August 1, 2024
DEPOK – Concern is growing about Indonesia’s declining fertility rate. However, the head of the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN), Hasto Wardoyo, has responded to this by proposing that every woman of reproductive age should give birth to a girl before she turns 35 in order to ensure Indonesia’s regeneration.
As is happening in many parts of the world, there is a rising trend of young people postponing marriage and starting a family. To address the issue, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo enacted Law No. 4/2024 on maternal and child welfare (KIA Law) that provides six-month maternity leave to allow women to exclusively breastfeed newborns.
House of Representatives Speaker Puan Maharani welcomed the law, saying it would strengthen the bond between mother and child and prevent stunting in children, which remains a challenge the country has yet to fully address.
However, like other controversial laws produced by the current administration, the KIA Law was drafted and passed without meaningful public consultation. It is also unclear what the government wants to achieve with the law.
The total fertility rate (TFR) for Indonesia is 2.14, which means that each woman gives birth to two children on average during her reproductive years. This rate is considered safe because each baby born will replace its parents (replacement level), and therefore the population will remain stable.
The government’s concern could be attributed to the general trend of declining fertility rates, particularly in Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. In some countries, childlessness has even become a trend.
TFR is not really a problem in Indonesia. The problem is the government’s response to the issue, which singles out women in the national fertility policy.
According to McDonald (2000), there are two ways to achieve a desired fertility rate. One is to dismantle gender equity so that women have much fewer opportunities in education and the jobs market. The other is to promote gender equity in social institutions related to the family, such as employment conditions, family policies and families themselves, so that women and men can combine work and childbearing.
The government’s response, however, reflects the first path: The woman is the main, if not the only, actor responsible for achieving a desired fertility rate. Women are not only encouraged to have more children, but also to have them by a certain age.
In setting 35 as the maximum age of childbearing, the BKKBN has neglected the finding of the Australia Indonesia Partnership for Economic Governance (AIPEG) that 40 percent of women quit their jobs to have a baby and return to full-time work by the age of 40.
Unlike parental leave, which is given to both mothers and fathers to encourage both parents to be responsible for raising their children, the KIA Law is more like “leave for mothers ” that disproportionately places the responsibility of childbearing and child-rearing on women. This might lead to a further decrease in women’s job opportunities in the near future and increase gender inequality in social institutions, as it perpetuates traditional, patriarchal values of the family.
Choosing this path is misleading because any country that wants to thrive and prosper needs the potentials and contributions of women, who make up half of the population, in both public life and the economy.
The exclusion of women from public life can be a sign of male superiority over the opposite sex, which is a setback.
Instead of viewing women as objects, they should be viewed as rational agents who calculate the costs and benefits of having children. In the long run, this government policy will actually encourage women to limit the number of children they have and the likelihood that they choose to remain single and childless.
If women still have to choose between having a career and a family, they are likely to limit the number of children they have, not only because of the cost of having more children but also because of the barrier to their economic security.
In addition, the traditional patriarchal family leaves most of the caring, emotional and domestic work to women, and the expansion of women’s role outside the family is not matched by expansion of men’s role in the family, leaving women with a double burden. Studies have found that low fertility stems from gender inequality in the family and in social institutions (McDonald, 2000; Yoon, 2016).
To encourage women to have more children, the government should make institutions related to the family more profitable for women. For example, Sweden, the paragon of family policies, did not aim to solve the fertility problem when issuing its policies but to support women’s economic participation, gender equality and social justice (Sobotka, 2013).
Childbearing and child-rearing are the responsibility of both parents and therefore, each of them is entitled to parental leave of 240 days, or eight months. To ensure fathers’ involvement, this leave cannot be transferred to the other parent (Ann-Zofie Duvander, 2008).
Despite high economic development and women’s participation in the workforce, Sweden has a relatively stable pattern of two-child families, thanks to gender equality in the family and social institutions.
It is true that many women want to be full-time mothers, which is a noble profession. However, career and family should not be a zero-sum choice for women.
As the saying goes, “It takes a village to raise a child,” and childbearing and child-rearing are not minor processes that can be borne by women alone. It requires policies that promote gender equity in social institutions that enable both women and men to reconcile work and family and provide a dignified life for their children.