As many of you know I am a huge fan of Mary Douglas’ work. In particular her concept of transition: “danger lies in transitional states, simply because a transition is neither one state nor the next, it is undefinable.” (1966; reprinted 2002, p.97). I was thus particularly interested in Saldaña-Tejeda’s paper Experiences of Young Motherhood and Youth in Mexico: Medical Discourses and the Definition of Women as ‘Too Young to Care’ in the latest issue of Population Horizon’s. Saldaña-Tejeda’s draws on work by Graham and Low (2008) which utilizes Douglas’ understanding of dirt as ‘matter out of place’ to look at ‘bodies out of time’. Adolescent girls who experience their reproductive firsts ‘too early’ or older women who are ‘too late’ in relation to social chronological expectations are often labelled as abnormal, or bodies out of time. “The young maternal body is marked by a perceived failure to comply with social expectations regarding the right order and right time of event” (Saldaña-Tejeda 2015). She then quotes, as an example, the manner in which the Mexican Institute of Social Security defines the ideal age to become a mother: women should have their first baby between the ages of 20 and 35 because:
“… if pregnancy occurs when a woman is too young or too old, the possibilities of care for and education of daughters and sons could be compromised, in the first case, due to their lack of life experience or [in the case of women who are too old] because of the need to share child care with other personal goals.” (Secretaría de Salud, 2002, p. 64).
Population Horizons - the renamed Horizons journal from the Institute of Population Ageing, University of Oxford, which aims to provide an interactive forum for analysis and debate on the many complex and contested policy questions that are raised by 21st Century population change – then situates Saldaña-Tejeda’s work alongside a response from Dìaz-Sánchez, the Director of Institutional Development at the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Mexico City, Mexico, who writes from his experience not only with IPPF but also as Deputy Director for Family Planning at the Ministry of Health in Mexico and as the Executive Director of one of Mexico’s largest providers of sexual and reproductive health services: Fundación Mexicana para la Planeacion Familiar.
Saldaña-Tejeda argues that far from preventing unwanted pregnancies, the condemnation of young motherhood in Mexico combined with state policies that heavily criminalize abortion may lead to high rates of unmet need for contraception and cases of obstetric violence.
Dìaz-Sánchez, responds that for the first time unwanted teen pregnancy have been recognized by the Mexican government as a high priority for public policy, with the launch this year, 2015, of a National Strategy to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the adolescent population. This includes the development and expansion of work and education for adolescents (something that Saldaña-Tejeda argues for), an expansion of contraceptive services, and comprehensive sex education in schools. And that the strategy – coordinated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with the participation of the Ministries of Social Development, Health, and Education – deserves recognition.
Anthropologist versus policy maker?
Population Horizons claims that it wishes to progress the debate around the drivers, context, and challenges arising from 21st century population change. It wants to consider the challenges which will emerge over the coming decades, and to ask about what should be done now before these pressures and constraints really make themselves felt. Differences of opinion about how society should adapt to the pressures and constraints of population change are bound to reflect different views about the preferred direction of social and political change
Here we have the tension in such a debate:
Saldaña-Tejeda argues, one of the most important reasons given for the large numbers of women aged 15-49 in Latin America who fail to use contraception are their concerns about potential side-effects and health risks. She then quotes Vida y Familia A.C. (VIFAC), who she describes as a powerful and well-financed pro-life NGO with a national presence in Mexico, who advises young women to use ‘natural’ contraceptive methods to avoid the psychological problems associated with other contraceptive methods and in the case of vasectomy, “a decrease in sex drive and an increase in the tendency towards infidelity” (of the male partner presumably…).
In response Dìaz-Sánchez recognises that the widespread view in Mexican society of youth as a transition state between childhood and adulthood may well be the root of social anxiety produced by teen motherhood, but then asks that if the concept of adolescence as a transition state needs to be deconstructed, what are the options? “At any given age, some [children] will be more mature and experienced than others… how can the right balance between protection and autonomy be introduced in society? Is it by looking at the individual capacity of each young person, rather than focusing on age? And in public policy, how do you create the conditions that guarantee the precept?”
Population Horizons encourages open online debate – combining expert papers with the request for academic, policy and practitioner response, recognising that although some of these unanswered questions and unresolved problems will turn on matters of fact requiring empirical enquiry, many of them will not. And here – between Saldaña-Tejeda and Dìaz-Sánche, both bringing clear – but situated arguments, we have the nub of such a debate.
Population Horizons is aimed at researchers, policy makers and practitioners who wish to engage in identifying and analysing the challenges and opportunities that are likely to result from a permanent shift in the age structure of the population. It intends intend to bring high quality research essential to evidence-based policy making, to the debate of how society should adapt to these many challenges.
Population Horizons maps out the main lines of controversy and disagreement about policy issues and the problems of policy making raised by population change. The journal publishes themed issues containing a mix of submitted manuscripts and commissioned articles, with a strong emphasis on reviews, commentaries, analytical papers and 'think pieces'.
Aims
- Publishing high quality evidence based papers;
- Informing policy makers and policy researchers of developments in the field;
- Making a critical assessment of the contribution of current research to policy analysis;
- Identifying unanswered questions and unresolved problems;
- Progressing the debate around the drivers, context, and challenges arising from 21st century population change.
Graham, E., & Low, J. (2008). Bodies out of Time: Women’s Reproductive Firsts. In: C. Malacrida & J. Low (Eds.), Sociology of the Body: A Reader. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press.
Frost, M. (2014). Unmet need for family planning. Population Horizons factsheet No.8.
About the Author:
Sarah Harper is Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College.
Opinions of the blogger is their own and not endorsed by the Institute
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