It’s about time – a pro-natalist NGO

November 11, 2024 11 Reactions

Katalin Novák is a pro-natalist force of nature. She deserves maximum kudos for implementing sweeping profamily measures in Hungary. Now she’s going global.

As Mercator readers know (see here, here and here) Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán takes a no holds barred approach to boosting fertility. For years Ms Novák was at his side as Hungary’s foremost pro-family advocate, first as a Member of Parliament, then Minister of Family Affairs and later as President. By age 44 she was the youngest ever and the first female president of Hungary.

Under the leadership of President Orbán she pursued a broadscale pro-natalist program.

Over 14 years his [Orbán’s] government has built a system of “carefare” measures to encourage parenthood that amounts to more than 5 per cent of national GDP. Couples can apply for “baby grants” of £21,000, equal to five years’ worth of the national minimum wage. Tax breaks for parents increase in generosity as they have more children: women with four or more offspring are exempt from tax. They also progressively write off mortgage deposits with each new baby and can obtain low-interest loans and grants from the state for houses, cars and other items.

At the same time, the government has trumpeted a staunchly traditionalist vision of the nuclear family, lionising heterosexual parenthood and campaigning against LGBT “propaganda”.

These measures have been somewhat effective. In 2003 Hungary’s TFR bottomed out at 1.29. It rose to 1.61, declined after Covid to 1.55, though is projected to slowly increase. Such initiatives, if they succeed at all, could take generations.

Earlier this year a political crisis roiled Hungary. To mark Pope Francis’s 2023 visit, the government had issued pardons to 25 convicts. One of them turned out to be a former state official who participated in the coverup of a superior’s paedophilia. When that came to light there was understandable outrage. As it happened on their watch, both Ms Novák and the Minister of Justice resigned.

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Pro-natalist NGO

As former President, Ms Novák could have left public life, traded on government contacts and scored a cozy corporate sinecure. Instead, she is CEO and co-founder, with British pro-natalist Stephen J. Shaw, of an NGO called X·Y Worldwide.

Mr. Shaw is an ‘energizer bunny’ in pro-natalist circles. His most compelling documentary Birthgap – Childless World is having a global impact. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it.

X·Y Worldwide is an NGO “dedicated to solving the world's collapsing Birth rates – the biggest threat to humanity of our time.” Ms Novák understands that starting a family is not all about money:

Financial incentives are necessary but insufficient. It’s important to eliminate the financial disadvantage for those raising children, but starting a family is at least as much an emotional decision as a rational one.

Culture is a key element. If a childless life is portrayed as a childfree status with more possibilities, freedom, money and potential, and family life as something problematic, full of resignation, compromise, sorrow, pain and worry, then why would young people find it attractive?

Culture means values, and manifests as ethos, zeitgeist, priorities and popular consensus. Multitudes duteously hew to tried-and-true family mores melded through millennia and the faith that forges them. But the age of globalism suppresses healthy instincts, relegating family to a commodity on the produce-and-consume treadmill, aka mammon worship.

People wonder why families are not affordable. Mightn’t folks also wonder why, that contemporaneously, wealth is increasingly concentrated in the pockets of globalist elites? This is the inevitable, glaringly obvious consequence of cut-throat crony capitalism, aka globalist economics. A far cry from free enterprise capitalism, it is a teetering top-heavy status quo riding for a fall. Discontent abounds. Little wonder that rumblings of counterrevolution reverberate throughout the West. Rather than seek understanding or accommodation, elites vilify the restless rabble as “racist,” “deplorables” and “garbage.”

Ever wonder why people are turning away from the mob of milquetoast mediocrities that are today’s political class? There are auspicious indications, including election results, that family-friendly folks are catching on about these things. Let’s hope that X·Y Worldwide is part of that.

Going global

X·Y Worldwide launched with a fact-finding mission to the Far East, visiting South Korea, the poster child for falling fertility, with a total fertility rate (TFR) of 0.72. Mr. Shaw:

In places like South Korea births are now on track to halve every 20 years. Imagine 100 South Koreans today: they would have just four great-grandchildren. That’s a 96 per cent reduction in three generations. South Korea’s experience might serve as a warning to the world that the future we think we can maintain is simply unsustainable in times of falling birthrates.

They also visited Japan, with a TFR just under 1.3. Japan’s population peaked in 2009 at 128,117,00 and has since declined 4.3 percent.

Whenever the average Joe finally realizes that population collapse is problematic, no one can say that we weren’t warned. X·Y Worldwide:

What is remarkable is that mothers are having the same family sizes as mothers did decades ago. In 1970, mothers in Japan were having 2.2 children—the same as today. In the UK, mothers in 1970 were having 2.4 children—again, the same as today. And in the US, mothers are now having slightly more children; it was 2.4 in the 1980s, and that has risen to 2.6. The idea that people are having smaller families in recent times is a myth.

The common factor across all these nations is an explosion in childlessness.

The rise in Unplanned Childlessness across the industrialized world and beyond is closely linked to delayed parenthood. As the societal norm shifts toward having children later and later, fewer women find themselves able to have the families they hope for.

Again: Mothers have as many, or slightly more children than they did 20 years ago. It is just that fewer women are becoming mothers.

While we often hear about unplanned pregnancy, there is the much more profound social pandemic of unplanned childlessness. We see it all around us. People are hesitant to discuss, as it doesn’t jive with narratives about career, bodily autonomy and such. However, that is changing. Our world is in upheaval on many fronts. Out of this turmoil, could pro-natalism become a driving force in tomorrow’s popular culture?

One final note: reports are that Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, Ms Novák and Elon Musk have discussed Mr. Musk becoming a financial supporter of X·Y Worldwide. Let’s hope that happens. It would be wonderful to welcome a billionaire aboard.

Is the increasing concern about decreasing fertility just fake news?

Louis T. March has a background in government, business, and philanthropy. A former talk show host, author, and public speaker, he is a dedicated student of history and genealogy. Louis lives with his family in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Image credit: Katalin Novák / flickr

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Emberson Fedders commented 2024-11-14 15:54:57 +1100

My two favourite season, Mrs Cracker!
Paul Bunyan commented 2024-11-14 12:19:24 +1100

Pro-natalist campaigners are always eager to increase the birth rate, but very reluctant to feed, clothe, house and educate everyone who’s already here.
mrscracker commented 2024-11-14 12:01:58 +1100

Thank you, that’s right. Autumn here and spring below the equator. 🙂
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-11-14 10:59:19 +1100

Grey skies here, but kind of humid, Mrs Cracker. ’Tis spring!

They do sound like good options for people. But this issue is huge and on-going. I feel that only the government has the ways and means to change the way people approach having families.
mrscracker commented 2024-11-13 23:26:49 +1100

Good morning Mr. Fedders. It’s stormy here. I hope your weather is more cheerful.
🙂
Call center and administrative jobs are increasingly done at home in the States. They are working class employment and do not require any college.
Even though the pay isn’t huge you can save quite a bit on vehicle, clothing, child care and other expenses by working remotely in those jobs. Not to mention housing costs. A great many young couples have relocated to smaller towns and rural areas to find more affordable housing and through remote work from home they don’t need to worry about how far a commute they might have to work.

Whenever I mention our local housing options like mobile homes, commenters from other parts of the globe or other cultures object but trailers really do provide economical housing for couples starting out. My grandpa lived in a little trailer and my aunt lived with her son in a camper trailer. They loved it.
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-11-13 17:11:39 +1100

Stay-at-home options certainly are an option in the white-collar world, Mrs Cracker, but I would suggest for the huge swathe of the lower class and working poor this is simply not realistic.

I think it IS the role of governments to provide support. It is in their best interests to get people having children. Businesses cannot be relied on to do the right thing.
mrscracker commented 2024-11-13 02:24:21 +1100

If people simply had two children to replace themselves, we’d be ok. But the developed world isn’t doing that.
I don’t believe it’s the govt’s place to pay mothers to stay home Mr. Fedders but businesses & institutions could certainly make it easier for parents-both men & women-to work remotely from home while their children are young. One of my children does that & they’ve found no need to go back to the office. All their work can be accomplished from home.
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-11-12 10:57:09 +1100

I think it mostly comes down to economics. People hoping to increase the birth rate are failing to see that to survive in the western world, a household needs a double income. Obviously, the cost of everything has gone up, but housing alone has become so unaffordable, it is preventing people from having more than two children.

Western governments are easily wealthy enough to pay for people (mothers) to stay at home and raise children, they just don’t want to.
mrscracker commented 2024-11-11 23:20:51 +1100

God bless Hungary for at least trying. Hopefully something will make a difference but I don’t think it’s just going to be tax incentives.
Paul Bunyan commented 2024-11-11 18:57:51 +1100

Unless you’re willing to pay people $2400 a day, tax-free, to raise children, I don’t think you’ll see much of an increase in the birth rate.

In any case, the infant mortality rate has fallen precipitously in the past few decades. Since children are much more likely to make it to adulthood, fewer couples are having 12 children in the hopes that 3 or 4 would survive.
Louis T. March published this page in The Latest 2024-11-11 17:24:54 +1100

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