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SMNTY Classics: The Declining Birthrate · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. Welcome to stuff I
0:07
Speaker 1: Never Told You product if I Hearted You, And today
0:19
Speaker 1: we are bringing back a classic that we did around
0:24
Speaker 1: the birth rate and declining birth rate because this has
0:28
Speaker 1: been on my mind for a while, and I think
0:30
Speaker 1: it's been on a lot of people's minds for a while,
0:34
Speaker 1: and I think we need to come back and revisit it,
0:36
Speaker 1: probably because there's a lot of reporting being done about
0:43
Speaker 1: how it looks at different countries and why it's happening
0:45
Speaker 1: in different countries. But there are some very very reoccurring
0:49
Speaker 1: themes that are usually around women having more opportunities than
0:55
Speaker 1: they previously had had and cost cost of raising a
1:02
Speaker 1: child having a child. But it's like a lot of
1:08
Speaker 1: countries are talking about this, are worried about this. So
1:13
Speaker 1: until we come back and revisit it, here is our
1:16
Speaker 1: classic episode on it. Please enjoy. Hey, this is Annie
1:26
Speaker 1: and Samantha and welcome to Stefan Never Told You, a
1:28
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
1:38
Speaker 2: And welcome and Happy Women's International Day, International Women's Day.
1:43
Speaker 2: I said it wrong, International Women's Day.
1:46
Speaker 1: Annie, Yes, Happy International Women's Day to you as well.
1:49
Speaker 2: And y'all we are actually recording the day of just
1:53
Speaker 2: to give you a time fram Yes, this is March eighth,
1:57
Speaker 2: four and yeah, this is very current affair, so everything
2:02
Speaker 2: we speak of is gonna be relatively current, so in
2:05
Speaker 2: the last couple of.
2:06
Speaker 3: Years for sure.
2:07
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's International Women's Day, and what better day
2:11
Speaker 2: than to talk about the declining birth rate? No, yeah, yes,
2:20
Speaker 2: that's a hell of an introduction, right, Yes, definitely, And
2:25
Speaker 2: we're gonna go ahead and put a content warning so
2:28
Speaker 2: we're not necessarily talking about anything to a graphic, but
2:31
Speaker 2: there's going to be a conversation about children and babies
2:35
Speaker 2: and birthy and reproductive health, so there you go, and
2:40
Speaker 2: limited rights of women and marginalized communities.
2:44
Speaker 1: All right, let's have a cele Women's Day.
2:49
Speaker 2: That's how we do it. So and I think we
2:50
Speaker 2: talked about this actually this week. We always have these
2:54
Speaker 2: ideas for our shows, and we, oftentimes, especially me, underestimate
3:00
Speaker 2: how deep some of these topics run. I will say
3:03
Speaker 2: I was able to do this one in one episode,
3:07
Speaker 2: I hope, unless we get to really deep conversations.
3:11
Speaker 3: So I want to edit all that.
3:13
Speaker 2: But yes, this is a little larger than what I had,
3:18
Speaker 2: which we were going to do as a Monday mini
3:21
Speaker 2: because I've seen so many tiktoks about it, and I
3:24
Speaker 2: was like, Yes, we need to talk about this. And
3:26
Speaker 2: I really thought that this specific topic was going to
3:28
Speaker 2: be a quick rundown of the declining population and the
3:32
Speaker 2: people who have refused to have more children as a
3:35
Speaker 2: form of protests to the ill treatment and constant abuse
3:39
Speaker 2: that they've had to suffer at the hands of the
3:41
Speaker 2: patriarchy and misogynists in Asian countries specifically, but as per usual,
3:47
Speaker 2: while doing the research, we found some connections, some disturbing
3:51
Speaker 2: connections all around the world on how politicians and people
3:54
Speaker 2: in power i e. Men in power and racists are
3:58
Speaker 2: trying to find against people who can get pregnant and
4:00
Speaker 2: who are choosing not to have children. So we've had
4:04
Speaker 2: several episodes talking about different perspectives on choosing whether or
4:08
Speaker 2: not have children, people who are not physically able to
4:11
Speaker 2: have children, and for those who do have children, the good,
4:14
Speaker 2: the bad, the difficulties, and the rewards.
4:17
Speaker 3: We've talked about.
4:18
Speaker 2: The sexism, racism, and ableism and so many other isms.
4:22
Speaker 2: When it comes to the overturning of Roe v. Wade
4:25
Speaker 2: and all the other violations that are part of the
4:28
Speaker 2: aftermath go back to our recent episode on the Comstock Act.
4:33
Speaker 2: But today we're not just talking about those who've decided
4:37
Speaker 2: to go agetinst societal norms and not star families, which
4:41
Speaker 2: is causing a decline in birds and the population, but
4:45
Speaker 2: also talking about the link between the declining birth rate
4:48
Speaker 2: and current abortion bands that are happening today. And that's
4:51
Speaker 2: just a really minor part in this, but we thought
4:54
Speaker 2: it was important to talk about it because the link
4:57
Speaker 2: is there, the connections are there, and we need to
5:00
Speaker 2: have a broader conversation about that and where we are
5:02
Speaker 2: going with this and where it is getting frightening. It's
5:06
Speaker 2: been frightening. So with all of that, let's talk numbers.
5:10
Speaker 2: We love some numbers. According to recent reports and data,
5:13
Speaker 2: the number of people choosing not to have children has
5:16
Speaker 2: caused a significant decline of the birth rates, so much
5:19
Speaker 2: so that many governments are approaching panic to try to
5:23
Speaker 2: adjust those numbers, and to help us discuss this topic,
5:27
Speaker 2: we wanted to add this quote from Visualcapitalist dot com
5:31
Speaker 2: titles charted the rapid decline of global birth rates, which
5:35
Speaker 2: differentiates birth rate and fertility rate so quote. Birth rates
5:39
Speaker 2: are commonly measured using a metric called the CRUD birth
5:43
Speaker 2: rate or CBR, which represents the number of live births
5:46
Speaker 2: per one thousand individuals in a given population during a
5:50
Speaker 2: specific period, usually one year. The measured decline in CBR
5:54
Speaker 2: is also a result of plummeting fertility rates across the globe.
5:58
Speaker 2: Not to be confused with birth rate, fertility rates measure
6:01
Speaker 2: how many children a woman will have over the course
6:04
Speaker 2: of her lifetime. While the country's birthrate is directly impacted
6:08
Speaker 2: by the fertility rate, it also takes into account other
6:11
Speaker 2: factors population size, a structure of the population, access to contraception,
6:16
Speaker 2: cultural norms, government policies, and socioeconomic conditions.
6:20
Speaker 1: So with that, a research article that we found on
6:23
Speaker 1: the United Nations Population's fund Are UNFPA titled policy responses
6:29
Speaker 1: to low fertility? How effective are they? Says quote. In
6:33
Speaker 1: the last three decades, sub replacement fertility has spread around
6:37
Speaker 1: the world. One half of the global population today lives
6:41
Speaker 1: in countries where the period total fertility rate is below
6:45
Speaker 1: two point one verst per woman. East Asia, Southern Europe
6:49
Speaker 1: and parts of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe reached ultra
6:53
Speaker 1: low fertility rates with the period total fertility at one
6:57
Speaker 1: to one point four and family size at one point
7:00
Speaker 1: point four to one point six births per woman born
7:03
Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen seventies.
7:05
Speaker 2: Right, And the information that was released in twenty twenty
7:08
Speaker 2: three seems to only confirm these ideas, so that was
7:11
Speaker 2: from twenty nineteen. According to the same Visualcapitalist dot com,
7:16
Speaker 2: every country on the list has seen a decline in
7:18
Speaker 2: birth rates in the last seventy years, with some declines
7:22
Speaker 2: more stackering than the others. For example, China recorded forty
7:25
Speaker 2: one births per one thousand people in nineteen fifty. By
7:29
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, that number had fallen to just seven
7:32
Speaker 2: point six at an eighty one percent decrease. South Korea,
7:35
Speaker 2: the twenty ninth most populous country in the world in
7:38
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, saw an even larger eighty six percent
7:42
Speaker 2: drop in its birth rates since nineteen fifty. In fact,
7:45
Speaker 2: almost every single country in this data set has seen
7:49
Speaker 2: a double digit fall in their birth rates over the
7:51
Speaker 2: past seventy years. Only the Democratic Republic of Congo has
7:55
Speaker 2: seen a single digit percentage decline between nineteen fifty and
7:58
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one. And we know what's happening with the DRC,
8:03
Speaker 2: So I feel like those numbers are askewed, and the
8:06
Speaker 2: list they show or talk about is quote a snapshot
8:09
Speaker 2: of the CBR for the forty nine most populous countries
8:12
Speaker 2: of the world at different years from nineteen fifty to
8:15
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one.
8:16
Speaker 1: Just to as some context, right. The economists featured in
8:19
Speaker 1: an article in twenty twenty three addressing the possible consequences
8:22
Speaker 1: of the declining birth rate. The article says, quote, and
8:25
Speaker 1: they're roughly two hundred and fifty years since the Industrial Revolution.
8:28
Speaker 1: The world's population, like its wealth, has exploded before the
8:32
Speaker 1: end of the century. However, the number of people on
8:34
Speaker 1: the planet could shrink for the first time since the
8:37
Speaker 1: Black Death. The root cause is not a surge in death,
8:42
Speaker 1: but a slump and burse. Across much of the world,
8:45
Speaker 1: the fertility rate, the average number of burst per woman,
8:48
Speaker 1: is collapsing, and it continues quote. In two thousand, the
8:52
Speaker 1: world's fertility rate was two point seven burst per woman,
8:55
Speaker 1: comfortably above the replacement rate of two point one at
8:58
Speaker 1: which a population is. Today it is two point three
9:02
Speaker 1: and falling. The largest fifteen countries by GDP all have
9:06
Speaker 1: a fertility rate below the replacement rate. That includes America
9:10
Speaker 1: and much of the rich world, but also China and India,
9:14
Speaker 1: neither of which is rich, but which together account for
9:16
Speaker 1: more than a third of global population. The result is
9:20
Speaker 1: that in much of the world, the patter of tiny
9:23
Speaker 1: feet is being drowned out by the clatter of walking sticks.
9:26
Speaker 1: The prime examples of Asian countries are no longer just
9:29
Speaker 1: Japan and Italy, but also include Brazil, Mexico and Thailand.
9:34
Speaker 1: By twenty thirty, more than half the inhabitants of East
9:37
Speaker 1: and Southeast Asia will be over forty. As the old
9:40
Speaker 1: dye and are not fully replaced, populations are likely to shrink.
9:44
Speaker 1: Outside Africa, the world's population is forecast a peak in
9:47
Speaker 1: the twenty fifties and end of the century smaller than
9:50
Speaker 1: it is today. Even in Africa, the fertility rate is
9:53
Speaker 1: falling fast.
9:55
Speaker 2: So of course, the reasons behind the lower birth rates
9:58
Speaker 2: may differ all over the world, as does the possible solutions.
10:02
Speaker 2: But according to the earlier article from UNFPA quote, among
10:06
Speaker 2: the main drivers of low fertility is the incompatibility between
10:10
Speaker 2: professional career and family life. In times of women's massive
10:13
Speaker 2: post secondary education and labor force participation on the one hand,
10:17
Speaker 2: and rising individualistic aspirations on the other hand, The inability
10:21
Speaker 2: to combine paid work with child rearing often results in
10:25
Speaker 2: childlessness or having one child only. This is closely connected
10:29
Speaker 2: with persistent gender inequalities and housework divisions. For decades, societies
10:34
Speaker 2: with strong traditional gender role norms have been continuously witnessing
10:38
Speaker 2: very low fertility. More recent factors contributing to fertility decline
10:42
Speaker 2: include the trend towards intensive parenting, as well as labor
10:45
Speaker 2: market uncertainty and instability coupled with soaring house prices. And
10:51
Speaker 2: though some narratives may try to point at feminism and
10:55
Speaker 2: it is kind of true and the overall lack of
10:57
Speaker 2: a desire for children in the first place as the
10:59
Speaker 2: reason for declining, there's a lot of research showing that
11:03
Speaker 2: desirability for children hasn't gone down at all. Yeah.
11:16
Speaker 1: I actually read an interesting article kind of relating to
11:20
Speaker 1: this the other day about how a lot of parents
11:23
Speaker 1: can only afford to have one kid, Like they want kids,
11:25
Speaker 1: but they can only have the run. So there's this
11:27
Speaker 1: like really big explosion of single only children. But that
11:33
Speaker 1: puts pressure on them because, at least in the US,
11:36
Speaker 1: a lot of times the children have to pay for
11:39
Speaker 1: your parents when they get older, when they get sicker,
11:41
Speaker 1: and so it's sort of causing this this really negative
11:47
Speaker 1: effect of these kids not being able to afford that
11:51
Speaker 1: and kind of getting really in bad financial situations because
11:56
Speaker 1: they're the only child, which right, a lot of that
11:59
Speaker 1: situation is messed up anyway, Like we shouldn't write our
12:02
Speaker 1: medical system in the US is not good. Exactly, but exactly.
12:07
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting because I hadn't really considered
12:09
Speaker 1: that before.
12:10
Speaker 2: Well, I've definitely been told many times, who's going to
12:12
Speaker 2: take care of you when you were old?
12:14
Speaker 1: Yes, me too, Exactly how are you going to be
12:16
Speaker 1: all alone?
12:17
Speaker 2: Yeah?
12:17
Speaker 3: Thanks mom?
12:19
Speaker 1: Thanks mom? Okay, Well, here's a quote from the Conversation
12:27
Speaker 1: dot com about the US birth rates and some data
12:29
Speaker 1: they had found during their research. Quote. We found remarkable
12:33
Speaker 1: consistency and childbearing goals across cohorts. For example, if we
12:37
Speaker 1: look at teenage girls in the nineteen eighties, the cohort
12:40
Speaker 1: born in nineteen sixty five to sixty nine, they planned
12:44
Speaker 1: to have two point two children on average. Among the
12:46
Speaker 1: same age group, in the early twenty first century, the
12:49
Speaker 1: cohort born in nineteen ninety five to nineteen ninety nine
12:52
Speaker 1: girls intended to have two point one children on average,
12:55
Speaker 1: slightly more young people planned to have no children now
12:58
Speaker 1: than thirty years ago, but still the vast majority of
13:01
Speaker 1: US young adults planned to have kids, around eighty eight
13:04
Speaker 1: percent of teenage girls and eighty nine percent of teenage boys.
13:09
Speaker 1: We also found that as they themselves get older, people
13:12
Speaker 1: planned to have fewer children, but not by much. This
13:15
Speaker 1: pattern was also pretty consistent across cohorts. Among those born
13:19
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five to seventy nine. For instance, men
13:22
Speaker 1: and women when they were twenty to twenty four planned
13:25
Speaker 1: to have an average of two point three and two
13:27
Speaker 1: point five children, respectively. These averages fell slightly to two
13:32
Speaker 1: point one children for men and two point two children
13:34
Speaker 1: for women by the time respondents were thirty five to
13:37
Speaker 1: thirty nine. Still, overwhelmingly most Americans planned to have children,
13:41
Speaker 1: and the average intended number of children is right around two. Right.
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Speaker 2: And I think you and I have talked about when
13:47
Speaker 2: we saw ourselves in early twenties, we really thought by
13:51
Speaker 2: twenty five we would have two children. I had two
13:55
Speaker 2: children in mind, had to be an even number. And
13:58
Speaker 2: I just saw TikTok about that, like, because one of
14:01
Speaker 2: them will be alone if activities are like if they
14:03
Speaker 2: have to ride a plane and then you have to separate,
14:06
Speaker 2: Like all these things about wanting to have either two
14:09
Speaker 2: or four to make sure that didn't happen, and I
14:13
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, and also like the middle child syndrome,
14:15
Speaker 2: the fact that you don't want to have one middle
14:17
Speaker 2: child of the three because that's too traumatic.
14:19
Speaker 3: At least have two so they can bond.
14:22
Speaker 1: That's a middle child.
14:25
Speaker 2: Of course, I would not. I'd never plan to have
14:27
Speaker 2: a big family. I also had said that it would
14:30
Speaker 2: depend on my husband, like even being very much into
14:34
Speaker 2: the like the Jesus world, I knew that if I
14:37
Speaker 2: was doing this alone, Hellna.
14:40
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I mean that's another factor to consider in
14:45
Speaker 1: this conversation.
14:46
Speaker 2: Right, But I really did think that I was going
14:48
Speaker 2: to have that many children. And then as I get
14:50
Speaker 2: older and older, and at this point it's almost almost
14:53
Speaker 2: too late, I say, not really, but because like I
14:55
Speaker 2: have friends my age who just had children on my
14:58
Speaker 2: congratulations and they're all happy, and I love that for them.
15:01
Speaker 2: But like up until recently, like the last three four years,
15:06
Speaker 2: I could not have afforded. I was living with people,
15:08
Speaker 2: I was actually having roommates. So there's no way to
15:11
Speaker 2: me that I could have actually had a child to
15:14
Speaker 2: pay for all the things and had a full time job,
15:16
Speaker 2: and like the amount of responsibility to me was too
15:22
Speaker 2: much and just the thought of it made me have
15:24
Speaker 2: a panic attack.
15:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one of the things that frustrates me the
15:30
Speaker 1: most when I'll see sort of the like millennials or
15:34
Speaker 1: whatever generation that's younger is rooting everything. They're not buying houses,
15:38
Speaker 1: they're not getting kids, Like we can't afford it, right,
15:40
Speaker 1: I mean, this is different. I'm sure plenty of people
15:44
Speaker 1: would like to, but actually it's kind of a responsible
15:46
Speaker 1: decision to be like, you know what, I can't afford it.
15:49
Speaker 1: It's sad if you want kids and you can't afford them,
15:52
Speaker 1: but it is thought is going into it of like Okay,
15:56
Speaker 1: I can't do this right now.
15:58
Speaker 2: And I'm sure many people will be like, we turned
16:00
Speaker 2: out fine, we weren't rich all these things, But then
16:02
Speaker 2: you also have to be like, yeah, but there's also
16:04
Speaker 2: a lot of trauma, not a lot of people who
16:07
Speaker 2: are not okay, So just don't forget that far, Like, yes,
16:11
Speaker 2: for sure, absolutely, and this is not even adding on
16:14
Speaker 2: to like health issues. So if you are a disabled
16:17
Speaker 2: individual trying to manage all of that on top of like,
16:21
Speaker 2: there's so many points to this conversation that we even
16:25
Speaker 2: leave out because all of these studies and all of
16:27
Speaker 2: these incentives and I should have put this at the top,
16:29
Speaker 2: are very much based on a heteronormative CISC couple and
16:33
Speaker 2: an ablistic idea that they are perfectly able to have
16:36
Speaker 2: children without complications. So because yeah, one of the things
16:40
Speaker 2: that we are not going to mention, and here's the
16:41
Speaker 2: medical expenses, which should be one of the number one
16:44
Speaker 2: things because well, the US being the biggest problem with
16:48
Speaker 2: like subsidized healthcare. That's not anyway mumble mumble, because the
16:53
Speaker 2: healthcare sucks, but when we talk about that in general,
16:57
Speaker 2: that the cost of all of that is also a problem,
17:00
Speaker 2: but we don't mention that here and again when we're
17:02
Speaker 2: talking about these who they are actually going after especially
17:07
Speaker 2: and these countries they're going after a heteronormative couples because
17:13
Speaker 2: we don't mention it. But like Japanese government is not
17:15
Speaker 2: focused at all on the queer community, as in fact,
17:19
Speaker 2: it's almost like doubling down saying that they don't need
17:21
Speaker 2: rights at one point. So just a reminder, Yeah, and
17:26
Speaker 2: along with all the facts found in the UNFPA article.
17:30
Speaker 2: It speaks to the fact that many couples are waiting
17:32
Speaker 2: much later to have children, which may limit the amount
17:35
Speaker 2: of because they intend to have they write, compared with
17:39
Speaker 2: earlier eras people today start having their children later, these
17:43
Speaker 2: delays also contribute to declining birth rates. Because people start later,
17:48
Speaker 2: they have less time to meet their child bearing goals
17:50
Speaker 2: before they reach biological or social age limits for having kids.
17:54
Speaker 2: As people wait longer to start having children, they are
17:57
Speaker 2: also more likely to change their minds about parents and yes,
18:00
Speaker 2: that's where I am y'aw.
18:04
Speaker 1: But they also note that the reasons stated earlier were
18:08
Speaker 1: very much linked to the decline. The article continues, but
18:11
Speaker 1: why are people getting a later start on having kids?
18:14
Speaker 1: We hypothesize that Americans see parenthood as harder to manage
18:18
Speaker 1: than they might have in the past. Although the US
18:21
Speaker 1: economy overall recovered after the Great Recession, many young people
18:24
Speaker 1: in particular feel uncertain about their ability to achieve some
18:28
Speaker 1: of the things they see as necessary for having children,
18:31
Speaker 1: including a good job, a staple relationship, and safe, affordable housing.
18:36
Speaker 1: At the same time, the cost of raising children, from
18:39
Speaker 1: childcare and housing to college education are rising, and parents
18:44
Speaker 1: may feel more pressure to live up to high intensive
18:47
Speaker 1: parenting standards and prepare their children for an uncertain world.
18:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, all of that is absolute reasons for me that
18:56
Speaker 2: I decided I did not want to have children. Now
18:59
Speaker 2: we've gotten the general numbers and facts, so we've got
19:01
Speaker 2: a good base. We're going to look more closely at
19:03
Speaker 2: some of the countries that have been making headlines when
19:06
Speaker 2: it comes to this conversation, and we will start with
19:10
Speaker 2: the original idea behind this episode of the Asian countries,
19:13
Speaker 2: and we're only focused on three majors. Don't come at
19:15
Speaker 2: me because there's so much more out there, but we
19:17
Speaker 2: were just trying to get examples, and we're talking about
19:19
Speaker 2: the women who've made a not so subtle statement, you know,
19:24
Speaker 2: Like we've talked a little bit about the feminist movement
19:27
Speaker 2: in South Korea and the activists who've been fighting back
19:30
Speaker 2: against at an administration that has been using every misogynistic
19:33
Speaker 2: tactic to reverse a lot of the work that seemed
19:36
Speaker 2: to be happening once upon a time when it came
19:39
Speaker 2: to moving forward in feminism, and that included the four
19:42
Speaker 2: be movement. Check out our Feminists around the World episode
19:45
Speaker 2: we talked about. But just as a quick reminder, the
19:48
Speaker 2: four BE movement is the four No's which originated in
19:51
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen twenty nineteen. According to like being public and
19:55
Speaker 2: stands for no sex with men, no child we ring
19:58
Speaker 2: no dating men and no marriage to men. And although
20:02
Speaker 2: this is a simple version of what the overall movement means,
20:04
Speaker 2: the stance is to amplify the stark disadvantage is placed
20:08
Speaker 2: on women in the nation, as well as the overall
20:10
Speaker 2: abuse of nature of the patriarchal state of the country.
20:13
Speaker 2: And this with the attributing factors we mentioned before, it's
20:16
Speaker 2: not surprising that South Korea is currently the number one
20:19
Speaker 2: country with the lowest current birth rate in the world,
20:22
Speaker 2: and it's been like that for about three four years well.
20:27
Speaker 1: According to a recent BBC article published this month, South
20:31
Speaker 1: Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world and
20:33
Speaker 1: it continues to plummet, beating its own staggeringly low record
20:37
Speaker 1: year after year. Figures released on Wednesdays show it fell
20:41
Speaker 1: by another eight percent and twenty twenty three to zero
20:44
Speaker 1: point seventy two. This refers to the number of children
20:48
Speaker 1: a woman is expected to have in her lifetime. For
20:50
Speaker 1: a population to hold study, that numbers should be two
20:53
Speaker 1: point one. If this trend continues, Korea's population is estimated
20:58
Speaker 1: to have by the year twenty one hundred.
21:01
Speaker 2: Right, And I don't know where North Korea comes into
21:04
Speaker 2: the play with this. I'm guessing it doesn't because the
21:08
Speaker 2: statistics aren't from there. But that's that's that's drastic and honestly, yeah,
21:14
Speaker 2: like we said, this may be one of those situations
21:16
Speaker 2: where they could blame feminism for the declining population because
21:21
Speaker 2: the people they've had enough For many of the women
21:24
Speaker 2: in Korea, they have learned that having a child could
21:26
Speaker 2: not only be adding on more responsibility, but also cost
21:30
Speaker 2: them their job, their independence, and overall their freedom. According
21:34
Speaker 2: to the same BBC article, they say the Korean women
21:37
Speaker 2: know too much. Essentially, One twenty eight year old woman
21:40
Speaker 2: who worked in HR said she's seen people who were
21:43
Speaker 2: forced to leave their jobs or who were passed over
21:45
Speaker 2: for promotions after taking a maternity leave, which had been
21:49
Speaker 2: enough to convince her to never have a baby. Korean
21:52
Speaker 2: women are the most highly educated of those in the
21:55
Speaker 2: OECD countries, and yet the country has the worst gender
21:59
Speaker 2: pay gap in a higher than average proportion of women
22:02
Speaker 2: out of work compared to men. Researchers say this proves
22:06
Speaker 2: they're being presented with a trade off have a career
22:10
Speaker 2: or have a family. Increasingly they are choosing a career,
22:14
Speaker 2: and for those who would gladly choose family over career,
22:17
Speaker 2: they can't afford to do it. The article continues. More
22:20
Speaker 2: than half the population live in or around the capital Soul,
22:24
Speaker 2: which is where the vast majority of opportunities are, creating
22:28
Speaker 2: huge pressure on apartments and resources. Soul's birth rate has
22:32
Speaker 2: sunk to zero point five p five, the lowest in
22:35
Speaker 2: the country. Then there's the cost of private education. While
22:40
Speaker 2: unaffordable housing is a problem the world over, this is
22:43
Speaker 2: what makes Korea truly unique.
22:46
Speaker 1: But housing isn't the only problem. The price for education
22:50
Speaker 1: for children also adds up. Here's another quote from the
22:53
Speaker 1: age of four. Children are sent to an array of
22:56
Speaker 1: expensive extracurricular classes, from mass and English to music in taekwondo.
23:01
Speaker 1: The practice is so widespread that to opt out is
23:04
Speaker 1: seen as setting your child up to fail, an inconceivable
23:08
Speaker 1: notion in hyper competitive Korea. This has made it the
23:11
Speaker 1: most expensive country in the world to raise a child.
23:15
Speaker 1: A twenty twenty two study found that only two percent
23:17
Speaker 1: of parents did not pay for private tuition well ninety
23:21
Speaker 1: four percent said it was a financial burden.
23:24
Speaker 2: And y'all, if you've watched any K dramas, you know
23:28
Speaker 2: this is true. Like people will get real really like
23:31
Speaker 2: people have died according to the K dramas.
23:34
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
23:36
Speaker 2: Trying to get these kids into these classes, and like
23:38
Speaker 2: it's it is like, from what I understand, people private
23:41
Speaker 2: tutors who are acclaimed they're almost as famous as K.
23:46
Speaker 3: Pop people like wow.
23:49
Speaker 2: Education is very valued and we've kind of always known
23:51
Speaker 2: this to the point that it became a joke. But
23:54
Speaker 2: it is costly, which I'm like, huh. I always think
23:58
Speaker 2: I'm like, what, I've been one of those two that
24:00
Speaker 2: didn't make it. Probably oh sad me. And of course
24:04
Speaker 2: this all comes with the expectation that women will continue
24:08
Speaker 2: their level of housework and child rearing at the same
24:11
Speaker 2: time is helping with income.
24:12
Speaker 3: That BBC article continues.
24:14
Speaker 2: Over the past fifty years, Korea's economy has developed a
24:19
Speaker 2: breakneck speed, propelling women into higher education and the workforce
24:23
Speaker 2: and expanding their ambition, but the roles of wife and
24:26
Speaker 2: mother have not evolved at nearly the same price. And
24:31
Speaker 2: still I think there's a whole thing about in laws too.
24:33
Speaker 2: And who takes care of them, and.
24:36
Speaker 3: It's the wife.
24:36
Speaker 2: Like it's this like over the top understanding that you
24:40
Speaker 2: are taking over not only your own household but his household.
24:43
Speaker 2: And in some respect that tradition is still pretty steeped.
24:48
Speaker 2: And the government they've seen it coming, and instead of
24:51
Speaker 2: seeing that they need to actually talk to those that's
24:54
Speaker 2: affected by it. But the most they try to throw
24:56
Speaker 2: some money at their problems.
24:59
Speaker 1: Of course, here's the quote from a March twenty twenty
25:14
Speaker 1: four article published in Time dot com. President Moonjayan launched
25:18
Speaker 1: several policies to try and incentivize women to have more children,
25:22
Speaker 1: including cash incentives for families. Under the scheme, every child
25:26
Speaker 1: born from twenty twenty two onwards receives a cash bonus
25:29
Speaker 1: of two million, one one eight hundred and fifty US
25:33
Speaker 1: dollars to help cover prenatal expenses, in addition to a
25:37
Speaker 1: monthly payout that increases every month until the baby turns one.
25:40
Speaker 1: Other incentives include free day care, subsidized pay during childcare leave,
25:45
Speaker 1: and even group blind dates for public servants to try
25:49
Speaker 1: and match make couples.
25:51
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so thating can help.
25:52
Speaker 2: So. In fact, the country has spent an estimated two
25:55
Speaker 2: hundred billion US dollars to try to fix this problem
26:00
Speaker 2: as of today hasn't resulted in any changes, and they've
26:04
Speaker 2: tried other solutions, including hiring nannies from Southeast Asian countries
26:09
Speaker 2: and paying them below minimum wage gross gross, trying to
26:15
Speaker 2: incentivize exempting men from military services if they have children
26:19
Speaker 2: when they're at the under the age of thirty, which
26:22
Speaker 2: sounds like a misdirect but apparently according to another study,
26:26
Speaker 2: men are part of the big problem too as well,
26:28
Speaker 2: maybe because they can't find women. I don't know, but
26:33
Speaker 2: I said that another texts like this, But it wasn't
26:37
Speaker 2: until just recently that the politicians, and I mean like
26:40
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, that the politicians realize that maybe talking
26:44
Speaker 2: to the citizens, specifically women or those who can give birth.
26:48
Speaker 3: May be helpful.
26:50
Speaker 2: And yeah, in the past year they have been going
26:52
Speaker 2: around the country talking to the younger generations.
26:54
Speaker 3: But yeah, still no results as of yet that we
26:57
Speaker 3: have seen or talked about.
26:59
Speaker 2: I haven't seen any published saying that that's helping and
27:01
Speaker 2: anybody's changing their minds because.
27:03
Speaker 3: Most of them are not.
27:06
Speaker 2: And China has been going through a similar decline. Of course,
27:09
Speaker 2: the history of China and babies not good not good.
27:14
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty, the Chinese government implemented the one child policy,
27:17
Speaker 2: which was so strict that women were forced into situations
27:21
Speaker 2: they did not choose for themselves. According to an article
27:24
Speaker 2: written for the Global Institute of Women's Leadership, a Chinese
27:26
Speaker 2: researcher wrote, for thirty five years from nineteen eighty to
27:29
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, the Chinese government maintained a one child policy,
27:34
Speaker 2: subjecting millions of women to force contraception, for sterilization, and
27:38
Speaker 2: forced abortion, and there have been stories about the level
27:41
Speaker 2: of cruelty the government would use in order to maintain
27:44
Speaker 2: that one child policy, including killing, the killing of newborn infants,
27:48
Speaker 2: kidnapping of women if they had were on their second
27:51
Speaker 2: or more pregnancy, or even taking family members of the
27:55
Speaker 2: pregnant person as hostages if that expected person was hiding.
28:00
Speaker 3: So they went all out, and it.
28:02
Speaker 2: Was in twenty sixteen, a year after they dropped the
28:05
Speaker 2: one child policy, the government increased it to two and
28:09
Speaker 2: it now has risen to a three child policy, allowing
28:12
Speaker 2: people to have up to three children now right, but.
28:18
Speaker 1: There are many who are so traumatized by the past
28:21
Speaker 1: policies that they still live as if they are still
28:25
Speaker 1: under those policies. Here's a quote from an article from NPR.
28:30
Speaker 1: The policy permeates through Chinese society in other, sometimes unexpected ways,
28:35
Speaker 1: because many prioritized having a son over a daughter. Orphotages
28:39
Speaker 1: experienced a surge, and baby girls who are abandoned or
28:42
Speaker 1: put up for adoption. Singles Day, China's biggest online shopping
28:46
Speaker 1: holiday akin to Black Friday in the US, is a
28:49
Speaker 1: recognition of the many bachelors who are unable to find
28:52
Speaker 1: partners in a gender skewed society.
28:55
Speaker 3: So that could be part of the reason.
28:56
Speaker 2: It could be, but the understanding is also there's still
28:59
Speaker 2: kind of a preference to men two boys, which doesn't
29:03
Speaker 2: make sense. Yeah in the greatest scream of things. But
29:08
Speaker 2: I digress. And though they have changed the policy since
29:12
Speaker 2: then and now seem to recognize that there may be
29:14
Speaker 2: a problem with the fact that the population has declined,
29:17
Speaker 2: they have been second largest for the past few years,
29:21
Speaker 2: India has been number one for the most populous, which
29:24
Speaker 2: seems to be a blow to the nation's ego. That
29:27
Speaker 2: surprised me. I have figured that's what they wanted, But okay,
29:29
Speaker 2: but their new policies hasn't changed the birthway.
29:32
Speaker 1: Yes. Adding on to the imbalance of gender and the population,
29:36
Speaker 1: the cost of living in Gender inequality has also affected
29:39
Speaker 1: the numbers, much like South Korea. According to CNBC, as
29:43
Speaker 1: more women attain higher qualifications and rise up the ranks
29:46
Speaker 1: in the workplace, they expect their husbands to earn more
29:48
Speaker 1: than them. In twenty twenty, female students accounted for almost
29:52
Speaker 1: forty two percent of doctorate degree enrollment and a significantly
29:55
Speaker 1: higher number of women enrolled for a master's degree than men.
29:59
Speaker 4: Satista de that has showed, yeah, and of course, so
30:02
Speaker 4: that means people have been choosier when it comes to
30:06
Speaker 4: finding their man, to the point that people have been
30:09
Speaker 4: throwing money people, governments and corporations haven't thrown money at
30:13
Speaker 4: men to make them look better for mating purposes.
30:18
Speaker 3: Like I don't know how else to say that.
30:22
Speaker 1: I mean, you're right, but it sounds so like documentary is.
30:28
Speaker 2: This is where we're going at and just as a reminder,
30:31
Speaker 2: but this still is the expectation that women will take
30:34
Speaker 2: on all the household work, and that women have less
30:37
Speaker 2: rights and will be responsible for this entirety of growth
30:44
Speaker 2: of populations essentially, and of course, add to that the
30:47
Speaker 2: rising costs of housing and supplies, as we talked about earlier,
30:51
Speaker 2: along with the increase of children allowed per household, the
30:53
Speaker 2: government and even corporations have tried to add incentives for
30:56
Speaker 2: people to have more children. Trip dot Com has tried
30:59
Speaker 2: to help with the situation. Specifically, according to that same
31:02
Speaker 2: CNBC article, Trip dot Com is one Chinese company that
31:05
Speaker 2: takes pride in trying to encourage more women to have children.
31:09
Speaker 2: In an organization where more than half of its thirty
31:12
Speaker 2: thousand employees are women, the online travel agency came up
31:15
Speaker 2: with its own solution to encourage women in the company
31:18
Speaker 2: to have more children, and a part of that insteadive
31:21
Speaker 2: is offering subsidies to help with the cost of freezing eggs,
31:25
Speaker 2: which actually kind of smart to me, Yeah, because they
31:28
Speaker 2: do talk about the fact that that timeframe that women
31:32
Speaker 2: specifically use to get their career and all that stabilized
31:36
Speaker 2: is that you know, I guess the critical time, but
31:40
Speaker 2: it's a short time, so they can actually help them
31:43
Speaker 2: pause that process. Maybe that will increase in the likelihood
31:47
Speaker 2: that they will have.
31:47
Speaker 3: Children later on. They were talking about this.
31:49
Speaker 2: And they help by giving this money, which ranges from
31:54
Speaker 2: fifteen thousand dollars to three hundred thousand dollars.
31:58
Speaker 3: Again, kind of a smart idea.
32:00
Speaker 2: I might have done that, to be honest, not now
32:02
Speaker 2: with the IVF stuff in the US. No, but you know,
32:06
Speaker 2: like this is like to me, it's one of the
32:07
Speaker 2: smart plans.
32:08
Speaker 3: I don't know. Yeah, yeah.
32:12
Speaker 1: I saw a flyer once at my university. I was like,
32:15
Speaker 1: we'll pay you this much money to freeze your eggs.
32:17
Speaker 1: And I thought about it, but then I was like, why.
32:20
Speaker 2: I had people who said they want my eggs. Oh,
32:23
Speaker 2: they would pay you for your eggs. Really, you know,
32:27
Speaker 2: you know you.
32:29
Speaker 3: Didn't get those?
32:30
Speaker 2: Get those.
32:30
Speaker 4: That's the only one.
32:31
Speaker 2: I mean.
32:31
Speaker 1: I saw a flyer. I don't recall any.
32:35
Speaker 3: I got an email like oh okay, okay, Like I
32:38
Speaker 3: was like what.
32:39
Speaker 2: And I thought about it for a split seconds, not
32:41
Speaker 2: gonna lie, like, but they wanted white babies, so didn't help. Well.
32:49
Speaker 1: The government has tried a few tactics as well, going
32:51
Speaker 1: back to China. According to Time Quote, Chinese government also
32:55
Speaker 1: tried to introduce new policies to encourage couples to have
32:58
Speaker 1: more children, enhance childcare, and improved housing facilities for families
33:03
Speaker 1: with children. Recently, some academics have even proposed taxing couples
33:07
Speaker 1: for having too few children while making access to abortion
33:11
Speaker 1: and divorce harder and yeah, pay attention to the last part,
33:17
Speaker 1: limiting access to divorce and abortions right.
33:20
Speaker 2: So, the Japanese birth rate has also been greatly declining,
33:24
Speaker 2: very similar.
33:25
Speaker 3: To South Korea.
33:25
Speaker 2: Many have chosen not to have children due to the
33:27
Speaker 2: inequality and gender rights and opportunities, as well as the
33:30
Speaker 2: overall financial burden of having a family.
33:33
Speaker 1: According to financialpolicy dot com quote, today Japanese women on
33:37
Speaker 1: average have just one point twenty six children, far below
33:40
Speaker 1: the rate of two point one children per woman considered
33:43
Speaker 1: by demographers as necessary to maintain a stable population. Up
33:47
Speaker 1: to forty percent of adult Japanese women and fifty percent
33:50
Speaker 1: of men will not have children in their lifetime according
33:53
Speaker 1: to government estimates.
33:56
Speaker 2: Again, much like South Korea, a lot of the reasons
33:59
Speaker 2: boiled down to the cost of living, cost of education
34:01
Speaker 2: for children, and according to the same foreign policy dot
34:04
Speaker 2: com article, the cost for childcare alone in Japan for
34:07
Speaker 2: two children is about half the earnings of a couple
34:11
Speaker 2: who have full time incomes, and the wages have barely
34:15
Speaker 2: been raised in the past thirty years, so significant amount
34:19
Speaker 2: and just the overall lack of interest in being married,
34:22
Speaker 2: although that could also have something to do with the affordability.
34:26
Speaker 2: So here's another quote from Foreign policy dot com. It's
34:29
Speaker 2: not just the desire to have children that's diminished. Surveys
34:33
Speaker 2: point to waning interest in relationships and sex, especially among
34:38
Speaker 2: young people. For Haruku Sakamato, a researcher at the Department
34:42
Speaker 2: of Global Health Policies at the University of Tokyo, this
34:45
Speaker 2: too is an economic story. Young people, she explained, simply
34:50
Speaker 2: do not earn enough to plan for the long term,
34:52
Speaker 2: making stable relationships seem far fetched. She says, while in
34:56
Speaker 2: the past people have explained Japan's low sex and relationship
35:00
Speaker 2: culture as steaming from interest in anime and fictional characters
35:03
Speaker 2: that supplant interest in real life relationships, is actually an
35:07
Speaker 2: economic issue. I just really like that they blamed enemy
35:11
Speaker 2: on this. So and the article continues. Michika Uita Balmer,
35:17
Speaker 2: a political scientist at Syracuse University in the US who
35:21
Speaker 2: studies social isolation among Japanese youth, said many young Japanese
35:25
Speaker 2: women would like to get buried, but they simply cannot
35:29
Speaker 2: afford it. Survey data shows that young people don't have
35:32
Speaker 2: the financial stability, necessarity build themselves as a viable partner.
35:37
Speaker 2: The result is that people don't get married, and because
35:40
Speaker 2: Japan has the lowest rate of children born outside of
35:42
Speaker 2: marriage among developed countries, this also means they are unlikely
35:47
Speaker 2: to have children. So in twenty thirteen, they had what
35:52
Speaker 2: was considered women nomics policies, which quote promise to integrate
35:57
Speaker 2: women into the workforce and propel them to high pain.
36:01
Speaker 2: But the policy hasn't solved women's economic problems. So, like
36:07
Speaker 2: many other nations, women were not only responsible for the house, home,
36:11
Speaker 2: and children, but they also took on the financial responsitivety
36:14
Speaker 2: abortion as well.
36:15
Speaker 1: Here's another quote in the Age of Women Nomics, Japanese
36:19
Speaker 1: women are caught in a double bind. High living costs
36:22
Speaker 1: mean they are no longer expected to stop working once
36:24
Speaker 1: they have children, yet because they still bear the brunt
36:27
Speaker 1: of domestic work, even Japan's generous parental leap benefits, which
36:31
Speaker 1: few men choose to take, are not enough to insulate
36:34
Speaker 1: women from the pressure to drop out of the labor
36:36
Speaker 1: force after having children. Even highly educated women who leave
36:40
Speaker 1: the labor force after having children struggle to eventually reintegrate
36:44
Speaker 1: back into it. Some fear that in case of divorce,
36:48
Speaker 1: they'll be unable to stay afloat financially, in part because
36:51
Speaker 1: of the stark ginger pay gap.
36:53
Speaker 2: So the Japanese government has followed suit with many of
36:56
Speaker 2: the East Asian countries. Late twenty twenty three, the Prime
36:59
Speaker 2: Minister are announced and estimated twenty two billion dollars to
37:03
Speaker 2: childcare spending in order to help the birth rate, and
37:05
Speaker 2: he plans to increase subsidized housing for families with children
37:09
Speaker 2: and flexible work hours.
37:10
Speaker 3: Of course, as we've.
37:12
Speaker 2: Seen, money may not be the answer to all the problems.
37:16
Speaker 2: But hey, I guess he's trying, I will say, and
37:22
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about this in the sec better
37:24
Speaker 2: than what the US is doing. And though we just
37:28
Speaker 2: used again these three countries for the examples, the steady
37:33
Speaker 2: decline of birth rate has been seen throughout the world.
37:36
Speaker 2: Taiwan has spent over three billion dollars trying to encourage
37:39
Speaker 2: people to have more children, including more parental leave and
37:43
Speaker 2: large increases in salary. And in fact, one presidential candidate
37:48
Speaker 2: offered a free bet if they have a child, not
37:50
Speaker 2: gonna lie.
37:51
Speaker 3: That could have worked on me too.
37:52
Speaker 1: Then you have to pay for the pet I know, I.
37:54
Speaker 2: Know, I don't know that he added money to that,
37:56
Speaker 2: but I.
37:56
Speaker 3: Was like, that's an interesting time.
37:58
Speaker 1: I've got a pit for the it in and according
38:04
Speaker 1: to the Vox article titled you can't even pay people
38:07
Speaker 1: to have more kids quote, other countries have tried direct
38:10
Speaker 1: payments to parents. Russia began offering a one time some
38:14
Speaker 1: of about seven thousand dollars to families with more than
38:17
Speaker 1: two kids, while Italy and Greece have experimented with per
38:20
Speaker 1: child baby bonuses. In twenty nineteen, Hungary introduced a loan
38:24
Speaker 1: of about thirty thousand dollars to newlyweds. If they have
38:28
Speaker 1: three children, the loan is forgiven.
38:33
Speaker 3: I actually saw something. I think it's Sweden.
38:37
Speaker 2: Y'all correct me if I'm wrong that literally are trying
38:40
Speaker 2: to bring people.
38:41
Speaker 3: In with children.
38:42
Speaker 2: Oh wow, tooth and they'll give you and then you
38:45
Speaker 2: have to live there for ten years and they'll give
38:47
Speaker 2: you money and incentives.
38:49
Speaker 1: I had a friend that moved to Sweden. I should
38:50
Speaker 1: ask her, what's okay.
38:52
Speaker 2: I think it's one of the s yoking countries. So
38:55
Speaker 2: y'all tell me Switzerland Sweden? And yes, again, declining birth
39:03
Speaker 2: rate includes the US. So we said this earlier. The US,
39:08
Speaker 2: the birth rate of the population is declining. Here's a
39:11
Speaker 2: quote from that same Fox article, which is mentioned in
39:15
Speaker 2: the US, the birthrate has been falling since the Great Recession,
39:18
Speaker 2: dropping almost twenty three percent between twenty seven and twenty
39:22
Speaker 2: twenty two. Today, the average American woman has about one
39:25
Speaker 2: point six children, down down from three in nineteen fifty
39:29
Speaker 2: and significantly below the replacement rate of two point one
39:32
Speaker 2: children needed to sustain a stable population.
39:36
Speaker 1: And as we mentioned previously, many people have decided to
39:38
Speaker 1: wait to have children. And though the birth rate has
39:42
Speaker 1: declined overall, the birth rate for people thirty five to
39:44
Speaker 1: thirty nine has actually increased. According to Census dot Gov.
39:48
Speaker 1: In the thirty year period, it has increased by sixty
39:51
Speaker 1: seven percent. Here's a bit from cnn dot Com from
39:54
Speaker 1: the article titled fertility rates dip People are having babies
39:57
Speaker 1: later the stage of birth rates in the US. Uote
40:00
Speaker 1: birth rates have declined in most states across the US
40:03
Speaker 1: in recent years, while women are having babies at an
40:06
Speaker 1: older age. According to new data released by the US
40:09
Speaker 1: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it continues, birth
40:13
Speaker 1: rates among women in their late thirties and early forties
40:16
Speaker 1: rose in the last decade, and the birth rate among
40:19
Speaker 1: women over forty five also exceeded one birth per one
40:22
Speaker 1: thousand population for the first time in more than a decade. Meanwhile,
40:27
Speaker 1: the teen birth rate dropped to a record blow in
40:29
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, there were thirteen point five births for
40:32
Speaker 1: every one thy teens ages fifteen to nineteen, down from
40:35
Speaker 1: thirteen point nine in twenty twenty one. According to the
40:38
Speaker 1: new CDC data.
40:41
Speaker 2: Thirteen damn yeah, those numbers are so high, and I
40:47
Speaker 2: feel like they are purposeful, especially now. And though there
40:50
Speaker 2: was a small increase during the initial pandemic and lockdown,
40:54
Speaker 2: nothing shows any actual signs of the race on the
40:57
Speaker 2: on the incline. Here's a quote from the Scenn article.
41:00
Speaker 2: Despite the short term plunge and comeback during the early
41:04
Speaker 2: years of the COVID pandemic, the race have been consistently
41:07
Speaker 2: trending down. Nearly three point seven million babies were born
41:10
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two. According to the CDC analysis of
41:13
Speaker 2: birth certificates, the overall fertility rate was fifty six point
41:17
Speaker 2: one births per one thousand women ages fifteen to forty four,
41:20
Speaker 2: holding relatively steady from the rate of fifty six point
41:23
Speaker 2: three in twenty twenty one. After a sharp drop in
41:26
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, birth rates rose in twenty twenty one, the
41:28
Speaker 2: first increase since twenty fourteen, but the numbers still reflect
41:32
Speaker 2: the declines that began before the pandemic.
41:44
Speaker 3: Okay, of course, unlike the.
41:46
Speaker 2: Other countries, US hasn't been publicly talking about the population
41:50
Speaker 2: decline or even talking about policy changes directly related to
41:55
Speaker 2: having more children, such as giving money to parents directly
41:59
Speaker 2: helping childcare or the such. Although they did alter some
42:03
Speaker 2: tax deductions for children, they made higher tax deductions and
42:08
Speaker 2: gave a little more incentive, but I definitely did not
42:11
Speaker 2: seem as it was about population control or population increase.
42:15
Speaker 2: But much like how we mentioned China has been doing
42:18
Speaker 2: more restricted when it comes to abortion access and divorce,
42:21
Speaker 2: the US has implemented the same practices, but using alternative
42:26
Speaker 2: languages for it. So during campaign runs for the Republican Party,
42:30
Speaker 2: a couple of significant figures may have said the quiet
42:33
Speaker 2: part out loud. In twenty twenty three, Nebraska Republican state
42:38
Speaker 2: senator used an old racist theory to argue for the
42:41
Speaker 2: ban on abortion. According to New republic dot com quote,
42:46
Speaker 2: Senator Steve Erdman decided that the best argument in favor
42:49
Speaker 2: of the band was quote the Great Replacement theory, which
42:53
Speaker 2: the Southern Poverty Law Center defines as quote racist conspiracy
42:58
Speaker 2: narrative that falsely asserts there's an active, ongoing and covert
43:02
Speaker 2: effort to replace white populations in current white majority countries.
43:07
Speaker 2: Our state populations have not grown except by those foreigners
43:10
Speaker 2: who've moved here or refugees who've been placed here, Ermann
43:13
Speaker 2: told the chamber.
43:14
Speaker 3: And it continues.
43:15
Speaker 2: Ermann also says that all of the aborted fetuses could
43:18
Speaker 2: be working and filling some of those positions that we
43:21
Speaker 2: have vacancies in response to jobs. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
43:28
Speaker 2: So before we continue, so here's a look about the
43:32
Speaker 2: Here's a quick look at the Great Replacement theory from
43:35
Speaker 2: a PBS article. Simply put, the conspiracy theory says there's
43:39
Speaker 2: a plot to diminish the influence of white people. Believers
43:42
Speaker 2: say this goal is being achieved both through the immigration
43:45
Speaker 2: of non white people into societies that have largely been
43:48
Speaker 2: dominated by white people, as well as through simple demographics,
43:52
Speaker 2: with white people having lower birth rates than other populations.
43:56
Speaker 1: And how does all of that equal to combating of
43:59
Speaker 1: the declining birth rate. Here some more from Senator Erdmann.
44:03
Speaker 1: According to Vice dot com, our state population has not
44:07
Speaker 1: grown except by those foreigners who have moved. Here are
44:09
Speaker 1: refugees who have been placed here. Why is that? It's
44:12
Speaker 1: because we've killed two hundred thousand people. These are people
44:16
Speaker 1: we've killed. Erdmann said during debate after lamenting that if
44:20
Speaker 1: abortion had been illegal, that would have resulted to more
44:23
Speaker 1: people who could be working and feeling some of those
44:27
Speaker 1: positions that we have vacancy.
44:30
Speaker 2: And he's not the only one to say these things
44:33
Speaker 2: out loud. Seapak, Republican leader, also made a point to
44:37
Speaker 2: use the same rhetoric. He said, if you say there's
44:39
Speaker 2: a population problem in the country, but you're killing millions
44:42
Speaker 2: of your own people to legalize abortion every year, if
44:46
Speaker 2: that were to produce some of that problem is solved,
44:48
Speaker 2: Schlap said, you have millions of people who can take
44:51
Speaker 2: many of these jobs. How come no one brings that up.
44:54
Speaker 2: If you're worried about this quote unquote replacement, why don't
44:57
Speaker 2: we start there, start with allowing our own people to live.
45:01
Speaker 2: And again, he's not the only one that Ohio representative
45:04
Speaker 2: says something similar as well. This narrative has been around
45:08
Speaker 2: for a very long time, as in fact, it's I've
45:10
Speaker 2: actually been around also targeting the Jewish community as well.
45:14
Speaker 2: But this has been a constant rhetoric. And if you
45:17
Speaker 2: want to talk about our episodes when it comes to tradwives,
45:21
Speaker 2: our episodes when it comes to the Red Pill, our
45:24
Speaker 2: episodes when it comes to religious trauma, they're all linked
45:27
Speaker 2: in this same conversation with this white supremacist rhetoric that
45:32
Speaker 2: we have to bring more white people in to bring
45:35
Speaker 2: in power, that they've lost power, so therefore they need
45:37
Speaker 2: to have babies, and that abortion ban is the key. Unfortunately,
45:43
Speaker 2: these tactics have worked enough to sway what is happening
45:46
Speaker 2: within the US, but politics alone is not what is
45:48
Speaker 2: controlling this narrative. So are the corporations. The economic threat
45:52
Speaker 2: of a population decline has become clear to many experts
45:56
Speaker 2: around the world, but not all corporations have come to
46:00
Speaker 2: this same understanding at this point, Like we said, trip
46:04
Speaker 2: dot com and Japan has kind of figured it out.
46:07
Speaker 2: They're like, okay, we need to help with this. There's
46:09
Speaker 2: other companies that have been adding to that. We know
46:13
Speaker 2: some of the companies here in the US, and usually
46:15
Speaker 2: the smaller companies have been like, we'll give you a
46:18
Speaker 2: longer maternity better maternity lell we have free childcare here,
46:22
Speaker 2: but not everybody Amazon Prime example, could care less.
46:26
Speaker 1: That was an accidental fun.
46:31
Speaker 3: I didn't even know.
46:32
Speaker 2: A lot of the corporations are seeking to strip even
46:35
Speaker 2: more rights from their employees. Many many encouraging discrimination for
46:39
Speaker 2: those who become pregnant, and in fact, recently federal courts
46:44
Speaker 2: ruled that the Quote Pregnancy Workfairness Act was unenforceable against
46:50
Speaker 2: the state government and it's in its agency which this
46:53
Speaker 2: act protects accommodations for pregnant employees in the workplace and
46:58
Speaker 2: allows workers to sue employers are failing to do so.
47:01
Speaker 2: It prohibited employers from denying employment opportunities or forcing pregnant
47:06
Speaker 2: workers to go on leave if alternative accommodations were possible.
47:10
Speaker 2: And this is from the Texas Tribune dot org, which
47:12
Speaker 2: is where all of this was coming out from. So
47:16
Speaker 2: that is significant to know that that was on a
47:19
Speaker 2: federal appeal.
47:20
Speaker 3: And it's very.
47:21
Speaker 2: Scary because not only are we being told you have
47:24
Speaker 2: to be pregnant if you were to conceive, if you
47:28
Speaker 2: were to get pregnant, do you have to remain pregnant?
47:32
Speaker 2: And go and give birth, but that you have no
47:35
Speaker 2: rights and they're not going to help you. We talked
47:38
Speaker 2: of there are several articles that we talked about within
47:40
Speaker 2: the great Replacement theory, and these senators who literally kept saying, oh,
47:45
Speaker 2: social Security will help, which we know is dwind linked
47:49
Speaker 2: very quickly and it is pretty much non existent for
47:51
Speaker 2: any of us who want to retire at this point.
47:53
Speaker 2: I believe the boomers were the last to be able
47:55
Speaker 2: to really get anything from the Social Security administration. There's
48:01
Speaker 2: so much that we have to look at when we
48:04
Speaker 2: talk about this, because there it goes hand in hand
48:07
Speaker 2: when we talk about the declining of birth rates and
48:10
Speaker 2: as where again we're looking at other countries. We're looking
48:14
Speaker 2: at European countries who have a little better incentives and
48:18
Speaker 2: that kind of are willing to pay a lot more
48:21
Speaker 2: and it's costly, as me and will say, to make
48:25
Speaker 2: it better. There's many who won't do that here in
48:29
Speaker 2: the US. And in fact, again they're doing the opposite
48:31
Speaker 2: by kind of leaning towards China's policies, which is really
48:35
Speaker 2: funny and ironic right now to me, with trying to
48:40
Speaker 2: force a population boom, and it's working, and it's working
48:44
Speaker 2: and that's what's scary. But again, this seems to be
48:49
Speaker 2: have your cake and eat it to situation for both
48:52
Speaker 2: the politicians and corporations. And I will say some activists
48:55
Speaker 2: in the US have talked about similar tactics to those
48:58
Speaker 2: in other countries. I know those the Sex strike during
49:01
Speaker 2: a one point that was in talks talking about not
49:05
Speaker 2: having children, talking about not getting married, talking about some
49:09
Speaker 2: remaining single, which you know, I get it. But with
49:11
Speaker 2: what is happening, and as rights continued to be stripped,
49:16
Speaker 2: it will be likely that the decline will only continue.
49:20
Speaker 3: Because people are fed up.
49:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. I have at least two friends who have pretty
49:29
Speaker 1: much said the shop is closed, like they're just and
49:34
Speaker 1: it breaks my heart because like, if you want to
49:36
Speaker 1: have sex, if you want to have kids, it shouldn't be.
49:39
Speaker 1: But they've been like, as long as this, what is
49:42
Speaker 1: this is the situation, I'm not going to do it,
49:45
Speaker 1: which feels very upset. It's very upsetting, but it also
49:49
Speaker 1: feels kind of funny because I don't think that's what
49:52
Speaker 1: they wanted the outcome to right of these things. But
49:56
Speaker 1: that's what I've heard from multiple people.
49:58
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, right, cool, I will be interested to
50:01
Speaker 2: see what happens in the next couple of years, because
50:03
Speaker 2: we know that practancies due to rape has increased, which
50:08
Speaker 2: is horrifying. But at the same time, I don't know
50:11
Speaker 2: if it's just me, but I have getting more and
50:14
Speaker 2: more disturbing pieces about children's deaths, and some of them
50:20
Speaker 2: like literal I've just watched one, I guess the crime
50:24
Speaker 2: thing where a mom was so flustered because she could
50:29
Speaker 2: not financially provide, she did not trust her for the
50:35
Speaker 2: children's father to take care of them, and so gave
50:38
Speaker 2: them the best day and then unfortunately murdered them. I
50:42
Speaker 2: guess it's side and that's not the only case I've
50:45
Speaker 2: seen as of recently, I've seen more and more. I
50:48
Speaker 2: feel like this may honestly be a thing that we
50:53
Speaker 2: see because.
50:54
Speaker 3: Women are not seen.
50:55
Speaker 2: Again, we've talked about the fact that the abortion band
50:58
Speaker 2: is only going to kill women, but I don't think
51:00
Speaker 2: of people that can estimate the route of desperation that
51:05
Speaker 2: many people will have from these situations.
51:09
Speaker 3: Again, same thing with.
51:12
Speaker 2: Forced labor, force birth for those who have been molested
51:17
Speaker 2: and raped. Similar similar to that conversation of the desperation
51:21
Speaker 2: that you're not going to understand I'm horrified by what's happening.
51:25
Speaker 2: But I don't think any of these tactics are going
51:27
Speaker 2: to push to an increase in birth the way they
51:31
Speaker 2: think it will.
51:32
Speaker 1: Now. I don't think so either. There's so much, like
51:37
Speaker 1: really fundamental systemic things that have to change. I believe
51:41
Speaker 1: for people to.
51:42
Speaker 2: Write again, hello, having childcare, having money to feed yourself,
51:48
Speaker 2: having money to have a bedroom for your child, those
51:53
Speaker 2: are all things that are dictating whether or not we
51:55
Speaker 2: want to have children.
51:57
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, seems pretty obvious, you would.
52:03
Speaker 2: Think, But I feel like twenty twenty three South Korea
52:07
Speaker 2: really like, oh, I guess we should talk to those
52:09
Speaker 2: who can give birth what.
52:12
Speaker 1: Maybe we should ask them?
52:14
Speaker 2: Maybe we should maybe we should ask them. And then
52:16
Speaker 2: we have literally gone backwards in the US on how
52:20
Speaker 2: to handle it again again the pretenses we're saving lives.
52:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep. Well, well we have a lot of episodes
52:30
Speaker 1: about this. As you said, Samantha, it is related to
52:34
Speaker 1: a lot of other issues. This is another very intersectional thing.
52:39
Speaker 2: But yeah, Happy International Women's Day.
52:44
Speaker 1: Happy International Women's Day, Samantha, Good luck everybody of Gosh,
52:49
Speaker 1: I'm glad to spend it with you. I'm glad to
52:51
Speaker 1: spend it with you too, and I'm glad for anyone
52:55
Speaker 1: who joined us on this day or any other day.
52:57
Speaker 1: If you have any thoughts about this, please let us know.
53:00
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53:12
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53:15
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53:18
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