Argentina’s Milei wants women to have more children while he cuts support for families

From the stage of a luxury hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentine President Javier Milei recently took aim at one of his recurring targets: women, whom he blames for the decline in birth rates that Argentina has seen for more than a decade.

“We are paying a very high price for the madness of the green bandanas,” he said, referring to the symbol used in Argentina’s abortion-rights movement. “That obsession with killing children in the womb is also costing us dearly in terms of growth, and don’t even get me started on what it means for the pension system.”

The Argentine president, who has no children, is demanding that women have children to improve the country’s economic outlook, yet his policy decisions do little to encourage or support that process. A recent report by the cross-sector coalition La Cocina de los Cuidados found that, of the 50 national care-related policies that once existed, only two remain fully operational. The rest have been repealed, cut back, or dismantled during his administration.

Argentina’s declining birth rate began gradually in the 1980s and accelerated after 2014, meaning it cannot be explained by the legalization of abortion, which was approved much later, at the end of 2020. The country’s fertility rate currently stands at 1.2 children per woman, well below the level needed to keep the population stable over time, a trend seen across much of the world.

It is true that feminist movements have helped establish the idea that motherhood is one possible life project rather than the only one, reducing the number of women who have children despite not wanting them. Teenage pregnancy has also fallen by 72% between 2014 and 2024, thanks to expanded sex education and prevention programs such as ENIA, launched in 2017 and later dismantled by Milei. But it is not true that Argentine women have simply stopped wanting children.

“The data confirm that the desire to have children remains strong in Argentine society, but there is a gap between what people would like and what they are actually able to achieve,” says Mariana Isasi, head of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) office in Argentina. A national survey on reproductive intentions conducted by UNFPA and the consulting firm Voices! found that 57% of people aged 18 to 45 have not yet had as many children as they would like if there were no limitations of any kind. The most commonly cited reasons for postponing, limiting, or avoiding parenthood were the inability to provide a child with economic security (79%) or adequate housing (78%), as well as a lack of time for caregiving responsibilities (74%).

In that context, addressing the demographic challenge should not focus on promoting a particular family model (the two-child family remains the preferred ideal, according to the survey), nor on pressuring women to reproduce. Instead, it should be about creating the conditions necessary to support a wide range of life choices.

The survey by La Cocina de los Cuidados found that among the long list of programs dismantled under Milei’s administration was the 1,000 Days Plan, which provides comprehensive support during pregnancy and a baby’s first months of life and whose budget fell by 34% between 2023 and 2026. Other casualties include breastfeeding kits, with no new kits purchased or distributed and only infant formula now provided; funding for the construction and renovation of early childhood centers, which was eliminated; and disability care benefits, of which only one in 10 applications has been approved over the past three years. The only two measures that remain fully in place are the Child-Rearing Index, a statistical tool used to measure the time and resources required to raise a child, and a pension credit that grants women an additional year of contributions for each child they have.

“More and more families have to figure out on their own how to raise, support, feed and care for children; needs that should be part of a social protection system,” says economist Lucía Cirmi Obón, one of the study’s authors. For Cirmi, who last week joined 250 social organizations in presenting a National Care Agreement, the challenge is to channel demand that already exists in society and make caregiving support the next major frontier for feminist movements.

But boosting birth rates, or accelerating their decline, involves more than a collection of isolated policy measures. Milei’s ultraconservative government has not only dismantled specific support programs; it has also promoted broader social changes, such as a labor reform that has made 12-hour workdays possible, reducing the time available to raise and care for children. Cirmi notes that Milei’s cuts have also affected the education budget, even though the decline in the number of children could be used as an opportunity to improve the quality of education, expand early childhood services, where there are still not enough places for all children, and increase the number of teachers per classroom.

“There seems to be an urgency to produce more babies, but very little support for the children and families who choose to have them today,” says Florencia Sichel, a philosopher and the author of Todas las exigencias del mundo (All the Demands in the World). To her, this reflects a society that does not value caregiving duties. She speaks to EL PAÍS on speakerphone while driving between errands for her young daughter, picking her up from one place and taking her to another. “Those of us who choose to bring children into the world today do so at a very high cost, one that is borne within each family,” she says.

For Sichel, the decline in birth rates is ultimately part of a broader issue tied to rights and public policy. It requires thinking not only about the availability of places in preschools, but also about well-maintained parks in every neighborhood, publicly supported care services and parental leave policies. Ultimately, it means building a country that is more welcoming to children and to the families who choose to have them.

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