Reproductive regulation in socialist Yugoslavia: a social and cultural history

Abstract

This is a social and cultural history of how Yugoslav communists wielded reproductive regulation in Yugoslavia during its socialist period, 1945-1989, in an effort to build the third way to socialism – self-management – and to position the country as a conduit between the global North and South. Throughout this time period, the state energetically invested in the construction of a medico-legal infrastructure to regulate reproductive matters. It tackled catastrophic population health across the newly-formed socialist country, initiated a science-fuelled modernisation and industrialisation project designed to unify the citizenry under a new national identity, and expressed its commitment to socialist gender equality.