From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Kim Jong Un Urges Women to Be Good Comrades—and Give Birth   
   By Dasl Yoon, Dec. 5, 2023, WSJ   
   Kim Jong Un has a new mission for North Korean women: Have more babies.   
      
   Kim acknowledged the impoverished nation’s plunging birthrate for the first   
   time publicly at a rare National Conference of Mothers. Wiping away tears, the   
   39-year-old dictator, who is a father of three, described mothers as   
   revolutionaries who were on    
   the front lines of rooting out antisocialist behavior and helping the nation   
   prosper.   
      
   Households producing “many children” would be given higher priority for   
   housing, food and medical services, as well as unspecified subsidies and   
   preferential treatment, Kim said, according to a Tuesday state-media report.   
      
   “When all mothers clearly understand that it is patriotism to give birth to   
   many children and do so positively,” Kim said, “our cause of building a   
   powerful socialist country can be hastened faster.”   
      
   Declining birthrates are a problem for many of the world’s wealthiest   
   countries, including the U.S., much of Western Europe and Asia’s most   
   advanced economies. The trend threatens labor forces and government budgets as   
   populations get older and leave    
   fewer working-age people to spur economic growth.   
      
   But North Korea’s birthrate—a snapshot of the average number of babies a   
   woman would have over her lifetime—is unusually low for a poor country,   
   standing at 1.6, according to South Korean estimates. That is about half the   
   rate of African countries    
   with a similar economic profile. Countries need fertility rates of around 2.1   
   to maintain the population, demographic experts say.   
      
   North Korea needs a robust population more than other nations. Farming,   
   construction and other projects require significantly more manpower than   
   elsewhere, as sanctions make it difficult to upgrade the country’s   
   infrastructure. North Korea also boasts    
   one of the world’s largest standing armies with more than one million   
   personnel. Historically, many citizens have been dispatched to foreign   
   countries to generate money for the government.   
      
   The Kim regime isn’t alone among authoritarian states pushing for more   
   children. In recent months, Chinese leader Xi Jinping urged women to cultivate   
   a “new culture of marriage and childbearing.” Russian President Vladimir   
   Putin called for large    
   families to again become the norm, recalling prior generations where   
   households often had seven or eight children. Over the past decade, Cuba has   
   offered government incentives to convince women to have more babies to reverse   
   its population slide.    
      
   North Korea faces some particularly acute challenges to boosting its   
   birthrate. Its economy has suffered under sanctions and isolation during the   
   pandemic. Much of its 26 million population suffers from food shortages and   
   rampant human-rights abuses—   
   especially so for women.    
      
   Cases of domestic violence and sexual harassment against North Korean women go   
   virtually unreported, according to Human Rights Watch. Women also face   
   widespread discrimination in the country’s deeply patriarchal society, with   
   their reputations often    
   depending largely on obeying men in the family, the group said.    
      
   In his recent speech to mothers, Kim said housewives who promote domestic   
   harmony and manage their family affairs are a great thing for the country. He   
   urged them to become a “meticulous mother, a grateful wife and a kindhearted   
   daughter-in-law.”    
      
   Unlike his father and grandfather, Kim has brought the women in his life into   
   the public eye. His sister, Kim Yo Jong, holds a senior Workers’ Party   
   position. His wife is often seen with him in public. And in the past year or   
   so, Kim Jong Un has made    
   frequent appearances with his young daughter.    
      
   After the 1950-53 Korean War, North Korea urged citizens to have large   
   families, with twins often appearing in state propaganda. But by the 1980s,   
   North Korea’s state-controlled economy struggled to keep pace with the   
   expanding population and    
   implemented birth-control programs, including contraception, to slow growth.   
   The famine in the ensuing decade further eroded the system of government   
   rationing.    
      
   As a result, North Korea’s fertility rate has steadily fallen from about 2.8   
   in 1979, according to United Nations data.    
      
   In recent decades, more North Koreans have turned to smuggling goods or other   
   black-market commerce to survive—with women often serving as a household’s   
   breadwinners, since many young men face decadelong military conscriptions.   
   That has led to the    
   elongated slide in the nation’s birthrate, said Lee Woo-young, a professor   
   of North Korean society and culture at the University of North Korean Studies   
   in Seoul.    
      
   “Even though North Korean women gained little equality, their economic   
   participation raised women’s social status and more women began prioritizing   
   making a living over having children,” Lee said.   
      
   Women earn more than 70% of household income in North Korea, as traders in the   
   black market, which proliferated following the late 1990s famine, according to   
   the Korea Institute for National Unification, a South Korean think tank. Women   
   also shoulder    
   most of the housework and child care, North Korean defectors say.   
      
   Kim’s emphasis on North Korean mothers follows his calls for the country’s   
   youth to reject foreign culture, such as dressing like South Koreans or using   
   South Korean words, which are considered antisocialist behavior. The younger   
   generation’s    
   exposure to foreign culture challenges Kim’s attempt to keep a tight grip on   
   information to maintain loyalty to the regime.    
      
   “Unless a mother becomes a communist, it is impossible for her to bring up   
   her sons and daughters as communists and transform the members of her family   
   into revolutionaries,” Kim said at the two-day conference that ended Monday.   
      
   https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/kim-jong-un-urges-women-to-be-goo   
   -comradesand-give-birth-988be73a   
      
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