History tells us that all freedoms are conditional. In 1920, the Soviet Union became the first country in the world to legalize abortion, as part of a socialist commitment to women’s health and well-being. Sixteen years later, that decision was reversed once Stalin was in power and realized that birth rates were falling.
The pressure on all nations to maintain their population levels has never gone away. But in 2025, that demographic crisis will become even more serious, and the victim will be gender rights. in both the USA and the United KingdomThe rate of birth of babies has been plummeting for 15 years. In Japan, Poland and Canada, the fertility rate has already dropped to 1.3. In China and Italy, it is 1.2. South Korea has the lowest level in the world, with 0.72. Research published by the medical journal The Lancet predicts that by 2100, almost every country on the planet It will not produce enough children to sustain its population size.
Much of this is because women have more access to contraceptives, are better educated than ever, and are pursuing careers that mean they are more likely to avoid or delay having children. Parents are investing more in each child they have. Fortunately, the patriarchal expectation that women should be little more than babysitters is breaking down.
But the original dilemma remains: how can countries produce more children? Governments have responded with pleas and incentives to encourage families to procreate. Hungary has income tax abolished for mothers under 30 years of age. In 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was spotted crying on television and urged the National Conference of Mothers to do its part to stop declining birth rates. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has backed a campaign to reach at least half a million births a year by 2033.
However, as these measures fail to have the desired effect, the pressure on women is taking a more sinister turn. Conservative pronatalist movements They are promoting old-fashioned nuclear families with many children, something that can only be achieved if women give birth earlier. This ideology reports at least in part on the devastating crackdown on abortion access in some US states. Anyone who thinks abortion rights have nothing to do with demographic concerns should keep in mind that in the summer of 2024, Republicans of the United States Senate also voted against making Contraception is a federal right.. This same worldview fuels the growing backlash against sexual and gender minorities, whose existence for some represents a threat to the traditional family. The most extreme pronatalists White supremacists and eugenicists are also included.
The more nations worry about birth rates, the greater the risk to gender rights. In China, for example, the government has taken a markedly anti-feminist stance in recent years. President Xi Jinping told a meeting of the All-China Women’s Federation in 2023 that women should “actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and motherhood.”
For now, most women can at least exercise some choice about whether, when, and how many children. But as fertility rates fall below replacement levels, it is unknown how far some nations can go to keep their population levels afloat. 2025 appears to be a year in which the election could well be taken away from them.