There were the predictable references to The Handmaid’s Tale. Some took issue with the perceived coercion (“Why is letting women decide so hard for you guys?” asked Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin) or sexism (“This is the kind of policy you write if you see women as little more than baby-factories,” wrote Illinois Representative Sean Casten). And plenty of others called out Republican hypocrisy on family support and countered with better pro-family policies. “This isn’t complicated,” tweeted Democratic House whip Representative Katherine Clark. “1) Affordable child care. 2) Paid family leave. 3) Stop trying to slash health care for women and kids.” In other words, these right-wingers are acting like the Tim Robinson character in a hot dog costume who crashed his hot dog car into a building: We’re all trying to find the guy who did this!
This is a fraught topic, so let me begin with a few caveats. First, much of the decline in birth rates over the past half-century is attributable to positive factors, perhaps none more important than increases in the agency and education of girls and women. Second, much of the “pronatalist” movement is infected by fringe voices who spout ideas riddled with racist, sexist, and fascist overtones. Third, no one—particularly no woman—should ever be shamed for choosing not to have children.
Indeed, declining birth rates—particularly when combined, as in the United States, with a rapidly growing and longer-lived senior population—are associated with any number of negative societal consequences. There is naturally more strain on the social safety net and social insurance programs as the ratio of workers to retirees shifts. People have to work longer, and there can be pressure to raise the age of retirement. The electorate becomes an entrenched gerontocracy, with seniors holding yet more outsize political power. The economy and innovation slows down. Public school systems and institutions of higher education face fiscal crises as they take in fewer enrollees yet maintain high maintenance costs. Community infrastructure like roads and sewers becomes more difficult to maintain as tax bases shrink.
The message, however, isn’t getting through. Even back in the mid-2000s, Longman’s work got a chilly reception. The left has long been heavily influenced by Paul R. Ehrlich’s problematic work The Population Bomb, which argued that overpopulation would lead to mass famine and environmental degradation and advocated for governments taking drastic steps to limit population growth. It sounds logical that, as climate change accelerates, having few children will make the planet more sustainable. Unfortunately, this doesn’t hold up to scrutiny: Global depopulation will reliably cause more reactionary politics and geopolitical instability, neither of which is conducive to the kind of ambitious international climate policy that’s needed to stave off this existential threat. Nor is immigration a long-term solution, though it can certainly help: There are simply too many countries with low birth rates, and even sub-Saharan Africa, where absolute birth rates remain high, is seeing major declines. If the trend lines continue, we are only a few generations away from essentially the entire world being below the demographic “replacement rate.”
Some of the best theories (though, again, there’s hardly a consensus) point to a decline in coupling up and changing attitudes toward how children fit in modern life. In the United States, the birth rate among married couples has remained relatively stable. However, both in the U.S. and globally, there has been a substantial drop in marriages and dating relationships, as well as in people even seeking long-term romantic connections. In the U.S. in 1990, 64 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds were married or cohabitating; that figure is now barely above 50 percent. That’s no doubt due in part to an epidemic of loneliness and social disconnection, which is exacerbated—or in many cases fueled—by smartphones, social media, and on-demand content.
What liberals shouldn’t do is let their fury at Republicans blind them to what is a growing national—indeed global—crisis. It is not enough to simply scoff at right-wing attempts to engineer higher birth rates or at the rank inadequacy of a one-time $5,000 check—not when so many Americans are unable to form the families they desire, and not when the consequences of low birth rates are so damaging to social progress. The Democrats are far better positioned than Republicans to claim the mantle of the party of parents, to emphasize an inclusive vision of family values, and make a nonjudgmental yet affirmative case for having children that rests on a foundation of broad economic prosperity. In both figurative and literal ways, the future of America may well rest on whether Democrats can embrace this as a core value.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Democrats Should Be Encouraging Women to Have More Babies Too )
Also on site :