I'm posting this in honor of International Women's Day which is Mar. 8.
Feb. 14, 2023 "Opinion: Canadian women want more children than they're having": Today I found this article by Andrea Mrozek on the Financial Post:
“Where are all the children?” My three-year-old recently asked this after we arrived at the park. Fair question, kid. All too often the swings hang empty, pot shops have replaced ice cream parlours and stores are void of little feet.
Though low fertility gained some attention during COVID, when fertility fell even further, we mostly avoid the topic or assume the long-term decline is a good thing.
Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t. But a recent survey shows it is not quite what women want. Cardus tasked the Angus Reid Group with asking 2,700 Canadian women how many children they wanted.
We found that nearly half end their reproductive years with fewer children than they desire. On average, Canadian women want to have 2.2 children, but only try for 1.9. I
n fact, our fertility rate misses both desires and intentions by quite a lot, sitting at just 1.4 children per woman.
The dominant cultural tendency to pretend low fertility is always a gift misses the mark of what women actually experience and think, according to this survey.
The question of why women wait to have children — sometimes indefinitely — is complex.
Among women under 30 who want children, the top six reasons given for not planning to have one in the next two years include:
wanting to grow as a person,
saving money,
focusing on career,
believing kids require intense care,
and — tied —
having no suitable partner
and wanting more leisure.
Many of these replies sound reasonable — until you think them through.
Who could quibble with a desire for personal growth, for example?
Except that saying it is a barrier to fertility implies having children is incompatible with growth.
Many a parent would beg to differ.
Some of the strongest personal growth emerges from the need to support small, developing humans.
True, though, it’s not a money-maker nor is it likely to land you on a “top 40 under 40” list.
The poll responses point to a cultural life script that prioritizes
education,
money
and work.
Autonomy, not interdependence.
By the time we complete years of expensive schooling, we need to focus on career both for personal satisfaction and to pay off debt.
“No suitable partner” is another obvious barrier to having children: fertility is still correlated with marriage, which we’re also increasingly postponing.
It is worth noting that some of the more popular policy solutions didn’t register as a barrier to having children, however.
“No childcare availability” was a low-ranking concern.
Childcare costs ranked higher, but still weren’t near the top 10 most common reasons given
by women who want,
but aren’t having, more children.
As it turns out, women’s happiness in life is tied tightly to fertility. The survey confirmed that mothers report greater happiness than non-mothers everywhere, except when under 25 or living in poverty.
Both “excess” and “missing” children reduce happiness, the survey shows.
The biggest hit comes from “excess” children but the share of these women is very much smaller than the share with “missing” children.
Having fewer kids than they’d like is a much more common influence on women’s happiness than having too many.
Yet society remains predominantly concerned with preventing childbearing.
The message that children are a burden starts young.
Well-intended efforts to avoid teen pregnancy often overplay the difficulties associated with having a baby.
Many women only come to realize that having children cannot quite be controlled in timing or number through the pain of infertility or miscarriage.
Women’s organizations aim for equal numbers of women and men in workplaces and politics but few worry about women achieving family goals.
“Girl power” messaging shouts through a loudspeaker that this mundane thing called family can happen but meaning and recognition come from elsewhere.
Trying to achieve that kind of recognition before having children may steal a woman’s most fertile years.
We seem trapped in old-school feminist philosophies about what it means to achieve the good life, only to find that life satisfaction eludes us.
I am willing to say that low fertility is a problem.
People are walking miracles, no more so than when they are tiny and unaware of how to show off.
This is an issue we must address head on.
Governments can do their part but it is difficult to see any policy having success without cultural change.
Setting a simple goal of acknowledging that Canadian women would like to have more children than we do is a start. When we establish this as a known fact of Canadian fertility — well, then we might just begin to answer the question of where all the children are.
Andrea Mrozek is a senior fellow at Cardus, the think-tank.
Canadian women want more children than they're having: opinion | Financial Post
"As it turns out, women’s happiness in life is tied tightly to fertility."
OMG. I can hear the post-modern feminist activists heads exploding. Come on Andrea, don't you know this is not true and it is only a social/cultural construct to keep women in the home so they can oppressed?
My opinion: I never want to have kids. I wanted to focus on my career to be a TV writer and producer, and kids are a lot of work.
I also wanted more leisure.
Apr. 13, 2023 "Flexible work 'game changer' in advancing career opportunities for women: Perpetual Energy CEO": Today I found this article by Daniel Johnson on BNN Bloomberg:
Perpetual Energy Inc.’s president and CEO Susan Riddell Rose says flexible work arrangements spurred by the pandemic have helped women advance their careers.
Riddell Rose said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg Thursday that changing work arrangements have been the most significant driver of progress regarding career advancement opportunities for women.
“Probably the biggest progress, though, is the last three years with the whole introduction of being able to be flexible in our work lives. And that was a side-effect from COVID-19, which I think is a game changer for women staying in the game,” she said.
“It is a good setup. Now it's up to women to decide ‘I'm going to seize this opportunity, I'm going to be part of the exciting things going on.’”
Riddell Rose is set to be recognized with a lifetime achievement award Thursday evening by the Calgary Influential Women in Business Awards.
Riddell Rose said she has seen significant change and progress over the past three decades. She said when she started her career at Shell plc, there was a concerted effort to bring more women into the oil and gas industry.
“And that has just accelerated on so many fronts, [now] it's women on boards, all the way through senior leadership, women in the pipeline, to enhance the pipeline of females coming in through the engineering and technical sciences program,” she said.
OIL SENTIMENT
Riddell Rose said that sentiment toward the oil and gas industry is robust, but the industry has a degree of volatility and is subject to cycles.
“The sector's never been stronger, the last year and a half has really allowed people to transform our balance sheets, get to the work that's in front of us on the clean tech side,” she said.
Organizations need to plan for volatility within the industry, Riddell Rose said, as the “world really does need the energy we’re providing.”
She said the cycles of volatility are getting short.
Amid the current business conditions in the oil and gas industry, she said Perpetual Energy is taking steps to improve its balance sheet.
“We've really been shoring up our balance sheet, which is definitely a way of returning capital to shareholders because it's making it stronger for them. But we've done some transactions that have really allowed us to bring our debt in line,” Riddell Rose said.
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