Destroyers of the future

What is the danger of the ideas of the childfree movement 

A personal choice that affects the whole world. Experts are sure that ideas like childfree (promoting an unwillingness to have children) are planted intentionally, and the movement itself threatens the future of all mankind.

President Aleksandr Lukashenko,

“The Western childfree trend. Any popularisation of the ideas of childfree families in our information and cultural space should be suppressed. Any such veiled appeals, as well as all non-traditional trends, is nothing but an attempt to depopulate and weaken the state. No less. Such ideology should be outlawed. The cult of a full-fledged family with two or more children should be the lifestyle of Belarusians. There should be much more of us, Belarusians. This is the most important condition for sovereignty.” 

   From the annual Address to the Belarusian people and the National Assembly on March 31st, 2023

New challenge to the world

For the first time, childfree as a single movement was assessed in the 1970s after the publication of a large study by Canadian sociologist Jean Veevers. She studied families who consciously refused to have children and presented them as a kind of phenomenon. And, as often happens with any new idea, the philosophy began to take root and acquire fans. 
Today, this movement has acquired a threatening global demographic scope. 
“It is possible that in the future many more people will voluntarily remain childless, and we will have a sustained low birth rate,” Deputy Director of the Vienna Institute of Demography Tomasz Sobotka says. 
“European society faces a new challenge — childfree movement. They create communities on the Internet, communicate on forums and chats, distribute articles in the electronic media that promote the ideology of voluntary childlessness and describe the benefits of childfree. It is obvious that the spread of such an ideology causes indignation and protest on the part of a society that preserves traditional family values,” the Doctor of Sciences from Spain Tobias Macho writes in his scientific work.
According to the Spanish researcher, the relatively new phenomenon of ‘maternity regret’ also contributes to the development of the childfree ideology and supports it, “Many believe that the spread of ideas of voluntary childlessness can significantly affect the formation of youth values and cause demographic crises in Europe and other countries.”

Issue that divided America

The close correlation between childlessness (mostly conscious and deliberate, based on the primordial American love of individual freedom) and high population density created essentially two different Americas. One is aimed at children and offers affordable neighbourhoods and urban centres, the other over the past 30 years has become increasingly expensive and settled by the childless. Almost half of all households in Manhattan are now single. According to statistics, over the past decade in San Francisco, Boston, New York and other major cities, there has been much fewer children’s laughter. Seattle, once known as a robust family city, is now home to many more dogs than children. 
“Amid this shift, the childless and even the partnerless life has gained something of a cultural cachet, with some suggesting they represent not just a legitimate choice but a superior one,” the American researcher Chris Leinberger concludes.
Single and childless couples are America’s emerging household of the future, says demographer Wendell Cox, “This has led to calls for creating ever-smaller apartments intended for single professionals, an impulse that has gained the support of mayors including New York’s Michael Bloomberg.”
A new Pew Research Centre survey shows a growing proportion of American adults who are not yet parents say they are unlikely to ever have children. Their reasons range from simply not wanting to have children to fears about climate and environmental change. In this case, it is not entirely clear who and how will provide, for example, the old age of those 14 million Americans who, according to Neurology magazine, will suffer from Alzheimer’s disease by 2050. After all, the cost of their treatment, according to experts, can exceed $1 trillion. 
However, while some American politicians are adjusting to the whims of the childless, others, call for paying more attention to stimulating the birth rate in the country, realising the danger of such a phenomenon. 
In addition, in Europe, scientists are beginning to timidly declare a threat to democracy that comes from the childless. Sociologists have found that people who do not have children are less likely to take part in elections. 
This fact, coupled with a decline in European interest in participating in political processes, can significantly complicate the situation in the future. 

Threat to the financial system

The economic aspect is of great importance in this matter. If the childfree movement continues to develop, there is a risk of a demographic hole. 

The smaller the population, the more difficult it will be for the economy and the government to cope with obligations to citizens. After all, an increase in the number of pensioners and a decrease in the number of working-age citizens will lead to an increase in the amount of taxes that those same working adults will have to pay.
 And this, in turn, can cause an economic collapse. Governments in all countries are also thinking about this. By the way, experts say that demographic problem is already visible, including in the economic problems that Germany and Japan are experiencing today. 

What will happen to the population of the world 

According to UN forecasts, the main population growth by 2050 will be in Africa. Africa shows the highest growth rates compared to other major regions. The population of sub-Saharan Africa will double by 2050. The researchers do not specify whether this happens due to the lack of dissemination of childfree ideas there. 
The opposite trend is observed in 61 countries where the population is expected to decrease by 2050. In 26 countries, it will be reduced by 10 percent. In a number of states, including Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia, Ukraine, Croatia and Japan, the population will decline by more than 15 percent by 2050. Today, the birth rate in all European countries is below the minimum level (2.1 children per woman) necessary to ensure the reproduction of the population in the long term. At the same time, in some countries, the birth rate has been below this mark for several decades.
Lyman Stone, Research Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and CIO at Demographic Intelligence research firm, points out that the extremely low fertility scenario that has plagued some societies for decades, after a long delay, seems to be coming to America as well, “The prediction of high childlessness is likely to become a reality, even if wise policy decisions can reverse the curve for a generation of women born in the 2000s or 2010s. And this is what modern society needs to think about and what needs to be influenced.”

However
Scientists agree that the creation of comfortable conditions for motherhood and childhood is the best barrier to promotion of childfree ideas. In Belarus, this issue has long been given close attention. So, in our country, a young mother can count on a paid sick leave of 126 calendar days and leave to care for a child up to 3 years old. The state also pays an allowance at the birth of a baby and a monthly allowance for the care of a child for three years. Families with many children are also entitled to maternity capital.

 By Svetlana Isaenok