Lower Fertility and More Abortions are About Men Too



The conservative hand wringing about falling fertility rates blame women. Women are selfish or put their careers before motherhood it is said. This has ignored the role men must be playing in pregnancy and family planning. It seems likely men are joining women in wanting fewer children.

Surveys show that men now spend more time doing housework and caring for children than did previous generations. This surely has to do with women spending more time at work. The positive thing about this for today's men is that the pressure to earn is spread between the genders. Many men, perhaps the majority, prefer to work at their job fewer hours and spend more hours with family. We all know couples where the major bread winner is the woman. It is not always true the men in these family units want it to be the reverse.

The result is that efforts to reverse the decline in fertility will not be solved by the ideas often mentioned. That is, more time off for women after births, subsidies for childcare, tax breaks, etc. Whatever is offered up to increase the number of births will have to include something that benefits both men and women.

The economic and social changes from lower fertility cannot be avoided. There will be fewer people to care for older people like my wife and I. The entire service industry will be short of workers and those working there will demand and receive higher wages. Perhaps technology will offset some of this shortage, but the change seems inevitable.

It seems like there will be some advantages to lower fertility rates and eventually lower world population. Each of us does not environmental damage--the fewer of us the less damage. If fertility continues fall the future will be a challenging one, but maybe a better one., 


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