Why are women failing to reproduce? Maybe its time to ask them – The Guardian

The birthrate is declining across the west. It has been doing so for some time, but the recent drop appears to have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Ive been following the discussion for years now, amused at the discrepancy between statistics and experience (at one point in 2020, almost everyone I knew seemed to be pregnant or caring for a newborn, my peers having reached the shit or get off the pot stage of in their reproductive biology), but also irritated by the tone of the coverage. Whenever I read about the falling birthrate, it is reported alongside a (usually male) economist or politician talking about the catastrophic economic effects of what is being called a baby shortage. As though babies are a resource, which of course to some they are.

I have come to dislike these men intensely. They make me feel like a brood mare who must reproduce for the good of the nation. The latest report on declining birthrates comes from Italy, where it has fallen to the lowest level since 1861. An article on the study in the Times quotes two men, one talking about labour shortages and house prices, no women mentioned or spoken to at all, except passively.

Ironically, it is Mussolinis battle for births that comes to mind when I read these articles, which all seem steeped in that same notion of duty, even if they arent explicit about it. In fascist Italy, women were told they had a duty to reproduce. Unproductive or infertile women were sacked from their jobs and men with more than six children were exempt from paying tax. The most prolific mothers were given awards in an annual ceremony and abortion was banned, while contraception was limited. Bachelors and gay men were also penalised and demonised. As a policy, it was an epic failure.

I say this merely because it is important to know ones history when coming to these discussions. When you are a woman, these reminiscent rumblings and mumblings subtle though they are can trigger alarm bells. And for good reason: though Donald Trumps reign has ended, women are unlikely to forget the mad dash for IUDs in the wake of his election. American womens right to a safe and legal abortion is being challenged at the highest level; Polish women have already lost theirs. As economic panic about the birthrate continues, it is only natural to fear that womens reproductive autonomy will come under threat. The men are already talking about us as though we were not there.

Demonisation of birth strikers will inevitably follow. As Sophie McBain has argued, declining fertility is already being blamed as a sort of youth attitude problem among those who are anxious about the climate crisis: If only over-anxious young people would stop fixating on rising global temperatures and instead focus on producing future taxpayers. She references a Spectator cover story from October that blamed baby doomers for putting the planet ahead of parenthood.

While the climate emergency is undoubtedly a factor in some peoples decision about whether to have a child, it does tend to preclude discussion of other relevant barriers: a dire lack of affordable childcare and affordable housing, the motherhood penalty paid in your career, the pathetic embarrassingly pathetic amount of paternity leave offered in many western countries, a transactional dating economy and the continued imbalance of domestic labour. If you were going to make the decision purely based on logic, without considering the more profound, visceral longing that many women experience, you simply wouldnt do it.

Thats the problem, really. That, and the fact that the contemplation of motherhood is never, with the exception of a few notable works (including Sheila Hetis novel Motherhood), framed as a philosophical question. A profound philosophical question, perhaps one of the most fundamental of a womans life. No, its all about womens unruly bodies, and their failure to just shut up and do whats best for the economy.

Which is why I fear for the women examining these questions. Will they become increasingly demonised by the right? Already, they are mocked and trivialised. Silly little privileged western women in their silly pink hats, fretting about forest fires, worrying about their wombs.

No doubt some will call me paranoid. I certainly hope that Im wrong. Ive been writing a book that is partly about the motherhood question, and reading the work of Silvia Federici, whose analysis of the witch-hunts of medieval Europe places them within the context of demographic collapse. They were, she writes, an attempt to criminalise birth control and place the female body, the uterus, at the service of population increase and the production and accumulation of labour-power.

This sounds familiar. Maybe its just me. But either way, I dislike the parameters of this debate. It is time for those men opining on the birthrate in purely economic terms to step to one side and stop drowning out the voices of those who matter most in this debate: women of reproductive age, and the girls who will become them (it might also be worth talking to a few men about why it is they are dragging their feet). Why, oh why arent these women doing their duty? the politicians and economists lament. Maybe ask them. Theyll have a lot to say.

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Why are women failing to reproduce? Maybe its time to ask them - The Guardian