The World Will Move in the Right Direction

The World Will Move in the Right Direction

Sometimes as activists, we may overestimate how much we actually move world trends. While we like to advocate for 4B, the truth is that the world has already been moving more towards single living. While most people may not name the phenomenon “4B” or “separatism,” both women and men alike are beginning to live without partners, and rejecting propaganda that pushes them to have children.

We didn’t start this movement. In fact, it didn’t even start with the 4B movement in Korea. It was always silently building all around the world as women realized that they didn’t need to date or marry men. It was later that the name “4B” was put on the idea, but more as a reaction to label what was already happening.

Our Instagram has grown to 2,800 followers and our TikTok to 900 followers. While we are satisfied with this growth, it pales in comparison to the millions of single women in America. As of 2023, 51.4% of women aged 18-40 were single. A 2022 survey showed that only 34% of single women and 54% of single men were actively looking for a partnership.

The trends are clear. Both women and men want to live single. Once most people try single living, they do not want to go back to a partnership. The rates of both marriage and childbirth continue to drop rapidly, year by year, all around the world. And the lower they get, the faster and faster they drop.

Most Americans will probably never find out about our page. Most will never know what “4B” means. But even so, many are choosing freedom instead of marriage and childbirth. They’re coming to these conclusions on their own, without reading lengthy articles or watching videos.

For most people, abstaining from children isn’t even about some complex “antinatalist” or “childfree” philosophy. They just realized that children aren’t for them, and that’s good enough. Not having children isn’t even something that people need to give any kind of daily thought or reflection, because living without children is already so normalized for most of society.

And despite the fears from a few billionaires and politicians, both the young and old alike are starting to accept the status quo of lowered birth rates. In everyday living, we don’t see constant fears about low birth rates. In fact, the topic rarely even comes up. The pressure to have children from both parents and society has gone way down, especially as many come to terms with how expensive living is.

We have talked about how the ideal birth rate is 0, so no women suffers from the ailments of pregnancy anymore. But in reality, we don’t know exactly what will happen and what millions of Americans will choose. We know that the birth rates will continue to drop, year by year, more and more rapidly. What we don’t know is if this trend will continue towards 0, or if the decrease slows down and levels off at some point.

Despite all our efforts making articles and content, we have to realize that a lot of this is just about building a community for shared passion and discussion. It could be that we attract people that already live 4B and we aren’t really convincing any new women to go 4B, or maybe we actually do convince some new people to go 4B through our postings. Either way, the world has been moving in the right direction without us, and it will continue to do so. ♀