On 10/24/06, raghu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 10/24/06, Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> It seems to me that PEN-l men are unaware of the global prevalence of
> pro-natalist rhetoric. Men really don't know much about how women are
> treated in politics. Here's an example from Norway:
Not only is pro-natalist rhetoric and policies common in the West and
in Japan, such policies are also usually based on xenophobic
rationale.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4768644.stm
Yes. I was wondering throughout the worst period of deflation when
the Japanese power elite would really go neoliberal and perhaps import
more immigrant labor to expand the labor pool, but their xenophobia
was such that it even got the better of their profit motive, so they
didn't make any major pro-immigration policy, and after 9/11 things
got worse for immigrants. A better policy has been offered for women,
however, in the name of pro-natalism, though I believe it won't make
any impact on the fertility rate:
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/furuhashi311205.html#_edn15>.
Also none of this has any relevance to Iran: in Iran's case, pro-natal
policies are not justified by any demographic data as far as I know,
so Ahmedinejad's motives may be questionable.
Pro-natalism, which isn't a new discourse, existed in Europe even
before demographic data showed marked declines there. After the
Malthusian scare and before the rise of neoliberalism, it was common
for policy-makers to think in pro-natalist fashion, even though women
were having more children back then than they do now.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
