Best regards.
Also..one would imagine that a gay person is also less empowered than a heterosexual person. But you can't empower them by 'granting them education' or 'opening job markets'. A child is less empowered than an adult.
A handicapped person is less empowered than a relatively healthier and whole individual.
A child's empowerment comes from growing up. Etc.
So when you say that women's empowerment comes from education and job prospects, I have to conclude that you meant economic empowerment of women that would bring down population.
Which is a little confusing to me... How is giving women more access to wealth and taking them to economic parity with men going to make them want to procreate less?
In fact, it has only empowered more women to become single parents. Which has increased global population. Social nets have only encouraged people to want to increase the number of offsprings.
So there is a fundamental logical disconnect here. Staring down the abyss that is a resource constrained future world, we are only making things worse.
I am only even more convinced now that those who refrain from proceating should be incentivized and those who do have children should be facing the economic consequences of their choices.
A couple of points I want to address:
1. I don't think women's empowerment has anything to with ability to have kids or the ability to have the choice to do so. Since aeons, women not only have always had reproductive control but until recently were also able to pick the genetic contributor of their offsprings..and even go as far to conceal the identity of the father.
When I started researching old herbal books, there were so many ways women were able to claim their bodies that are simply lost to them in this day and age.
Secondly: we have a population of about 8 million now. The future is very crowded. To bring us to a comfortable carrying capacity, it will take 4-5 generations of draconian population control.
When I was younger, I studied in school about how women's education and empowerment would increase their opportunities in the world and how their reproductive window in time would shrink to fit in other enriching aspects of living.
And yet, population increased.
Even as more women enter the workforce, the biggest gripe is lack of child care or time off after child birth or not being able to compete with men because their having to be caregivers works against them.
This tells me that getting into workforce doesn't stop women from having children that they might have had if they weren't economically empowered.
If anything, employed women are forced to be 'super moms' saddled with guilt and high child care bills and a lot of other baggage. It tells me that empowerment must be decoupled from childbearing role of women.
Neither should be used to define how a woman feels.
Having said that(and as a woman), there is a certain biological imperative most women feel to be mothers. I don't think this would be changed by education or work or empowerment. To a large extent, it is individual. It is not a right. It is a choice. And all choices we make, we ought to be accountable for..
Next..tech and modern medical advancements have caused women even in their 40s and 50s to have children. Geriatric pregnancies are more common now as are IVF and surrogacy and genetic screenings etc.
I find it very interesting that with all the strides in women's empowerment, reduced mortality, longer life span and many other factors, population and desire to procreate hasn't waned. It tells me that unless having children..or more than one per person(or with a credit system) or incentivizing the childless, population won't hit the brakes.
What certainly doesn't work is subsidizing those who choose to have multiple children. If robots and AI take over mundane jobs and bigger jobs of running our world..if our life spans increases and our cells don't age as drastically, what is the need to keep adding to the world population especially when resources are constrained?
Thanks for your replies and indulging my curiosity re other pov. Regards.