some choice paragraphs:
He [marx] understood very well that wage-earning children represent a burden to families when business cycle downturns put them out of work; it is less certain that he could envision a proletarian family whose decisions about household size would be made according to “the constraints of income, prices, taste and time,” such that children could be considered “consumer durables” or “household produced goods.”34 Above all, he did not imagine the role the modern welfare state would play in mediating social reproduction, or that retired workers would be left to fend for themselves, rather than being cared for by their own children and extended family.
Control over family size and the choice to reproduce must also, it warrants underlining, include the choice to have children as well. If in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa the particular ways in which households reproduce themselves do not allow women simply to choose smaller families, access to education and birth control notwithstanding, in the industrialized nations real wage compression and the high cost of raising children mean small families are not simply chosen, nor are they testimony to the unequivocal success women have had in gaining control over their bodies and their laboring capacities. We can be certain, however, that in the coming decades the purported “existential” threat posed by the prospect of demographic collapse will mean women and “feminism” will be singled out as scapegoats.
…
When “family-friendly” pronatalist policies—longer parental leave, child tax credits, subsidized child care, etc.—are deemed to have failed, a more punitive (i.e. American) approach might be adopted, in which women are denied access to abortion, and perhaps contraception altogether.36 A generalized and perhaps novel form of misogyny will likely be the result, with childless women shunned and shamed, not just by their communities, but directly by the state; under such conditions, violence against women, deemed narcissistic and against life, would be normalized.
…
But much of the demand for labor in the more developed countries is for in-person services, which cannot be relocated to Lagos or Accra.
I quite liked this piece little bit scarce on graphs, but seems grounded in reality
A generalized and perhaps novel form of misogyny will likely be the result, with childless women shunned and shamed, not just by their communities, but directly by the state; under such conditions, violence against women, deemed narcissistic and against life, would be normalized.
Social media is already there
these grumblings can be seen already, i think in south korea/japan this will come to fruition most rapidly (at the same time, as they haven’t done due diligence on the family safety net, they’ll try that first, but their problem is rather more acute than for euros, and thus may expedite that particular reaction).
Also obvious solution is immigration for all of those countries tbh, both due to climate and demographics.
(especially china, they can easily accept 3-4 million a year without noticing it, if they appropriately allocate workplaces)
China will need like 10 million immigrants a year by the latter half of the century.
I was kinda eyeballing by social capacity to absorb tbh, not economic or carrying capacity needs
i dont have time to read the whole piece rn but it seems foolish to think we can predict population growth 75 years out…
