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The Declining Birthrate · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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