UK fertility rate drops by 18.8% in 12 years

It's not feminism, it's capitalism.

Agree with this, the Ponzi scheme does have to end one way or another, because even if infinite growth were possible, it's obviously not desirable. We have to come up with a different way of redistributing wealth and managing retirement and elderly care.

Most people will not be relying on state pension though. It may had a few extra coins but the bulk of retirement in the future will, for most people, be from private pensions funds.

I always found this a weak argument to uphold the Ponzi scheme that is ever growing population sizes.

Yes. The inconvenient truth of climate change is that there are too many of us on the planet. This is a major contributor to my not wanting children. I realise that, in the great cosmic oneness, my effort is insignificant, especially when other countries are expanding their populations at an increasing rate. In my view, not having children is far more effective than most other means of protecting the planet.

I realise that there are differing views, and that some reproduction needs to take place to procreate the species, etc etc, and I am also not meaning to criticise those who have had children. This is my view though, and several of my friends feel the same.

I fully agree with the previous posters that it is largely a combination of high house prices (couples where financially possible prefer the security of their own home when starting a family) along with the high cost of childcare which encourages parents to have fewer children.

That said I personally don't see falling birth rates or equally stopping as much immigration as possible (legal or otherwise) resulting in a shrinking UK population as necessarily a bad thing.

If in terms of the environment the single most effective measure is population control and in terms of the long term wealth of the economy a smaller population would equate to a higher GDP per head. In terms of quality of life then a smaller population is better.

To be clear I am absolutely not advocating some lemming type mass cull of the population or some Chinese one child policy but rather a gradual reduction through voluntary lower birth rates and reducing immigration.

Sure there is the argument about growing the numbers of workers to support the ageing population but this is effectively promoting a pyramid scheme where you have to keep increasing the workforce to keep paying for the pensioners and then more people for when that workforce retires and so on. It also assumes everyone in the workforce is actually in employment and a net contributor of tax revenue (ie put in more than they take out).

This is is not sustainable and quality of life, infrastructure, environmentally or economy I don't think the country could handle another 40% increase from 75 million to 100 million (UK population increased from 50 million in 1955 to 70 million in 2024)

I had mine late, by the time she started sleeping through I was still knackered, plus had HG with and it was genuinely horrendous. However I just don’t want another one. She’s lovely but it’s a lot of work. Also I know that with one I can support her if anything happens to DH. If i had started earlier I may have had a second so I think once average age of first birth goes up families tend to get smaller. It takes longer to feel established now and I do think childhood seems to be extending.

Of the childree/childless women I know the majority just didn’t meet someone in time to have a very much wanted child. A few just flat out don’t want any which is understandable really. Parenting and working is not easy at all.

I do think we need to provide free good quality childcare for women who do want more.

We need a balanced population. With people living longer we could end up with a massive population of elderly and not enough young people working and paying taxes to care for the old people and pay taxes for their state pensions, NHS care and other care costs.

That's a big factor. If you come off the pill at age 35 with the ambition to have two or three children then you might well get them, but the risk that you'll end up with only one is much higher than it would be if you started at age 25.

Across the population that makes a difference, and it is a problem that's worth trying to fix. Unlike women who don't really want children having the social freedom to say "no, it's not for me, regardless of financial factors". That isn't a problem and doesn't need fixing.

It’s obviously a good thing that people no longer feel they have to have children in order to fit in with societal norms and expectations.

Obviously I don't care enough about this to breed myself 🤣

All pensions need a working age population to pay them. That account you're beaverishly paying into? Might end up worthless. Or at least worth a lot less than you expect.

I think there are two other factors:

1. Women my age (40s) bought into the myth of equality. It felt realistic when we were young and child free. Then kids come along and it's like a bear trap slamming shut. The women I know in their 30s watched our crew and thought, fuck that!

1. Also middle class grandparents have a very different attitude to 'the village'. My parents had me young and basically let my granny raise me 50% till I was at secondary school. We live too far away for them to give us any help but they spend their lives on cruises anyway. They do no community work or volunteering. There is an entitlement and individualism that I don't see again until you look at much younger people. It's like they haven't got the wisdom that normally comes with age. I appreciate these are my own experiences colouring my view.

For me, time and money. I want my children to have a quality childhood which to me is being financially comfortable, stuff, holidays, savings, but also time, we both need to work full time for our lifestyle but I still want to spend time with each of my children in their relatively short childhoods, for leisure and to support them educationally, it's not like the 80s and 90s (and before) where parenting was much more hands off. I couldn't raise 3 kids the way I want to raise my children. Plus, I want my own life, I don't want to be defined by parenthood.

Where I live infant schools are closing as there is the space but they are not full enough - the birthrate for the locality is lower than the falling national average. The demographics of the area have completely changed, I would say this was a top place to bring a family up on the 00s and 10s but housing is extortionate now and it means the families have declined.

Exactly this. My home country has excellent maternity/paternity leave, brilliant natal care and heavily subsidised childcare (it's max £200 or so per month no matter no how many children you have). The birth rate is falling there too because more people are choosing different ways to live their lives. The difference in my circles is that nearly all my UK friends who want children have delayed pregnancy due to financial worries, whereas among my friends in my home country all those who want to have children already have (we are early 30s). It's so stark, and surprised me massively as I always considered the UK to be wealthy when I was younger but never realised how unevenly that wealth is spread.

I'm not sure we need to increase the birth rate overall - there are plenty of people in the world and there's no need for people to have more children than they want, but it would be beneficial for all of us if it weren't so financially punitive for those who do want to give birth to the generation who will pay our pensions!

Another way to look at it is in terms of physical fertility, not just costs. Biological fertility is also declining in both men and women, and this also results in families having fewer children than planned.
One straight up consequence of starting families later is that the fertile window is then shorter. I read some statistics somewhere that looked at when women started a family, and how many of their desired kids they actually had, and (I think) that after 30 it was 50%. These kind of statistics are bit woolly, but do capture that half of women have fewer children than they wanted. Costs of children aside, as we can actually do something about that if we want to, we should be worrying about what is driving infertility.

The biggest factor that is limiting the size of our family is cost.
We had our first at 32 yrs old, which is also when we got on the housing ladder. We could only afford a 2-bed in our area (I fully appreciate we are lucky to be on the ladder at all) and we've now got 2 kids, can't afford to move so that's us done.

Housing in this country is honestly a joke, my parents go on and on about the interest rates in the 80's yet they still seemed to afford their house on just 1 income whereas we both have to work to be able to afford our mortgage! Childcare is also a big factor although things are slightly easier now we get some free hours.

Also back in the day household income was based off one person working full time mostly. Society and the way its structured has completely changed so now in most cases two full time incomes are needed to sustain a family.

One of the negative outcomes of feminism.

The two child limit on certain benefits won't help.

Because the government hasn't invested in support for families.

They do the 15 hours free childcare thing but it's not enough and besides, most mothers would probably be supported to be with their children rather than have a stranger do it.

There's very few community and local free family stuff on. There always used to be weekly midwife drop in and baby weighing but now I have to drive to get my baby weighed and I'm made to feel like a nuisance for wanting to weigh my baby.

Schools are overcrowded. There's just no facilities. it's shit

We had a meet up of our parents friends yesterday and I'm the only one with a second (happy surprise) the answer to would you have more for everyone else is the expense, childcare fees are mad. We're lucky as I work very part time but if we needed two full time wages we couldn't do it

Another issue as far as I’m concerned is the way that gender roles are still in play. Women are still expected to be the default parent, still expected to work part time (so they can do pick ups, drop offs, holiday cover etc), still expected to be the one who organises everything and carries all the mental load.

A hell of a lot of men are quite happy with this and it’s hardly surprising that more and more women are looking at this - having grown up with the expectation of equality - and thinking “No thanks”.

Poor diet. Particularly ultra processed foods. Mcdonalds etc. You may as well eat plastic.

Housing & childcare costs underpin all of it.

Having children just looks like an incredibly unappealing lifestyle choice to me. No amount of financial incentive or whatever could ever change that.