7 ways you can promote gender equality in a world of rapid demographic change

Women and girls make up about half of the population in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Yet their desires for their lives, families and careers are often ignored in discussions about the region’s demographic future. Worse, their rights as equal citizens, including their reproductive rights, are under threat, as anxieties around population decline have given rise to pro-natalist policies and narratives putting pressure on women to have more children.

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Family-friendly workplaces to support demographic resilience

When Diana Donțu, in Moldova, found out she was pregnant with triplets, she asked her boss for flexible working arrangements. He agreed — these had become more familiar during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it made good economic sense to retain skilled employees. Donțu worked from home after the births and later went back to the office three days a week as executive director of Panilino, a cake factory. “Without these policies, I would have had to find another company, or stay at home,” she said.

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Wooing Balkan repats

They’re called repatriates, or “repats” for short, people who move back to their home countries after having emigrated. Some parts of Central and Eastern Europe — under pressure from low birth rates and high outmigration — are working to convince emigrés to return home, hoping to see their populations grow and to develop demographic resilience.

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UNFPA report identifies rising population anxiety, urges radical rethink of how countries address changing demographics

New data reveals population anxieties are widespread and governments are increasingly adopting policies aimed at raising, lowering or maintaining fertility rates. But efforts to influence fertility rates are very often ineffective and can erode women’s rights, according to UNFPA's State of World Population report, released today.

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Opinion: Population anxieties must not lead to denial of women’s rights and bodily autonomy

In November 2022, the human population surpassed 8 billion people. At the same time, two thirds of people on the planet already lived in places where fertility rates had fallen below the so-called “replacement level” of 2.1 births per woman. The big demographic transition — the shift from higher to lower mortality and fertility — is happening everywhere, but in some parts of the world it has set in earlier than in others.

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