The New York Times brought an opinion piece on the 16th of November by Anna Louie Sussman, who is a journalist that writes on gender, reproduction, and economics.
The above heading is introduced after the article has addressed how few men and women hit their target on desired family size, referencing a report covering 28 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, where women reported an average desired family size of 2.3 children in 2016, and men wished for 2.2.
With its welfare system etc. Denmark is highlighted as a country that should be stocked with babies, but only has a fertility rate at 1.7 births per woman, which is roughly on par with that of the US.
The article discusses several angles on the world-wide drop in fertility rates and gets well around the topic of Fertility Awareness that is also among the reproductive challenges that ReproUnion is addressing, with Dr. Søren Ziebe on the Scientific Board. In the article he comments: “Denmark’s fertility rate has been below replacement level — that is, the level needed to maintain a stable population — for decades. And the decline is not solely the result of more people deliberately choosing childlessness: Many patients in the fertility clinic are older couples and single women who want a family but may have waited until too late.”
According to Anna Louie Sussman the crisis in reproduction lurks in the shadows, but is visible if you look for it. It shows up each year that birthrates plumb a new low. It’s in the persistent flow of studies linking infertility and poor birth outcomes to nearly every feature of modern life — fast-food wrappers, air pollution, pesticides. The author further points out how conversations about reproduction and environmental sustainability have long overlapped and suggests that the conversation around reproduction can and should take on some of the urgency of the climate change debate.
Read the full article from The New York Times here
