The Desis Who Don't Want Kids

Words by Rameeza Ahmad

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In the 1920s, travel posters, made for steamship lines and airlines, became extremely popular. The style changed notably in the 1920s, to focus attention on the product being advertised. The images became simpler, precise, more linear, more dynamic, and were often placed against a single color background. They conveyed a sense of power and safety – basically, what travelers were supposed to feel boarding liners and trains and visiting new destinations. (Available as print)

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The Desis Who Don't Want Kids

Growing up, I remember feeling ashamed of how the population in our part of the world continued to grow. When India hit the 1 billion people milestone, I don’t recall anyone jumping for joy. In fact, all I heard were laments over how the global south is ’overpopulated.’ The growing numbers only induced fear in people, for how would our impoverished part of the world sustain such a massive population?

Of course, there have been multiple efforts to combat overpopulation. From Indira Gandhi’s forced sterilization of 6.2 million Indian men in 1975 to Pakistan’s health ministry wanting to revive the late 1950s slogan ‘bachay dou he achay’ (two kids are good enough) slogan as recently as 2015. The irony is that some of the very countries that are now cribbing about falling birth statistics are the same ones that have funded population control programs in the global south.

The major complaint has been with millennials and Gen-Z. The birth rate has fallen by 4% in the US, from 2019 to 2020, which is the steepest decline in almost 50 years, according to a CDC report.