UK fertility rate drops by 18.8% in 12 years

Absolutely. I regularly say in the office having kids is shite. My kids are young and obviously I love them and have fun, but by jobe it's hard work and frustrating too. Im not sure I'd choose to have kids again if I could go back in time and knowing what I now do.

Of the many women I know deciding not to have kids, it's absolutely not down to childcare costs - that doesn't even enter their heads because the "I don't want kids" comes before that so they would never need to even contemplate childcare costs.

Birth rates are also dropping at similar rates in Scandanavia, though.

The social expectation to have children vanished years ago so I don't think it is that.

This country has a uniquely shit approach to childcar provision and most provisions for children and teenagers are dire, I have Scandinavian family and it is a different approach.

There is also less stigma with people admitting parenthood is boring and life-sucking.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/pregnancy/4146717-midwifes-what-do-you-honestly-think-about-people-trying-for-a-baby-during-covid?page=4&reply=104069493

Lots of threads like this circa 2020/2021. People worrying about covid and maternity wards or the impact on the NHS of "taking away nursing staff" for maternity care in 2021=less babies in 2022 (even if lots of people are very nice on that thread)

Covid affected other countries too. But I do wonder if, because of the way we already conceive of the NHS as a single service, (and one for which responsible people don't waste resources unnecessarily) those considerations had more of an impact in the UK than elsewhere.

Loads of my married female friends aren't having children
They just don't want them!
I think now women are more equal, there is more choice for them not to have kids. I think it's just a simple explanation

The families on my street in social housing have lots of children. The professional families in the ex council, private homes have 1 or 2 children.

No judgement here, but it’s pretty obvious that having many children is only affordable if you’re in receipt of benefits (many of them are working, just not full time) or relatively wealthy. Everyone else- including decent incomes- just can’t afford it. I do live in the South though… I suspect it’s different elsewhere in the country.

I would have more children if I could afford it. My nan had 10!

One of my daughter's friends said this. Three of the other four said having kids was too much like hard work, they were having too much fun to settle down and couldn't see that changing.

The other wants a family when she feels the time is right.

All late twenties with good careers except one who dropped out of uni to look after disabled parents.

I think it is down to hyper-rationalisation and infinite need for control, my DH and I are early - mid 40s and our outlook just wasn't like that. When we were younger it was definitely about living for the here and now, I don't remember many sensible friends either so it wasn't us exclusively that thought in this way. A PP described being a parent as drudgery 20 years but to us having DC was an adventure but more importantly it was a natural extension of love for each other, we were besotted with each other though so it made perfect sense. We were pretty young in our circles as both professionals in London jobs but it is more shocking to people now who come across DH in particular as he is an Architect and the younger colleagues who are his age, when he had our eldest are in disbelief that he has an almost 18 year old! We didn't have the perfect set up, lived in a one bedroom flat until DS was three, DH was still a few months of being a fully qualified Architect so once maternity pay had run out we were pretty hard up compared to now. Having an older teenager with a girlfriend I just think how sensible young people are now. They don't seem to go out a lot, they don't party as much as we did, they do still party but it is rare and mostly they stay on watching films from their childhood. It is nothing like my youth and there is always a bit of a hesitation to go for stuff. I think that mindset is impacting the birthrate.

Well yes. My partner and I could afford a couple of rugrats, but an afternoon among friends with children has me dusting off the chastity belt. No thanks.

Twenty five years ago I earned 12k a year as did exh. We bought a two bedroom house for 24k (the same amount as our yearly income) No deposit needed. We had a child and paid £80 per week for childcare. Our weekly food bill was £40.

Now dh and I earn 80k between us our mortgage is £160k and we had to save £20k deposit/fees. Child care is £350 per week in our area. Our food bill is roughly £150 per week.

And we are lucky to live ina cheaper area. People can't afford kids. And the free hours is a joke nurseries can't afford to run on it.

Life is too expensive.

Breakdown of the family and men only being interested in casual sex instead of a proper relationship and establishing a family. They're not really up to the job now. How many times do you read threads here where the man has left his pregnant partner or when she'd just had a baby? They're not men these days, they're glorified teenagers with a limp one because they're so porn addicted. There's no incentive to procreate with such inadequate life forms.

2022 was still tail end of Covid times. I can remember reading threads on here in 2021 and 2022 by women worrying what the rules for maternity wards would be on their due dates/complaining about the lack of certainty and there were a lot of responses along the lines of "why on earth did you get pregnant in the middle of a pandemic etc etc"
It's not the only reason (and of course it affected other countries so doesn't explain the disparity there) but Covid rules changed really frequently (it was like the hokey cokey at one point) so I can't blame people deciding to wait until they were certain they wouldn't find themselves giving birth without their partner, or having to labour in a mask or not being allowed to let their mum round to see the baby etc
There was also a lot of uncertainty around jobs around that time as well - again it makes sense to wait a little until you are certain your partner won't lose their jobs after furlough before TTC and because pregnancy takes 9 months, and people don't always get pregnant straight away it has a delayed effect.

I think I read there's a lot more having no kids at all

I would love to know the ratios of number of children to household income. I would hypothesise that lower and upper income have more children per household than middle income, be interesting to find out.
Raising children is hard in this day and age, so much expectation on the mother from before the child is even born.
Constant demands to be fit, take the child out every day, entertain the child, keep children quiet in public, feed them all sorts of foods that are not processed, contain little sugar, homemade, breast feeding, baby groups, milestone checks, judgement on parenting style, then get to school and juggling drop off/pick up plus career. Help with/teach child reading, writing, maths homework, attend after-school clubs, swimming, play dates. Making stupid models for primary and providing costumes for the endless 'wow' days/celebrations, cakes for the endless pta events, endless money for 'educational' trips, 11+ prep, sats prep. All this and this is outside of essentials like midwife visits, health care visits, doctors visits/vaccinations, dentist visits, looking after poorly children any hospital appointments. Then there are things that you might actually want to do yourself such as go on trips out or a holiday. Plus all the expenses associated with them.
This is why I laugh when people say that their dogs are like their children...they really aren't and there are plenty of expectations that I have probably have forgotten and omitted and I only got to high school age too.

The dreadful way women with caring responsibilities are treated needs to change before more women will have children, let alone the ones who do having more.

This is playing a part certainly. I work as part of a professional team, all degree educated. I'm the oldest at 41 with kids in late primary. The others are 26-39. All childfree. I'm the weirdo with kids.
There's frequent talk of 'Dink lifestyle' (one woman's words, not mine).

It's a travesty this demographic crunch.

Probably caused by (in no particular order):

• housing crisis
• the perceived benefits of participating in 21st century capitalism
• modern values where children are seen as a lifestyle choice
• breakdown of wider family networks, and the village/tribe (so it all falls on the parents and mum)
• crunch in wages
• the perceived and real stress of parenting (without seeing the benefits)
• men being shit co-parents (cf. Mumsnet passim)
• adoption of US work culture which is dreadful for everyone except business owners
• hormone disruptors and microplastics in my balls
• DINKYs outbidding families on property and other assets (vicious cycle)

This is a travesty as kids are great. Man the West is totally cooked.

Why do we need to “move away from that idea”? Having children is expensive and surely it’s good that more people are realistic about the costs. You might easily find that the foreign holidays or meals out you enjoyed are no longer affordable. And that’s before you find yourself a single parent for whatever reason - look at any number of threads here on how much people struggle and it’s almost always because they have at least one child so have to pay for nursery/can’t work more hours because of school hours etc.

For me the reason for choosing not to have children are multiple: the cost, the lifestyle, losing independence, the effect on my body, it being incompatible with the things I enjoy doing, that being pregnant in a NHS which treats women so badly terrifies me, and that ultimately having children just doesn’t interest me. Throw in environmental concerns and just how crap a number of men are, plus the fact that women have choice now (it’s notable how birth rates dropped as soon as reliable contraception was available) and it’s not hard to see how the number of children being born reduces.

No, it's keep importing millions of immigrants in.

• Childcare fees.
• Birth control.
• Easier access to abortion and less stigma around it
• Stigmatising pregnancy in those under 25.
• Child benefit cap
• Cost of living
• Wage stagnation
• Lack of job security
• Lad culture putting off loads of women from even shagging them
• No accountability for absent fathers
• Shit maternity pay when cost of living is so high
• Lack of multi generational households and family support
• Phthalates/parabens
• hair dyes
• false nails
• fabric softeners and artificial fragrances
• seriously high undiagnosed levels of Coeliac/gluten allergies in men reducing sperm to genetically incompetent specks of dna (see also increase in UPF)
• Parenting in 2000s onwards has been a shit-show and beyond 10000x more stress than other parenting generations, outside of parenting during war (so many only have 1)
• Plastic exposure
• Birth control in water supplies
• Chemicals in water supplies
• Mens sperm quality is generally shit across all ages so also reducing accidental pregnancy rates
• see above re: egg quality
• UPF
• Lack of sunlight (not even a joke)
• Lack of healthy fats in most diets
• Too many carbs in most diets
• At a societal level we're all too fat, broke or tired.
• We've mostly stopped getting shitfaced and shagging around (see; decline in nightlife/pubs/economy)

🤷🏼‍♀️ pick any.

A complete lack of access to medical assistance when faced with infertility/reoccurring miscarriages.....went to my GP and they told me to go on the pill(!?). So if the NHS won't help that has to be contributing.

One factor is porn. Less sex, more ed.

Awful experiences in 1st pregnancy or labour also put off women to have more kids. The support for women with pre and post mental health is awful. Along with failing healthcare systems and issues like HG. I know of two people on my street who would like a second child but can not put themselves through it again