roles. Extensive state intervention was needed to support families with children. Noting that “women’s access to the labor market appears to be a prerequisite for higher birth rates,” she observed that Sweden gives no benefits to women as wives, but only as workers. She argued that “countries that do not stigmatize non-marital cohabitation have a better chance of maintaining higher fertility rates. Since there is a decline in the marriage rate all over the industrialized world with later and fewer marriages and more divorces, non-marital births are needed to compensate.”
They say abandoning traditional sex roles is the key:
Quote:Anne Chemin Wrote:
Yet there is nothing mysterious about the approach that is working in both France and Scandinavia. It combines the idea of a modern family based on gender equality and powerful government policies. “Nowadays, both ingredients are needed to sustain the population,” Lesthaeghe asserts. “At first sight it seems a simple recipe, but it’s far from easy to put into practice: it takes a lot of time to design and establish a new family model.”
There is nothing straightforward or natural about “the family”. It is a very complex world based on social norms, what the American sociologist Ronald Rindfuss calls the “family package”. “In Japan, for instance, this package involves many constraints,” says Ined demographer Laurent Toulemon. “A woman entering into a relationship must also accept marriage, obey her husband, have a child, stop working after it is born and make room for her ageing in-laws. It’s a case of all or nothing. In France the package is more flexible: one doesn’t have to get married or have children. Norms are more open and families more diverse.”
This includes giving working moms more ways to outsource childcare to non-family-members:
Quote:Drake Baer Wrote:
Not only is there parental leave — moms get their full salary for 16 weeks of maternity leave, and 26 weeks if it’s her third child — but also “family allowances,” where mothers of young children are essentially paid by the government, with extra money for the third kid. According to the EU, a full 2.6 percent of the French GDP went to supporting families in 2014.
A lot of this is enabled by the role of French government in public life. “The state in France is an expression of what it means to be French,” Jackson says, while in the U.S. the trust in the government has cratered over the past 50 years. There’s a parallel sentiment in countries once ruled by Nazis or Fascists: Asking people in Italy, France, or Germany to make babies for the fatherland is a tall order, demographer Laurent Toulemon told The Guardian. This might be most clearly seen in child care: In France, it’s normal for young mothers to drop their young ones off at state-sponsored (or private) day care — it’s thought to be part of the child’s socialization, Jackson says. In this way, the number of women in the labor force can stay up (and their careers can continue on) while also raising the next generation of fashionistas, beret-makers, or whatever it is French people do. That’s what France understands, and what Mediterranean Europe and East Asia are seemingly missing: When culture and government make it possible to combine work and family, it gets way easier for women (and men) to have it all. And the babies follow.
But wait, there's a problem; despite all this, France's birth rate just hit its lowest level in 40 years:
Quote:May Bulman Wrote:
The decrease has been linked to France's ageing population, which has led to a steady decline in women at child-bearing age in the country since the 1990s.
Marie Reynaud, head of INSEE, told The Independent the decline in births is also due to the fact that French women are choosing to have children later in life, so they can spend more time on studying and establishing a “stable situation”.
“The French are having children increasingly later in life, which naturally leads to a fall in fertility,” she said.
Also, for some reason, women who take advantage of France's legally-guaranteed, employer-paid four-month-long maternity leaves sometimes get a chilly reception upon their return:
Quote:Claire Lundberg Wrote:
Though by law a company must guarantee a woman on maternity leave a return to her old job or one with similar responsibilities, in practice there are ways for companies to get around this. They may promote a younger worker over her, or a woman may find herself “mise au placard,” a French term that means “put in the closet.” This is what a French company does when it can’t fire someone—it freezes her out. Though in title and salary the job remains the same, the employee is stripped of responsibilities, disinvited to meetings, given little or nothing of consequence to do, until she (or he) hopefully decides to quit, thus absolving the company of all the indemnities it would have to pay if it fired the person.
I think the limitation of these pro-natalist policies is that if women are still delaying having kids till after they've gone to college and gotten established in their careers, even if their original plan was to have three or more kids, they may abandon or undershoot that goal. Career women are more likely to become narcissistic and look down on most of the men around them as unworthy. At the same time, they themselves are approaching the wall. That sounds like a pretty good recipe for having trouble locking down a man who meets their standards.
By the time they want to have kids, their fertility may be gone. Women often think, "So-and-so had a kid at 45" but there are outliers on the other side as well; some women are unlucky enough to become infertile in their 20s. So if they put college and career first, they lost their opportunity to have kids.
Also, lacking a husband, women may decide that even with the state's help, it's just too much of a burden to be a working mom of more than two kids. Child care can be outsourced, but actually raising the child (e.g. giving him acceptance, praise, teaching, and discipline; teaching him right from wrong and how to how to be successful; etc.)? Not so much. I think a lot of these single moms are going to find out that they're ill-equipped to do everything that's involved in parenting, without the help of a husband. When young women see the older women struggling with parenthood, it's not going to be a very effective advertisement for having a bunch of kids.
Also, the taxes to provide these benefits for single and working moms have to come from somewhere. If the taxes are coming from men, then that takes away from men's ability to support women and kids, which further weakens the family unit. We can expect that this will lead to there being more single and working moms in need of handouts.
In the end, even "natalist feminism" isn't able to bring fertility rates up to the replacement rate, so it will have to be abandoned at some point in favor of patriarchy, unless we're going to resign ourselves to gradual extinction. In the short term, western countries can stall for time by bringing in young third worlders to make up for the declining birth rate, but eventually, they're going to run out of third worlders.
Feminists can seduce the third world by telling them, "Here, accept these funds to educate your women and lower your birth rate, so you can be rich like us." Any woman who prefers to marry and have kids instead of going to school and riding the carousel is viewed as low-class, and no one wants to be that. These countries want to do everything they can to NOT be viewed as primitive and backward, so they can be taken seriously in international politics. That means getting rid of patriarchy and adopting the culture of the first world.
Once that reservoir of human capital dries up, first world feminists are going to be even more frustrated than they are now, because they won't have any sex tourism hot spots they can visit for trysts with Javier. What are feminists going to do after they have emasculated the entire world, and thereby eliminated their penis paradises like the Caribbean, the south of France, etc.? Those are going to be dark days for the Eat, Pray, Love crowd.