CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Mildner, Erica |
|---|---|
| Title | I Would Never Have a Third Kid: Pronatal Awareness, Resistance, and Strategic Compliance in Hungary and the United States |
| Summary | As right-wing, nationalist parties gain popularity across the globe, governments have increasingly tied family welfare policies to reversing population decline and preventing further immigration. Although scholars have long studied the impact of family policy incentives on demographic outcomes, little attention has been paid to individuals’ actual awareness of these policies or to the role of men and women as active agents in resisting state benefits. Through 26 qualitative interviews, this study compares individuals’ responses to pronatalism in Hungary, a country with an established family policy infrastructure, and the United States, a country with a history of limited government family welfare. In Hungary, individuals were widely knowledgeable about how they could benefit from having larger families, but constructed instinctual narratives about parenthood or considered migration to resist the government’s conspicuous pronatalism. In the United States, female respondents had much greater policy knowledge and anxiety about parenthood than male respondents. To cope with their anxiety, American female respondents relied on individualized strategies and redefined their expectations for equal partnership. American male respondents prematurely resorted to traditional gendered divisions of labor. While all other respondents maintained that their fertility intentions could not be altered, American female respondents expressed shifting financial preferences for children, a strategy that may allow these women to reclaim agency in the face of limited support. Altogether, this research reveals that policymakers can no longer ignore subjects’ active role in determining the relative success of different fertility incentives. Family policies that discounts this role are unlikely to achieve their intended aims. |
| Supervisor | Fodor, Eva |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/mildner_erica.pdf |
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