Thinking of how specifically 1993 was that bit in The Giver where when adult roles are assigned some of the girls are to be...
Thinking of how specifically 1993 was that bit in The Giver where when adult roles are assigned some of the girls are to be relatively pampered while they bear two pregnancies and then go in the general labor pool
One, in that the measured, proscribed regularity is a sideways reference to contemporary Chinese “one-child” policy
And two, how it casts reproduction as a matter exclusively for lower-class women, who are seen from the narration’s point of view as kind of pathetic for being okay with this life purpose.
This was the decade of the Ricki Lake/Sally Jessie Raphael/Jerry Springer “daytime talk” freak shows, remember
Was it really 2? That’s barely replacement rate for them, let alone the rest of the population.
IIRC the book opens with a delivery of twins that they weigh and euthanize and discard the runtier one, I think it was framed more as a society concerned with overpopulation (but not much justified in worldbuilding, I think more in thematic reaction to 70s fears and the structures created against them)