The Economist - USA (2022-05-21)

The Economist May 21st 2022 Asia 37

Turkmenistan

Last chance salon

A

triptothebeautysalonfora mani­
cure  followed  by  a  lift  home  does  not
usuallyconstitute an act of subversion. But
for women in Turkmenistan such everyday
activities  are  now  against  the  law,  subject
to fines of up to half the minimum month­
ly wage. Beauticians who tend to them can
be jailed for 15 days.
The new rules, imposed last month, are
the  brainchild  of  Serdar  Berdymukhame­
dov,  Turkmenistan’s  new  president,  who
took  over  from  his  long­serving  father,
Gurbanguly,  after  a  rigged  election  in
March. Serdar’s youth—he is only 40 years
old—gave  rise  to  tentative  hopes  among
some in the country that he might prove, if
not  more  liberal,  at  least  less  repressive
than  his  father.  Yet  the  younger  man  is
turning out to be just as obsessed with mi­
cromanaging the lives of his citizens. 
It is not only manicures that are beyond
the  pale.  Everything  from  false  eyelashes
to  Botox  injections  is  now  restricted.  No
explanation has been offered, nor any new
rules  actually  published.  Law­enforce­
ment officials simply cite an unofficial ban
on introducing “foreign objects” to the fe­
male body, according to Turkmen.news, a
website based in the Netherlands. Women
have  also  been  barred  from  travelling  in
private  vehicles  with  men  to  whom  they
are  not  related.  They  can  still  take  taxis—
but only so long as they sit in the back seat.
Police are enforcing the new rules with
relish. They have conducted raids in public
places and offices, demanding women re­
move their face­masks so their lips can be
inspected for signs of enhancement. Pub­
lic­sector  employees  have  had  to  vow  not
to dye their hair, use cosmetic procedures
or  wear  tight  clothes.  On  May  14th  Radio
Liberty, an American­funded media outlet,
reported that authorities in the city of Mary
were detaining couples, including married
ones, for such crimes as holding hands. 
This  is  not  the  Berdymukhamedovs’
first  assault  on  women’s  rights.  In  2018
Gurbanguly  initiated  an  unofficial  cam­
paign against female drivers in which their
vehicles were impounded and their licenc­
es  confiscated  on  such  flimsy  grounds  as
failing to keep all the required gear in the
first­aid kits drivers are supposed to carry.
Though  Turkmenistan  is  89%  Muslim,
most  of  its  people  are  not  very  observant
and  the  state  is  officially  secular.  The  im­
positions  on  women  derive  instead  from
Turkmen  tribal  customs  called  adat,  says

AkjaKepderi,a Turkmenresearcherwho

goesbya pseudonymtoprotectherfamily.

Adat dictates that women must stay at

home,“servingasabigwombforgiving

birthtolotsofchildren”,saysMsKepderi.

Rules published last month restrict

abortiontothefirstfiveweeksofpregnan­

cy,ineffecta totalban.Thestate,which

lavishes rewards on women who have

eightormorechildren,presentsfemalesas

a “reproductivevessel”,saysAynabatYay­

lymovaoftheProgresFoundation,which

promoteshealthliteracy.Thefertilityrate,

at2.7perwoman,hasbeenfallingforsev­

eraldecades.

PublicprotestsarerareinTurkmenis­

tan.Butwhentheydobreakout,theyare

generallyledbywomen,saysMsKepderi.

Themostfrequentcauseisa shortageof

food.TheolderBerdymukhamedov’spro­

hibitionondrivingwasreportedlyeasedin

2020 after angry women disrupted the

workofdriving­licenceoffices,demand­

ingtheirapplicationsbeaccepted.Serdar’s

initialmovesinofficesuggestheislikely

tobeevenlessfemale­friendlythanhisfa­

ther.Yetinimposingharshrestrictionson

halfthepopulation,hemaybestoringup

troubleforthefuture. n

A LMATY
The new president is clamping down
on women’s freedoms

Baby it’s old outside

Fertility rate, births per woman

Source:Population Reference Bureau *Or latest available

South Korea

Hong Kong

Macau

Taiwan

Singapore

Japan

China

0.50 2.52.01.51.0

10 2020*

Demography

NIMBYs v babies

S INGAPORE

Asia’s advanced economies now have

lower birth rates than Japan

T

he listof  things  for  which  Japan  en­

joys  a  global  reputation  includes  deli­

cious  food,  cutting­edge  technology,  an

oversupply  of  karaoke  bars  and  an  under­

supply of babies. In 1990 it published a re­

cord­low  fertility  rate  for  the  previous

year—the so­called “1.57 shock”. For years it

has  been  seen  as  a  harbinger  of  how  rich

societies will age and shrink. 

Much of Asia has now caught up with or

overtaken  it.  Japan’s  fertility  rate  of  1.3  in

2020, the latest year for which comparable

figures  are  available,  puts  it  on  a  par  with

mainland China, according to the Popula­

tion Research Bureau, an American outfit.

China’s  birth  rate  is  likely  already  to  have

fallen  behind  Japan’s:  there  were  10.6m

Chinese births last year, down from 12m in

2020,  a  decline  of  11%.  The  number  of

births fell only 3% in Japan.

Japanese fertility is still ultra­low com­

pared  with  almost  any  society  in  human

history. Yet it is now higher than that of any

well­off  East  Asian  or  South­East  Asian

economy. The numbers in Hong Kong, Ma­

cau,  Singapore,  South  Korea  and  Taiwan

ranged  between  0.8  and  1.1  in  2020  (see

chart). Nor is this a temporary blip caused

by the pandemic: Japan’s figure was higher

than all those countries in 2019, too.

Rich,  baby­averse  Asian  countries  in

the  region  have  three  things  in  common.

First, their people rarely have children out­

side marriage. Only around 2% of births in

Japan  and  South  Korea  are  to  unmarried

mothers,  the  lowest  levels  in  the  oecd,  a

club of rich countries. In wealthy Western

countries  that  figure  is  typically  between

30%  and  60%.  In  China,  the  few  who  be­

come  pregnant  out  of  wedlock  are  often

denied  benefits.  The  region’s  decline  in

births has closely tracked a decline in mar­

riages. The age at which people commit to

a  lifetime  of  entanglement  has  also  been

rising, further delaying child­bearing. 

A  second  shared  factor  is  expensive

schooling. Pricey private tutoring and oth­

er wallet­emptying forms of “shadow edu­

cation”, as such extras are known, are com­

mon  in  East  Asia.  The  most  frequent  rea­

son  cited  by  Japanese  couples  for  having

fewer  children is  the  cost  of  raising  and

educating  them.  Lucy  Crehan,  an  educa­

tion  researcher,  says  that  these  problems

might be even worse in other parts of Asia.

Japanese pupils face their first high­stakes

exams  only  at  the  age  of  15.  In  contrast,

children  in  Shanghai  and  Singapore  must

take such tests as early as primary school,

piling on the parental pressure to perform

and adding to the family’s tuition bills.

Yet  it  is  the  third  factor  that  might  ex­

plain  why  Japan  is  out­sprogging  its  rich

Asian  peers.  A  flurry  of  research  in  recent

years suggests that high house prices cause

young  couples  to  delay  having  children.

One  paper  found  that  an  increase  of

$10,000 in house prices in America led to a

5% increase in fertility rates among home­

owners,  but  a  2.4%  decrease  among  non­

owners.  Across  much  of  East  Asia  and  es­

pecially in urban China, buying a home is

an uphill struggle for young people. South

Korea, whose fertility rate of 0.8 is the low­

est  in  the  region,  correspondingly  has  a

house­price­to­income  ratio  (the  number

of years of income needed to buy a home)