Natalism
Encyclopedia
Natalism is a belief that promotes human reproduction
. The term is taken from the Latin adjective form for "birth", natalis. Natalism promotes child-bearing and glorifies parent
hood. It typically advocates policies such as limiting access to abortion
and contraception
, as well as creating financial and social incentives for the population to reproduce.
(with capitalized first letter by life stance orthography), which holds natalism as of ultimate importance
and everything else is only good to the extent it serves this purpose. The more moderate stance holds that there ought to be a higher rate of population growth
than what is currently mainstream in industrialized countries. Philosophic motivations for natalism may include that of considering value
in bringing potential future persons
into existence.
, Judaism
and some forms of Christianity
, such as Roman Catholicism
with its sacrament of marriage
, encourage procreation.
The Amish
are among the fastest-growing populations in the world, with an average of 6.8 children per family.
A recent movement among conservative Protestants, known as the Quiverfull movement
, advocates for large families.
. Swedish sociologists Alva Myrdal
and Gunnar Myrdal
published Crisis in the Population Question
in 1934, suggesting an extensive welfare state
with free healthcare and childcare, to level the number of children at a reproductive level for all social classes. Swedish fertility
rose throughout World War II (as Sweden was largely unharmed by the war
) and peaked in 1946.
Today, Sweden has generous family politics, as well as a growing population.
Many countries with population decline
offer incentives to the people to have large families as a means of national efforts to reverse declining populations. Some nations such as Japan
, Singapore
, South Korea
, and Taiwan
have implemented, or tried to implement, interventionist natalist policies, creating incentives for larger families among "native stock." Immigrants are generally not part of natalist policies.
Another government which has openly advocated natalism is the Islamic Republic of Iran, following a tremendous loss of their population to the Iran–Iraq War. The government encouraged married couples to produce as many children as possible to replace population lost to the war. As a result of this natalist attitude, Iran has experienced a youth bulge, with approximately 75% of its population under the age of 30 as of 2007.
Ceauşescu
's Communist Romania
severely repressed abortion
(the most common birth control
method at the time) in 1966 and forced gynecological revisions and penalizations for unmarried women and childless couples.
The birthrate surge taxed the public services received by the decreţei
("Scions of the decree [770]") generation.
The Romanian Revolution of 1989
was followed by a fall in population growth.
According to Tibetologist Melvyn Goldstein
, natalist feelings run high in China's Tibet region
, among both ordinary people and government officials. Seeing population control
"as a matter of power and ethnic survival" rather than in terms of ecological sustainability
, Tibetans have successfully argued for an exemption of their ethnicity
from usual Chinese family planning
policies, such as the one-child policy
. Natalist literature among the Tibetan exile community discourages sex with foreigners
, however it is not particularly successful.
In a 2004 New York Times editorial
, David Brooks
expressed the opinion that the relatively high birthrate of the United States in comparison to Europe could be attributed to social groups with "natalist" attitudes. The article is referred to in an analysis of the Quiverfull
movement. However, the figures identified for the demographic are extremely low.
Paid maternity and paternity leave policies
can also be used as an incentive. For example, Sweden has generous parental leave where parents are entitled to share 16 months paid leave per child, the cost divided between both employer and State.
Some countries offer a one off financial payment
to encourage couples to bear more children.
, depending on how they are structured and enforced.
Antinatalism may also be included in concern of overpopulation
and its effects, e.g. as a mitigation of global warming
and societal or moral decline.
However, natalism generally refers to the reproduction of the large-scale population.
Human reproduction
Human reproduction is any form of sexual reproduction resulting in the conception of a child, typically involving sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. During intercourse, the interaction between the male and female reproductive systems results in fertilization of the woman's ovum by the...
. The term is taken from the Latin adjective form for "birth", natalis. Natalism promotes child-bearing and glorifies parent
Parent
A parent is a caretaker of the offspring in their own species. In humans, a parent is of a child . Children can have one or more parents, but they must have two biological parents. Biological parents consist of the male who sired the child and the female who gave birth to the child...
hood. It typically advocates policies such as limiting access to abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
and contraception
Contraception
Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...
, as well as creating financial and social incentives for the population to reproduce.
Philosophy
The degree of natalism is individual; the extreme end is "Natalism" as a life stanceLife stance
A person's life stance, or lifestance, is their relation with what they accept as being of ultimate importance, the presuppositions and theory of this, and the commitments and practice of working it out in living....
(with capitalized first letter by life stance orthography), which holds natalism as of ultimate importance
Intrinsic value (ethics)
Intrinsic value is an ethical and philosophic property. It is the ethical or philosophic value that an object has "in itself" or "for its own sake", as an intrinsic property...
and everything else is only good to the extent it serves this purpose. The more moderate stance holds that there ought to be a higher rate of population growth
Population growth
Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....
than what is currently mainstream in industrialized countries. Philosophic motivations for natalism may include that of considering value
Value (ethics)
In ethics, value is a property of objects, including physical objects as well as abstract objects , representing their degree of importance....
in bringing potential future persons
Potential person
A potential person has been defined as an entity which is not currently a person but which is capable of developing into a person, given certain biologically and/or technically possible conditions...
into existence.
In religion
Many religions, including IslamIslam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and some forms of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, such as Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
with its sacrament of marriage
Sacraments of the Catholic Church
The Sacraments of the Catholic Church are, the Roman Catholic Church teaches, "efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper...
, encourage procreation.
The Amish
Amish
The Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...
are among the fastest-growing populations in the world, with an average of 6.8 children per family.
A recent movement among conservative Protestants, known as the Quiverfull movement
Quiverfull
Quiverfull is a movement among some conservative evangelical Christian couples chiefly in the United States, but with some adherents in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and elsewhere. It promotes procreation, and sees children as a blessing from God, eschewing all forms of birth control,...
, advocates for large families.
Natalistic politics
Nativity in the Western world dropped during the interwar periodInterwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
. Swedish sociologists Alva Myrdal
Alva
- People :*A. Shanker Alva , Indian politician and lawyer*Bartolomé de Alva , Novohispanic mestizo secular priest and Nahuatl translator*Jeevaraj Alva , Indian politician...
and Gunnar Myrdal
Gunnar Myrdal
Karl Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish Nobel Laureate economist, sociologist, and politician. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the...
published Crisis in the Population Question
Crisis in the Population Question
Crisis in the Population Question is a 1934 book by Alva and Gunnar Myrdal. It discussed the declining birthrate in Sweden and proposed possible solutions...
in 1934, suggesting an extensive welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
with free healthcare and childcare, to level the number of children at a reproductive level for all social classes. Swedish fertility
Demographics of Sweden
The demographics of Sweden is about the demographic features of the population of Sweden, including population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population...
rose throughout World War II (as Sweden was largely unharmed by the war
Sweden during World War II
Sweden during World War II maintained a policy of neutrality. When the Second World War began on September 1, 1939, the fate of Sweden was unclear...
) and peaked in 1946.
Today, Sweden has generous family politics, as well as a growing population.
Many countries with population decline
Population decline
Population decline can refer to the decline in population of any organism, but this article refers to population decline in humans. It is a term usually used to describe any great reduction in a human population...
offer incentives to the people to have large families as a means of national efforts to reverse declining populations. Some nations such as Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
have implemented, or tried to implement, interventionist natalist policies, creating incentives for larger families among "native stock." Immigrants are generally not part of natalist policies.
Another government which has openly advocated natalism is the Islamic Republic of Iran, following a tremendous loss of their population to the Iran–Iraq War. The government encouraged married couples to produce as many children as possible to replace population lost to the war. As a result of this natalist attitude, Iran has experienced a youth bulge, with approximately 75% of its population under the age of 30 as of 2007.
Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
's Communist Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
severely repressed abortion
Abortion in Romania
Abortion in Romania is legal during the first 14 weeks of the pregnancy. Abortions during later stages of pregnancy are legal only when the woman's life is at risk...
(the most common birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
method at the time) in 1966 and forced gynecological revisions and penalizations for unmarried women and childless couples.
The birthrate surge taxed the public services received by the decreţei
Decreţei
Decreţei are Romanian children born in the 1960s and 70s, shortly after the communist regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu issued Decree 770...
("Scions of the decree [770]") generation.
The Romanian Revolution of 1989
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
was followed by a fall in population growth.
According to Tibetologist Melvyn Goldstein
Melvyn Goldstein
Melvyn C. Goldstein is a US-American anthropologist and Tibet scholar. His research focuses on Tibetan society, history and contemporary politics, population studies, polyandry, studies in cultural and development ecology, economic change and cross-cultural gerontology.-Personal...
, natalist feelings run high in China's Tibet region
Tibet Autonomous Region
The Tibet Autonomous Region , Tibet or Xizang for short, also called the Xizang Autonomous Region is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China , created in 1965....
, among both ordinary people and government officials. Seeing population control
Population control
Human population control is the practice of artificially altering the rate of growth of a human population.Historically, human population control has been implemented by limiting the population's birth rate, usually by government mandate, and has been undertaken as a response to factors including...
"as a matter of power and ethnic survival" rather than in terms of ecological sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
, Tibetans have successfully argued for an exemption of their ethnicity
Tibetan people
The Tibetan people are an ethnic group that is native to Tibet, which is mostly in the People's Republic of China. They number 5.4 million and are the 10th largest ethnic group in the country. Significant Tibetan minorities also live in India, Nepal, and Bhutan...
from usual Chinese family planning
Family planning
Family planning is the planning of when to have children, and the use of birth control and other techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques commonly used include sexuality education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and...
policies, such as the one-child policy
One-child policy
The one-child policy refers to the one-child limitation applying to a minority of families in the population control policy of the People's Republic of China . The Chinese government refers to it under the official translation of family planning policy...
. Natalist literature among the Tibetan exile community discourages sex with foreigners
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
, however it is not particularly successful.
In a 2004 New York Times editorial
Editorial
An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...
, David Brooks
David Brooks (journalist)
David Brooks is a Canadian-born political and cultural commentator who considers himself a moderate and writes for the New York Times...
expressed the opinion that the relatively high birthrate of the United States in comparison to Europe could be attributed to social groups with "natalist" attitudes. The article is referred to in an analysis of the Quiverfull
Quiverfull
Quiverfull is a movement among some conservative evangelical Christian couples chiefly in the United States, but with some adherents in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and elsewhere. It promotes procreation, and sees children as a blessing from God, eschewing all forms of birth control,...
movement. However, the figures identified for the demographic are extremely low.
Paid maternity and paternity leave policies
Parental leave
Parental leave is an employee benefit that provides paid or unpaid time off work to care for a child or make arrangements for the child's welfare. Often, the term parental leave includes maternity, paternity, and adoption leave...
can also be used as an incentive. For example, Sweden has generous parental leave where parents are entitled to share 16 months paid leave per child, the cost divided between both employer and State.
Some countries offer a one off financial payment
Baby Bonus
The Baby Bonus is a government payment to parents of a newborn baby or adopted child to assist with the costs of childrearing.- Australia :The government of Andrew Fisher introduced a baby bonus of £5 per child in late 1912. The bonus was available irrespective of marital status and could also be...
to encourage couples to bear more children.
Antinatalism
Official anti or pro-natalist policies can be oppressive of reproductive rightsReproductive rights
Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows:...
, depending on how they are structured and enforced.
Antinatalism may also be included in concern of overpopulation
Overpopulation
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...
and its effects, e.g. as a mitigation of global warming
Mitigation of global warming
Climate change mitigation is action to decrease the intensity of radiative forcing in order to reduce the potential effects of global warming. Mitigation is distinguished from adaptation to global warming, which involves acting to tolerate the effects of global warming...
and societal or moral decline.
Egoistic natalism
Although generally it refers to humanity as a whole, one variant of natalism promotes self-reproduction, even if it may inhibit other people's reproduction. For instance, some men have used their own sperm to artificially inseminate women, without their consent, and egoistic natalism may have been the motive.However, natalism generally refers to the reproduction of the large-scale population.
See also
- Breeder (slang)Breeder (slang)"Breeder" is a denigrating term for heterosexuals used in LGBT slang. It is often used pejoratively.The use in homosexual groups is drawn from the fact that their sexual activity cannot lead to reproduction, where as heterosexual sexual intercourse can, with implicit mocking by connotation of...
- Cannon fodderCannon fodderCannon fodder is an informal, derogatory term for military personnel who are regarded or treated as expendable in the face of enemy fire. The term is generally used in situations where soldiers are forced to deliberately fight against hopeless odds in an effort to achieve a strategic goal...
- ChildbirthChildbirthChildbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
- Gender selection
- Nationalist
- Nativist
- Phillip LongmanPhillip LongmanPhillip Longman is an American demographer. Presently he is a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, and he formerly worked as a senior writer and deputy assistant managing editor at U.S...
(author of The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity) - Parental leaveParental leaveParental leave is an employee benefit that provides paid or unpaid time off work to care for a child or make arrangements for the child's welfare. Often, the term parental leave includes maternity, paternity, and adoption leave...
- PopulationPopulationA population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
- Population controlPopulation controlHuman population control is the practice of artificially altering the rate of growth of a human population.Historically, human population control has been implemented by limiting the population's birth rate, usually by government mandate, and has been undertaken as a response to factors including...
- Population decline#National efforts to reverse declining populations
- QuiverfullQuiverfullQuiverfull is a movement among some conservative evangelical Christian couples chiefly in the United States, but with some adherents in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and elsewhere. It promotes procreation, and sees children as a blessing from God, eschewing all forms of birth control,...
- Sub-replacement fertility#The American exception