Pronatalism, the push for women to have more children, has elbowed its way into prominence in public discourse. In the United States, cultural and institutional pressures on women to bear children are articulated in various ways, from negative portrayals of women who don’t consider having a child a viable choice for themselves, to a burgeoning Silicon Valley subculture that advocates having “tons of kids” to save the world, to policy proposals that would further restrict reproductive choice or limit the voting power of the childless. The stigmatization of people without children and the recent rise in contemporary pronatalism is a global phenomenon.

Maternal health among adolescents in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remains a largely unexplored and frequently neglected area within the public health field. Adolescent birth rates remain disproportionately high in LMICs, accounting for approximately 97% of all adolescent births globally. The prevalence of child marriage, poverty, gender-based violence, and limited access to and utilization of contraceptive methods all contribute to this startling statistic.

In South Korea, pet strollers have become more popular than baby strollers. Sales reports from an e-commerce firm in that country noted that sales of infant strollers fell by 43% in 2023, while the sales of pet strollers rose by 57%—and consumer demand for pet products continued to grow into the first months of 2024. There has also been an uptick in the opening of veterinary hospitals that is outpacing the establishment of pediatric clinics in many neighborhoods.

This article is adapted from “Pioneering Solutions: Climate Finance, Gender Equity, and Sexual and Reproductive Health Services”

A warming world is leading to new challenges for communities and countries around the globe. The significant impacts of climate change on global health, and on women and girls, are well-documented. Yet despite the evidence, funding for climate responses that focus on health or gender remains relatively low. In the rare instances where climate finance provides funds to improve health services, sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services—which are critical to women’s full participation in society and decisionmaking—are largely neglected.

As Indians celebrated the nation’s 78th Independence Day on August 15, its women cried for freedom on the same streets where their forebears shouted: “Vande Mataram” or “I salute thee, motherland.” That battle slogan was built for nonviolent resistance, and India’s women now stand united to fight against the continued violation of their dignity and their bodies.

A recent study from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and its partners found that women and girls of African descent living in the Americas are up to three times more likely to die from preventable maternal death causes. So it is no surprise that UNFPA’s Executive Director of Programs, Diene Keita, is calling attention to this challenge.

Each day, almost 800 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. A maternal death occurs every two minutes. Maternal mortality is defined as the death of a woman from complications of pregnancy or childbirth that occur during the pregnancy or within 6 weeks after the pregnancy ends.*

The Pacific Institute recently updated its Water Conflict Chronology—a database of water-conflict events that began to take form in the 1980s. The recent updates include the addition of 300 new entries to the database, highlighting the alarming rise of water-related conflicts in the last few years. Despite this overwhelming evidence of a growing trend in water-related conflicts, global attention toward addressing them remains negligible.