AI Brief
- Declining birth rates often unfairly blame childless individuals, especially women, reinforcing societal pressure.
- "Childless" implies lack, while "childfree" is empowering, though labels complicate demographic analysis.
- Focus on solving issues like job insecurity and gender inequality, while respecting reproductive choices.
The debate over falling birth rates has taken centre stage worldwide, with some people vilifying those who choose to not have children.
The debate over family size has become contentious, particularly in Europe, Asia and, most recently, the US presidential race.
The controversy sparked by Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance's disparaging use of the phrase "childless cat ladies" highlights a deeper issue: the language we use to describe those without children and the societal pressures they face.
This discourse often places the blame for low fertility rates on specific groups in Asia, particularly young people and feminists.
Men, and especially women who have no children, have found themselves in the firing line across Southeast and East Asia — the region with the highest number of people without children.
Labels such as "herbivores" for young Japanese men uninterested in dating, or the "silver tsunami" for ageing populations, reinforce harmful stereotypes.
According to research in Taiwan, people without children are perceived to be a "national security risk", while in South Korea younger women are blamed for chasing individualism and a "hedonistic lifestyle" over family obligations.
In Malaysia, choosing not to reproduce has variously been labelled as "unacceptable" by a religious affairs minister and even something that can, according to the National Security Council, lead to "conflict and crisis".
Across the region, people without children are targets of pronatalist policies, but also stigma. Even common greetings are based on the assumption that every adult woman in most Asian countries is expected to be heterosexual, married and likely a mother.
In fact, women with no children were less stigmatised in the past than today.
The term "childless" itself is problematic, as it suggests a lack or something missing, similar to being "homeless" or "friendless".
This negative connotation fails to capture the reality of those who actively choose not to have children. It also adds an unnecessary rhetorical burden to people who might long for children but are unable to have them.
The problems with labels
Studies have shown that in recent decades, the term "childfree", or "childfree by choice" has gained traction as a more positive, but also a more accurate term. It recognises the autonomy and freedom behind this decision.
Defining everyone without children as "childless" does not reflect the various options, choices and pathways which people's reproductive careers take across their lives.
It is, of course, empowering to choose your own label, even if - as recent research has revealed - some people don't seem to care so much how they are labelled or how they refer to themselves.
Indeed, these labels can be owned and embraced such as the concept of "lying flat" (躺平) in China, which is regarded as passive-aggressive resistance to the societal expectation of having a high-pressure career.
But, it could be argued that this self-identification can make it harder for governments and other organisations to accurately classify populations. While labels such as "childfree" may empower some, they also complicate demographic analysis.
In multilingual contexts, these terms can lose meaning or fail to translate, making it difficult to count or categorise populations accurately.
However, people don't need to rely on these labels to understand family size. Instead, simply describe people by the number of children they have, without attaching any value-laden terms.
There needs to be more than this label change to affect the discourse around the acceptability of different family sizes. This can only occur when the overall narrative surrounding demographic changes.
The obsession with classifying people based on their reproductive choices feeds into a larger narrative that vilifies those who don't conform to societal norms.
This narrative has roots in historical fears about population growth, which have justified controlling women's reproductive rights for centuries.
When defining policy solutions to changing demographic circumstances, it is much more helpful to stop blaming people and instead address the real challenges ahead of us.
This involves looking holistically at how population ageing, growth and decline will variously impact economies and societies.
Instead of vilifying those who don't meet societal expectations of an ideal family size, more focus could be placed on the real challenges posed by demographic shifts.
This includes addressing issues such as family and fertility policies, job insecurity, education, gender inequality, and, in some societies, the pressures of Confucian familism (a belief that prioritises family over individual needs and desires).
Respecting people's reproductive choices and changing the language used to discuss family size is a necessary first step.
The Programme of Action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development states that everyone has the "right to choose the number, spacing and timing of the birth of their children".
Governments and everyone else can not only respect this right but also support families in achieving their reproductive goals, regardless of perceived societal expectations.
Stuart Gietel-Basten is a professor of Social Science and Public Policy at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He researches the causes and consequences of demographic change in Asia, with a special focus on ageing, low fertility rates and population policy.
