{"id":876,"date":"2015-12-21T08:00:24","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T12:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/?p=876"},"modified":"2015-12-21T08:00:24","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T12:00:24","slug":"gender-equality-and-population-growth-what-china-and-europe-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/blog-posts\/gender-equality-and-population-growth-what-china-and-europe-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender Equality and Population Growth: What China and Europe Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-877\" src=\"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/gender-equality-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"gender equality\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/gender-equality-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/gender-equality.jpg 267w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/>China\u2019s recent announcement that more families will be allowed to have a second child ended the one-child policy in effect in China since 1980. When the one-child policy was implemented, China\u2019s leaders were desperate to control their population\u2019s growth. With 1.2 billion people, or one-quarter of the world\u2019s population, and a third-world economy, they worried that they could not continue to feed everyone and improve the standard of living for all Chinese people if they didn\u2019t slow the rate of population growth. They succeeded on all counts, and now, thirty-five years later, as the second-largest economy in the world, China is facing a problem that many European countries are also facing\u2014aging populations and not enough babies to replace or support them.\nBut studies show that passing laws to encourage higher birthrates are not particularly effective. Steven Erlanger of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/11\/10\/world\/europe\/as-china-and-europe-age-path-to-more-children-lies-beyond-bedroom.html?_r=0\"><em>New York Times<\/em><\/a> notes that countries with healthy birthrates have the following social forces engaged:\n\n\n<ul>\n\t\n\n<li>Gender equality<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Trust within society<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Immigration by people of childbearing age<\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\nBecause China has none of these social forces in effect, their fertility rate is not likely to go up very much, and they are likely to face population-aging problems on a scale never before seen.\nWhat has gender equality got to do with higher fertility rates? The Nordic countries of Europe, along with France, were able to reverse their birthrates after they hit a low point in the 1960s and 1970s. Erlanger explains that the birthrates went up \u201cbecause of social policies and attitudes in those countries promoting gender equality,\u201d including paid parental leave and childcare support. In other Western European countries\u2014like Germany, who did not institute these policies\u2014the birthrates are still very low.\nOne example of the impact of social policies on birthrates of is offered by Professor Francesco Billari of Oxford University, cited by Erlanger in his article. Billari uses Italy as an example where the trends have reversed between the richer North and the poorer South because of differences in social policy. The fertility rate is now higher in Northern Italy where women have more gender equality and job opportunities than in the South. Women in the poorer South, where there is high unemployment, more traditional gender-based divisions of labor, and \u201clack of female participation in the labor force,\u201d are having fewer children than in the past. Russia, Central Europe, and East Asia are other examples of low birthrate countries and regions where there is a lack of gender equality, small numbers of working women, and few social policies to support working families.\nProfessor Billari goes on to note that social policy that promotes gender equality and support for working families \u201chas to be pushed by a society that is ready for it or demands it from politicians.\u201d\nEspecially during this election cycle, let\u2019s demand that our politicians do more to promote gender equality and support working families!\n&nbsp;\nImage provided courtesy of arztsamui at FreeDigitalPhotos.net]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[100,225,230,457,551,612,630,632],"class_list":["post-876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","tag-china","tag-gender","tag-gender-equality","tag-politics","tag-stereotypes","tag-women","tag-working-families","tag-working-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}