Paper short abstract:

This paper, which is based on age-specific focus groups discussions, explores how people of different ages (17–90) discuss and justify their moral and social stance concerning procreation in relation to their knowledge about climate change and overpopulation.

Paper long abstract:

In 2017, researchers Seth Wynes and Kimberly A. Nicholas published an article where they claimed that the most high-impact lifestyle change individuals in developed countries can do to reduce greenhouse emission is to have one fewer child. Since publication, the article has been downloaded more than 600,000 times and shared all over the world, through tweets and newspaper articles. The topic is apparently engaging, but does climate awareness and such recommendations have any impact on how individuals reason around reproduction?

In this paper, which is based on age-specific focus group discussions conducted in Sweden, we explore how people of different ages (17–90) discuss and justify their stance concerning procreation in relation to their knowledge about climate change and overpopulation. Our findings show that awareness of climate issues was high among the participants, and most of them had some level of climate anxiety. Still, the climate crisis did not have a major impact on their reproductive decision-making. Instead, the wish to have children (or not), impacted by social expectations on gender, reproduction and parenthood, was guiding their decisions. The participants found new ways to negotiate around and justify their wish (or not) to reproduce, based partly on misinformation and a Global North-perspective but also feelings of bad conscience and resignation. We will discuss these negotiations and dilemmas further when presenting our paper.