Why aren't women willing to have kids anymore?

Sure, it's expensive to have a kid — but that's not the only reason birth rates are declining.

Women don’t want to have kids anymore.

All over the world, the number of children born is decreasing, and women are actively refusing motherhood as their next ‘milestone.’ In other words, when reduced to a statistic and a uterus, the total fertility of the world has seen a sharp decline year on year.

And this is a crisis for several economic and societal reasons. So much so that in South Korea, where the birth rate is the lowest in the world, the suggestions have ranged from getting girls to start school earlier —

“Considering that the developmental level of men is slower than that of women, having females enter school one year earlier could potentially contribute to men and women finding each other more attractive when they reach the appropriate age for marriage,”

— to paying for IVF and birth (only for married couples, of course). But they haven’t addressed the root causes: rampant misogyny and the obscenely high cost of raising a child.

Opting out of giving birth

South Korean women have created the 4B movement.

“The 4B name stems from four Korean words beginning with “bi” (meaning “no”): bihon (no marriage), bichulsan (no childbirth), biyeonae (no dating), and bisekseu (no sex).”

They’re fed up with South Korean men, many of whom are incredibly misogynistic, highly anti-feminist, and intensely propagate the victim ideology. They are frequently in the news for “high rates of physical and digital crimes against women, largely driven by young, educated men blaming women and feminism for societal issues.” So it’s no surprise that their negative attitudes towards women bleeds into how they treat their girlfriends and wives (as well as the mothers of their children).

Most of them are bad partners and even worse fathers — they’re rarely around to help out, let alone do their share of the work around the house, take care of children, or do anything ‘domestic.’

And the women? After giving birth, they’re basically solo parenting despite being married.

“Over the past 50 years, Korea's economy has developed at break-neck speed, propelling women into higher education and the workforce, and expanding their ambitions, but the roles of wife and mother have not evolved at nearly the same pace.”

Source

In sharp contrast, “Countries like France and Norway — where men commonly help at home — have higher fertility rates.” Now, while I’m not fond of the phrase ‘helping out’ when it’s also the man’s job to do his half of the housework, it’s interesting to see the clear link between having kids and having a helpful partner.

This is why governmental policies and subsidies can’t fix what’s broken at a societal level.

Because, why should women want to give birth anyway?

Forgetting that it’s obscenely expensive to raise a child in pretty much any city in the world today, it’s a fact that childcare is still considered and falls on a woman. For women that want to keep their jobs and grow in their careers, marriage and motherhood often result in lower pay, shittier jobs, and a perception of lower competence.

And on the other hand, if someone wants to be a mother?

We haven’t figured out how to support them beyond caring for them only until they’re carrying the baby. Post-partum depression continues to be an understudied and under-researched condition, and there’s a significant gap in understanding its impact on new mothers' mental health and well-being¹. There’s a lack of support for new mothers on every level conceivable: societal, economic, cultural, emotional, and sometimes, even medical.

Being a mother has been packaged into a glorious dream — the same way girls are encouraged to think of their wedding day. But the reality can be quite the opposite — women are routinely forced to give birth without pain medication (their lives can be considered less important than the baby’s), without any regard for their choices, they’re unsupported financially as they bring new life into the world, and they definitely aren’t celebrated in society as the literal life-givers they are. In fact, they’re left to care for their child on their own (sometimes despite having a partner) and have to juggle everything just to keep a roof on their head and food on the table.

Let’s go back to the example of South Korea. Women in that country are so fed up with being treated badly that they’ve completely eschewed what the traditional life there looks like to stay single and progress with their careers.

Okay, so what, we should go extinct?

Whether we like it or not, cis-men can’t give birth. So, short of some very swift scientific marvels, we have to make it easier and better for women to go through pregnancy, childbirth, and beyond. The ‘and beyond’ is important because somehow, people take great care of women while they’re pregnant—offering seats, nutritional advice, and unsolicited belly rubs—as though her value starts and ends with her ability to incubate a fetus.

Educate:

The mark of a society’s progress is the right kind of education. Aside from the bare minimum information about reproductive health, menstruation, and pregnancy side effects, we need more visibility on the emotional and societal labour it takes to be a woman and a mother. Instead of asking women to work double — at home taking care of the kids and at their jobs earning to make it an equal household — we have to teach everyone that parenting is a shared responsibility.

Policy & Money:

While it would be great to just throw cash at the problem and watch it disappear, children tend to stick around and need more care after nine months in the womb. From clear policies against the discrimination of women/mothers, mandated parental leave for both parents, and affordable or subsidized birth and childcare, it’s important to honour what a woman puts her body through to carry a child and give birth.

Not to mention — accommodations. Very often, we veer to the opposite side: “Okay you don’t want to be discriminated against, so then do everything the man on the team does despite being a mom.” Well, can he birth a child?

No. So make accommodations — allow flexible, remote work. Having a baby or the implication of having a baby in the future (a clock that starts ticking when you tell people at work you’ve got married) should not be a career death sentence. Encourage women to re-enter the workforce if they’ve taken a break to raise their kids and stop penalizing them for having kids. Or choosing not to.

It’s fairly simple.

Want to increase or keep the birth rate of your country steady?

Don’t piss off and alienate the only people who can change that.

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Further Reading:

• Kim Ji-young, Born 1982: A novel by Cho Nam-ju that shows us one (sadly common) perspective of what it’s like to be a woman in South Korea today.

• The mental load women shoulder (invisible labour)

• Will moms ever escape the motherhood penalty?

• A Twitter/X account that highlights just how misogynistic South Korean society can be.

• The historic trends of non-motherhood

A note: I’m well aware of the shift the world has taken to the right and what it means for women and other minorities. It seems hopeless to write about such topics right now, because what leader or policy is going to help when we clearly seem to be going in the opposite direction, but I suppose, we just can’t give up.

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1. I don’t agree with the person who has shared the video. I think this mom needs help and support and also is very clearly articulating that motherhood is sold to most women as their sole purpose in life, and it can be very destabilizing to realize that it’s actually quite difficult.

2. It’s wild how six months without writing made me forget what it’s like to write this newsletter. Writing specific things like this is like exercising an atrophied muscle, phew.