The way a society treats its mothers reveals its deepest truths. Where they are supported, trust circulates, children grow in stability, and economies find solid ground. Where they are neglected, everything begins to fracture: intergenerational poverty, declining birth rates, rising social tensions. The data is unambiguous: according to the International Labour Organization, over 113 million women of prime working age are excluded from the labor market because of inadequate childcare and family support systems. This is not a marginal statistic, it is a gaping hole in the world’s productive potential.
Ultra-capitalism, with its fixation on short-term profit and cost-cutting, offers no solution. It transforms motherhood into an economic handicap, a “pause” in the productive cycle, erecting invisible barriers between women and the careers they aspire to. It is a system that exhausts its human resources as surely as it depletes its soils and forests. By refusing to recognize the social and economic value of care, it undermines the very foundation of its prosperity.
Yet other paths exist. Countries that have chosen inclusive and regulated capitalism prove that competitiveness and social justice are not mutually exclusive. Generous parental leave, accessible childcare, and structured return-to-work programs allow mothers not only to remain in the workforce but to thrive. The results are striking: higher female employment rates, more stable fertility levels, and an economy that grows not by draining its citizens but by investing in them.
The real challenge is not capitalism versus anti-capitalism. It is about reshaping the hierarchy of values that drive economic systems. The optimal model is one that treats motherhood not as a cost but as a collective investment. Every supported mother, every secure family, is a child better educated, a future citizen in better health, a stronger foundation for society as a whole.
To ignore this is to accept a fragmented, exhausted world, where short-term logic corrodes long-term prosperity. The real question is not: “Can we afford to support mothers?” but rather: “How can we imagine a viable economy without them?”