“Across countries, higher gender equality is associated with lower birth rates. The theory goes like this: as women gain greater freedom and material prosperity, they become less dependent on men, and are therefore less likely to form long-term partnerships. Once reliable contraception is added to the equation, birth rates decline sharply,” wrote three Cambridge scholars in a joint study.
Presented this way, the argument can easily be read to mean that when women seek comfortable and independent lives, the result is demographic collapse. From there, one could conclude that if we want children to be born, we should deny girls an education, forbid women from traveling, or even prevent them from driving.
Even setting aside the moral implications, would such an approach actually work? I doubt it. A closer reading of both the quotation and the study itself shows that nowhere do the authors establish a clear causal relationship. They merely observe that these phenomena — greater female autonomy and low fertility — occur at the same time.
But which is the cause, and which the consequence? The more plausible explanation, I suspect, is the reverse of what the Cambridge authors imply. If people do not want children, they will not build the kinds of relationships suited to having and raising them. And if they have little interest in such relationships, that preference will inevitably shape the way they structure their lives and form their identities.
The real task, then, is to create conditions in which having and raising children is worthwhile — financially, socially, or through other tangible benefits. It is ultimately that simple. After all, the ideal is not high birth rates among illiterate women who lack access to contraception, but children being born to educated and self-confident women.