Opinion | Amanda Jean Stevenson: The feminist victory at the heart of America's falling fertility rate. - NBCNewsTHINK
Amanda Jean Stevenson, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder. A lot of this decline is probably because people are waiting until they feel ready to become parents. U.S. social policy has emphasized the importance of people's waiting to have children for decades.
Surely a country that prides itself on people's living their lives as they see fit would see this as a success?that far higher fractions of their births occurred before they wanted or after they had had as many children as they wanted, compared to women in other rich countries. As access to highly effective contraception in the U.S. has improved, this rate — and the difference between our rate and the rate in similar countries — has declined. Andto our falling fertility rates.
But no. Instead, this reproductive autonomy is decried as women's failing to fulfill our duty to the economy. Which is both callous and ironic, since choosing when you have children is a fundamental human right, and delaying childbearing until you are ready it is exactly what social programs have been promoting for decades.
Put simply, there's been a wildly successful campaign to convince women in the U.S. that it's our responsibility to plan our fertility. The message that we should have babies only when our lives are arranged just so, not before, and that if we plan well enough we will be able to achieve all our aspirations — financial stability, relationship dreams, educational goals, a good life — has sunk in.
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