Population Reproduction Crisis in Contemporary Capitalism: A Political Economy Perspective

This paper focuses on a series of crisis phenomena of population reproduction in contemporary capitalism, including low fertility rates, rising health risks, declining willingness of care, and increasing social movements centered on population reproduction, gives an explanation from a political economy perspective. Drawing on Marx, Polanyi, and Marxist feminism, it traces how population reproduction has been gradually subsumed under capitalist production. The instrumental demands of capital accumulation for labor quantity and quality persistently clash with the affective, non-efficiency-driven logic of reproductive activities, eroding society’s care capacities and fueling radical struggles in the reproductive sphere. State coordinating institutions, inherently incapable of reconciling the contradictory nature of production and reproduction, tend toward further dysfunction amid sluggish growth and rising precarious employment. In light of technological shifts and reproductive dilemmas, overcoming this crisis requires a profound transformation of production relations, reorienting technological development to serve human needs, and rebuilding collective support systems for population reproduction.