In Praise of Good Breeding: Pro-Natalism and Race in the British Print Media

In March 2000, the United Nations released a report stating that the birthrate in the United Kingdom, Japan, and most of the countries in the European Union had fallen below replacement level (generally set at 2.0 to 2.4 children per woman.) According to the U.N. report, these "low-fertility countries" run the risk of labor shortages, inadequate pension support, and an overall decline in the native-born population. The report concluded that affected nations will most likely need to consider measures like increasing the influx of immigrant workers, increasing the retirement age, and reconsidering the types of benefits they provide for the elderly. ¹

Great Britain's birthrate now stands at about 1.72 children per woman. ² The falling birthrate has raised widely articulated fears in the British media about labor shortages and a lack of support for state pension plans, as well as less overtly articulated concerns about the position of the native-born white majority in the coming years. Without a rise in the native-born birthrate, according to the United Nations, Britain will only be able to maintain its population size by raising the number of migrants it admits. ³

This has led to discussions on what it will mean to be "British" in the coming years as the racial and cultural landscape of the nation changes, as well as interesting debates about the responsibilities of white, native-born women to reproduce an "authentic" British collective, as they are presumed to have done in generations past. Why, the press is asking, are women choosing not to have babies anymore, and what sorts of measures might be taken to change this?

The question I explore in my research is how nations perceive that their interests are being served or not served when their citizens enact fertility in certain ways. Women and their reproductive labor are generally given a central role in nationalist projects, and their decisions about their fertility and the work they perform within the home are integrally tied to the economic, military, and moral strength of the collective. Women both physically reproduce the collective and transmit national culture and values through their roles as mothers and educators." On a symbolic level, women also act as boundary markers for national groups through restrictions imposed on their sexual relations and often function as signifiers of national identity. This reproductive women's work of nation building becomes particularly prominent in nationalist discourses in times of social upheaval and transition. ⁴ The case of the British "Baby bust" presents an opportunity to analyze pro-natalist discourses, particularly messages aimed at women and men to increase their childbearing, and their intersection with anxiety about Britain's changing cultural and ethnic makeup.

Methodology

My sample consists of articles from nine of the major London-based U.K. newspapers from the period between 1 January 2000 (two months before the release of the UN population report) and 1 May 2002. Pulling all articles that include significant mention or discussion of the UK's declining birthrate has given me a sub-sample of 199 articles (to get a better sense of the immigration debate as it occurs without reference to the declining birthrate, I have read and analyzed an additional 128 articles that solely cover debates related to immigration). Of those 199 articles in the birthrate sample 58 (or 29 percent) take the stance that increases in immigration are a positive or inevitable solution to the drop in the white native-born population, while 13 (7 percent) argue that increased immigration is either unnecessary or would be detrimental. One hundred and nine articles (55 percent) talk about the falling birth rate without mentioning immigration at all, and a final 19 (or 10 percent) mention both but send a neutral or ambiguous message about immigration.

Content analysis: Pronatalism

Of the anti-immigration subset of the...