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Towards the end of 2022 the world population has passed 8 billion. Nevertheless, the world has experienced the slowest growth rate since the 1950s. This happened not without injustices.
The capacity to bear children has caused women to be the target of population policies or political goals. Throughout time, economic reform and political ideology brought about population policies that affect women’s lives and even the children, particularly the girl child. Policies to address underpopulation or overpopulation or a country’s age composition had mostly made women bear the consequences. Needless to say, political ideologies that aim to increase a specific ethnic group and eliminate another have greatly affected the lives of many women.
The Effect of Population Polices
“I feel that my body was colonized.” (Naja Lyberth, Greenland)
The most recent unexpected and scandalous ethnic population control revealed happened in Greenland. Between the 1960s and 70s, it is estimated that 4,500 women in Greenland, including those in their early teens, had an IUD inserted into their bodies, many without their knowledge. This was part of an effort to control Greenland's growing Inuit population, which resulted in a major decline of the Inuit ethnic population and many Inuit women wondering why they couldn’t conceive. The number went from 7 children per family to a devastating 2.3. A Denmark and Greenland government investigation has been launched in response to this human rights violation.
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| The role of women and men in Nazi Germany as shown on a magazine cover (alphahistory.com) |
"I was pointed out as the perfect example of the Nordic woman, for besides my long legs and my long trunk, I had the broad hips and pelvis built for child-bearing.” (Hildegard Trutz, Germany)
After finishing school in 1936, Hildegard Trutz signed up for the Lebensborn program where pure Aryan women and SS officers have voluntary sex to provide racially fit babies for the Fuhrer’s next generation of Germans.
During the Second World War, Germany and Italy turned women into breeders and gave them an important role in meeting the fascist regimes’ political goals. Mussolini’s demographic campaign, which began as early as 1927, aimed to drastically increase Italy's population. Both leaders launched policies that awarded incentives for women who were able to bore large numbers of children to expand the nation’s power in numbers. The nobility of being a biological mother and raising children for the nation was a core part of state propaganda in both Italy and Germany.
War, race, and motherhood/wifehood were the foundation for developing the fascist nation. Vital for this purpose was an increase of birth rates of “pure” children. Both Germany and Italy banned birth controls and abortion. However, there were exceptions for ethnic or social groups considered “unworthy of life”. During the Holocaust, these groups—including their newborns, as we know, met their fate in the concentration camps.
Interestingly, despite all efforts, both Italy and Germany didn’t meet their goals in increasing the population as many women continued to work as a necessity, and during the war, women had to work to replace men.
“There is a great deal of evidence of girls being given less food and health care than boys, especially in north India.” (Sekher and Hatti, 2004:10).
Post-World War II, newly independent countries struggling
with their economy strive to control their population growth. In 1952, India
was the first country to launch a nation-wide family planning program. Due to
strong patriarchal tradition that prefers sons, couples seek sex-selective
abortions through prenatal testing to avoid the birth of a baby girl. With the
development of the ultrasonography in the 1980s, the sex-ratio imbalance soared,
suggesting the abortion and infanticide of baby girls. Furthermore,
when a girl was born, she was provided with less food and health care. In 2008, India
launched the National Girl Child Day to change attitudes towards girls.
However, seventy years later after the launch of the family planning program, India finds itself with a skewed sex
ratio and a population that will surpass China. Today, India is second to China in being the largest populated country in the world. Nonetheless, the gender imbalance, although
narrowing, has lasting effects; one is a low number of females within the
marrying age. The current highly debated proposal of a one-child policy has
raised concern of the potential targeting of Muslim minorities and the resurgence
of sex-selective abortion.
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| Chinese government one-child policy campaign, 1999 (sbs.com.au) |
"Officials would kidnap you if you tried to have two children.” (Male resident of Linyi City, 2005)
Similarly, China’s one-child policy, which began in 1980, affected the life and death of baby girls in a culture that favored boys over girls. Couples in rural areas with a girl child were allowed to have another baby, while those in urban areas who were not allowed to have more than one child were fined if they breached the law. Pending settlement, the child could not be registered into the national household system which means they were banned from receiving social services. Civil servants would lose their job for having more than one child. The policy led to practices of sex-selective abortions and infanticide. Women who took the risk of having more than one child, such as in the city of Linyi where enforcement was strict and violent, hid from family planning officials. The elimination of newborns still haunts the people of Linyi today.
Some 40 years later China faces a declining population and a huge gender demographic gap. China changed its one-child policy to a two-child in 2016 and to a three-child in 2021 because of a continued decline in birth rate. The low birth rate is the impact of years of a strict birth control policy.
Despite an aging population, China's human capital grew 10 times in 2020 compared to 1985. This is because younger people with higher education and income have entered the labor market meanwhile older and lower educated people continued to exit. This is encouraging.
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| South Korean government campaign to promote small families, 1974 (prb.org) |
"It's a big relief and it gives me peace of mind to know that I have healthy eggs frozen right here." (Lim Eun-young, a 34-year-old public servant, South Korea)
For six straight years up to 2021, South Korea’s birth rate had continued to decrease. It is currently the country with the lowest birth rate, despite government efforts to boost it. In the 1950s South Korea’s total fertility rate was six children per woman. In 1962, the “small and prosperous family” campaign which included a family planning program and various services was highly successful that by 1984, the total fertility rate dropped to 1.74. By 2002, South Korea faced an aging population.
Strong patriarchal culture that lay the burden of care and domestic work upon women and in addition, the high cost of quality education, have made government efforts and incentives to increase the population a continued failure. These incentives lack appeal because they do not constitute a whole life cycle, but just the early years of a child’s life.
Aside from economic burden and tradition, in fact new values that give less importance on having children and more on professional life have been cited as one of the reasons why birth rates are low in South Korea. In the last few years, some women have opted to freeze their eggs to ensure a good career and financial security before having children. Others have completely rid of the idea of having children.
What Are the Implications?
The few cases above demonstrate how women’s biological capacity become their source of oppression, and how this biological capacity is extended to the social role of raising children. Feticide, femicide, forced birth control, ban of birth controls, and forced abortion are all part of patriarchal ideologies and cultures that have turned women’s wombs into vessels to serve political purposes or to maintain gendered power structures.
Entering 2023 the world has hit over 8 billion in population despite slow growth rate. There are countries that are at risk due to a wide gap in sex ratio and age composition as a result of past population policies. Education and jobs for women as well as the elimination of gender bias in valuing girls and boys will slow population growth. Meanwhile, effective incentives and support for parents, as well as changes in gender norms can raise birth rates. What do these population issues imply?
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First, experts have said the obvious, keeping girls in school and providing equal employment opportunities are key to breaking the poverty cycle and for lower birth rates. The increase of higher educated young women will also contribute to the improvement of human capital and increase of economic development. Of course, most governments will continue to focus on education and labor, but let’s not forget that this also means access to quality reproductive health services and availability of childcare to support parents, as well an inclusive work environment. So, governments face the great challenge of ensuring equal access and inclusiveness (with the exception of countries that bar women from public life).
Second, the need to increase accessibility to enhanced technologies that will allow women to choose when to have children, whether to delay or not—regardless of sexual activity, will increase women's control over their reproductive capacity. However, technology and reproductive freedom has always been a topic of debate as access and control over technology are typically in the hands of the few. Access is mainly for the rich, control is mainly by men (experts, entrepreneurs, the government, etc.). When it is in the wrong hands, as we have learned from history, forced birth controls and infanticide will be imposed on a group of women. While on the one hand, technology is expected to free women, on the other hand, this is a complex issue as people seldom have control over technology and it can easily be another tool of government oppression.
Third, there should be effective incentives for women/couples that decide to bear children, this includes paid maternity and paternity leaves. However, we can see that short-term assistance and a few days of daddy at home will not lure women to having babies in countries with low birth rates and where grandparents no longer play an important role. As caring for children involve many phases of the life cycle, governments need to develop a steady infrastructure that support important aspects of the child’s life cycle and encourage changes in gender norms, particularly those related to care work, and not just offer short-term assistance. The support should include daily needs such as nutritious food and quality health care, but also strategic needs, such as access to affordable quality education.
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Fourth, governments need to be committed to policy measures for the older people of the population that will prevent discrimination in the workforce, develop pension and care schemes, as well as assisted living schemes. As more older people are living independently, in addition to assisted living schemes, aging-friendly communities/cities should also be the focus of policy measures.
Fifth, an important factor already mentioned that will need continued progress for everything else to work and have an impact is changes in gender roles and values. If governments and community figures continue to support a family institution that is founded on patriarchal norms, then equality and shared responsibilities, and a better quality of life for women, children, older people, and everyone will not happen.
As we enter 2023 with these population issues, we need to remember that the lethal combination of patriarchal ideology and political power, particularly autocracies, will result in reproductive rights violations and ethnic discrimination, as well as affect sustainability due to demographic imbalances. As cliche as it sounds, equality and inclusiveness are what we will have to strive for to achieve if we want to survive. This will pose a greater challenge as experts say that the world in the past few years has been witnessing the rise of autocratic governments.
With that said, here's to the women and everyone who are fighting for their freedom. May a better future lay ahead. Happy New Year!
Read my other blog on history, gender, countercultures, and more.
Top picture: China's one-child policy poster (sbs.com.au)
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Video:
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