The Rise of Post-Familialism: Humanity’s Future? By Joel Kotkin. JoelKotkin.com, October 12, 2012. Also at New Geography.
The Age of Possibility. By David Brooks. New York Times, November 15, 2012.
Falling birthrates: the threat and the dilemma. By Chrystia Freeland. Reuters, December 7, 2012.
Freeland:
Which
is the more powerful agent of social change: fear or sympathy? Women in rich
and middle-income countries may soon find themselves enrolled in a real-life
experiment testing this proposition. That is because birthrates are dropping in
much of the world. Demographics may soon rocket to the top of the political
agenda, demanding an entirely new way of thinking about women and motherhood and
the economy.
. . . . . . . . . .
Kotkin,
for example, sees the falling birthrate as the central feature of what he calls
“post-familialism,” a new form of social organization that prizes liberation,
personal happiness and perhaps even a “hip” urban aesthetic over the more
traditional values of community and self-sacrifice.
This
cultural critique – made, not accidentally, mostly by men – misses the central
fact about falling birthrates. They are, above all, driven by decisions by
women. And, in the countries where we have seen birthrates drop, they are about
decisions driven by women who face three defining facts.
First,
women have the historically unprecedented power to control their own fertility.
Second,
the old close-knit family and community ties that once supported child rearing have
been severed by industrialization and urbanization, and not much has emerged to
take their place.
Third,
women’s economic circumstances have been transformed. Women in countries where
birthrates have fallen tend to be richer than were previous generations with
higher birthrates or their sisters in countries where the birthrate is still
high. But that shift masks some other important characteristics in the life of
the middle-class woman in middle- and high-income countries.
She is
more likely than ever to work – and to need to work to maintain her family’s
middle-class status. She is also more likely to live in a society in which a
great deal of time and money must be invested in each child to ensure his or
her future success. And, particularly in Europe and the United States, family
income has probably stagnated or increased only marginally over the past
decade, and certainly since the recent recession.
It is
tempting, particularly if you happen to be an affluent man, to frame any choice
about childbearing in the lofty language of moral philosophy, to see it as a
decision between valuing personal fun in the present over service in the
interests of others – one’s children and one’s society – in the future.
But the
truth is that for most women, children are the most delightful and luxurious of
consumer goods. (Full disclosure: I am the mother of three.) They are, however,
expensive, both in terms of time and in terms of money, and more and more women
in middle-income and upper-income societies are judging, with considerable
sadness, that they simply cannot afford to have as many children as they would
like.
This is
where the question of fear versus sympathy comes in. For decades, feminists
have been demanding that we come up with better ways for women to be both
mothers and full members of modern society. That has often been dismissed as a
“women’s issue.” So we have not addressed it – and now women are voting with
their wombs.
Before
long, we will collectively begin to appreciate that the future of our
societies, and indeed of humanity itself, depends on finding a better,
collective solution to this predicament.
