I don’t want to have (anymore) children: Is motherhood in crisis a consequence of the pandemic?

Abstract

Following World War II, there was a marked baby boom due to greater social stability. After periods of exception, violence, death, and extreme poverty, one might think that the course of life would resume, including the desire to have children. Thinking from this perspective and looking at contemporary times, one might believe that with increasing vaccination rates, reduced mortality, and control of the virus, we would experience a resumption of births and perhaps even a certain increase in their rates. However, this has not been the demographic scenario of post-social isolation. On the contrary, instead of more births, we have witnessed a progressive reduction in the desire to have children. This article aims to reflect on this unusual situation in our society and explore possible causes for its occurrence. To this end, it will engage with officially produced statistical and demographic data and with three ethnographic studies conducted with mothers, both poor and wealthy, between 2020 and 2025, focusing on their practices and emotions during and after the pandemic, as well as on caregiving practices among women of different generations within the same family in different cities and at different scales. One study was conducted in the Federal District; another in various regions of Brazil; and a final study in large and medium-sized cities in Brazil and Argentina.