To think parents are being screwed over here?

Childfree ppl are always being told on here other ppls children will be caring for you when you are older , when we ask those same parents "oh so care work is the profession you will be encouraging your kids into then" .................radio silence!

Which proves that people who HAVE kids will also expect other ppls kids to care for them. Its not exclusive to the child free.

@pourmeadrinkpls

Totally agree. Women were sold that they could have it all, and that simply isn't true. Now they are getting smarter and know that there are other options and ways to have a fulfilling life and it doesn't involve kids.

Im mid 40s and no children. I look at the mothers who I work with - all stressed, all do the majority of things at home too. Not for me thank you. Also, I’m not having a child just to support society later down the line!

The article is bang to rights.

im 26, working, paying national insurance contributions and I will never get a state pension. However ill have to work until my mid 70’s, because I was supporting this generation of pensioners.

Yep Having it all really means doing it all. I decided not to have kids when i was 21 Im now 52 and dont regret it at all. I was an outlier then, Im not now.

Global fertility rates are falling. Even India is below replacement rate at 1.94. We aren't going to import immigrants

As a new parent of a 10 day old, my dh got a vasectomy when I was 6 months pregnant so we are stopping at 1. We knew it would be too difficult to have more and have known that for around 10 years since I married at 22. I am 32 and so have been sure for a long time so after I got pregnant after years of infertility we made arrangements for permanent contraception. A lot of people would say this is due to finances or housing or female participation in workforce since we own a small 2 bed flat in London (purchased with 2 incomes in our 20s) but that doesn't explain the fall in birth rate in Saudi Arabia or India or Turkey

The only rich country where birth rate isn't falling off a cliff is israel where childbirth and family is celebrated. Housing and prices are insane but it doesn't stop people.

Population growth doesn't necessarily mean economic growth in a meaningful way.

Sure more workers will generally = more GDP (assuming productivity per worker doesn't decrease) and hence more tax (for a given average effective tax rate per capita). But that is meaningless if the rate of increase of national costs equals or exceeds GDP growth.

That is what has been happening for the past 20+ years hence the mess we find ourselves in. GDP has been increasing, but cost growth has vastly outstripped that, hence increasing national debt and debt repayments.

What matters is GDP per capita (and hence tax) vs costs per capita. It doesn't matter if we have a population of 2 million or 200 million if on average we generate more income than we spend.

A the thing that very few people ever consider when thinking about this kind of thing is the system efficiency vs size problem. Bureaucratic systems (and I don't mean bureaucratic in a pejorative sense simply an organisational one) have a habit of becoming more expensive per unit action as they get larger, often exponentially so. In other words for example, processing pension payments for 20 million people instead of ten million people doesn't double in cost, it more than doubles.

This effect is incredibly hard to avoid. It's one of the reasons that as companies get large they tend to either split into smaller autonomous units/companies, or sell off non-core operations etc. It just gets incredibly hard to efficiently organise. It is also why the NHS as a single enormous monolithic entity is pure lunacy. Any efficiencies of scale become dwarfed by complexity costs after a certain size.

Yeah OP, you are right.

In the "old days" and still in many countries, children take care of their parents in old age. It's necessary, and expected, and there is a lot of moral value placed on that.

People who find themselves without kids in those societies are at risk, and often need to rely on nieces and nephews or even cousins. Or they have no one and really suffer.

We have created a society where elder care is commercialised and financially speaking, socialized, and the people doing the hands on elements are not usually your own children, they are other people's children. Chances are that even if you have no children other people's children will keep society running, pay taxes, and manage your care.

So compared to other societies, there is little risk to being without kids. And in fact you may be better off, because you will have saved a lot of money by not having children.

You will, however, still be dependent on other people's kids to wipe your bum and grow your food and deliver your groceries.

We have socialized some elements of child-rearing, particularly education. But I would argue that it's not really balanced out now. It's still a massive expense for parents, without the security that historically would come from having children. And it's a significant impact on why people don't, and often can't, have children.

Long term it will be a problem and in fact we see that already.

Depends who is having them costalcalm. I have 5 and am still very much a net contributor and am educating them in way that means its probable they will be too. People need to be encouraged to be as productive as possible - then living standsrds go up for everyone. The area i grew up in looks like a complete shithole now - everyone waiting for someone else to pick up the rubbish blowing past their front door. Society is completely broken without personal responsibility.

It's not a competiton. Those of us who don't have children will ofte pay more tax as we don't take so much time out of the workplace (I have worked full time with no break since I was 21, I am not 47) We pay taxes to fund the cost of education, childbirth on the NHS, child related benefits, childcare support and health care for children. All of which I gladly do, but don't act like the child free don't help fund stuff for those who choose to have children.

What a load of bollocks

supporting future older populations doesn’t even make the list of reasons why people are having fewer babies

we can import a workforce if need be

Totally agree. Women were sold that they could have it all, and that simply isn't true. Now they are getting smarter and know that there are other options and ways to have a fulfilling life and it doesn't involve kids.

I think the expectation that women need to sacrifice their entire personal and professional life to commit to their children is part of the driver in the low birth rate.

Having children is just very difficult when the expectations on parents (and particularly mothers) are so high.

Go to work and you’re failing them. Stay at home and you’re failing them. Earn money and you’re neglecting them. Don’t earn money and you’re vulnerable.

The ‘couple of mornings a week at preschool while mums at home with the kids’ model was only feasible for a minor period in history. Parents have always had help and worked.

It was approved by parliament in June and will be available in the UK within 4 years (assisted dying).

I think you are being over-dramatic

My ds may have been at a childminder from 2 and in ASC from 5-10, but he spent every moment beyond that with me, has never wanted for anything, has been loved, protected and supported, and is a happy, well balanced teen.

We live in a comfortable rural home, eat home cooked nutritious food, including home made bread. We eat together, cook together and he will head off to university fully competent and able to care for himself. He knows I am always here for him.

Nothing in his life bears any resemblance to farm breeding or the practices of North Korea/China.

I look around my community and do not recognise your description at all.

Babies don't love it, especially when theyre dumped there when they are sick. And I don't think any child loves seeing their parents for only 1-2 hours a day. That's quite different to someone who is in preschool for several mornings a week.

population decline is a national emergency in south korea

I think Children love childcare, but even if childcare is not a good thing what's the alternative? We don't want to go back to the 50s when women didn't typically have careers. Women fought hard to work full time and stop being full time mothers - esentially unpaid domestic workers.

It's probably the most important one, though. I suspect men (and it is men) would be keener to have children if the state wasn't picking up the tab for care in old age.

But the OP is predicated on the idea that underpopulation is a problem in the UK and it's not. Africa's population is going to nearly double from 1.5bn to ~2.5bn in 30 odd years. Africa is not going to support those extra people with a good standard of living so they will be heading towards Europe, we need to save space for them.

Feel free to elaborate. As I said earlier so many kids are in childcare 40+ hours a week so they're not exactly living their best lives either. Who exactly is benefiting

I wish people could see that economics are not the only lens of analysis for this.

Presumably you either went to grandparents (harder to do now as many grandparents are either working still as retirement is so much later, or infirm as older/we are now getting unhealthier and less mobile).

The future economy needs far fewer children. People who didn't have them will on the whole have contributed more to work and productivity directly than parents could.

I agree, thats why I'm surprised people are falling for this narrative. It makes no sense

Historically getting free workers on your Farm and care in okd age was a very strong motovator have children, and plenty of them.

Fortunately we can always import workers. If anything, we're getting more than we want, not fewer.

.We have socialised the cost of old age – everyone is entitled to pensions and healthcare, regardless of whether they have “replenished” the economy by having children of their own – but privatised the cost of parenthood, removing entirely the link between bearing children and future economic security'

This is certainly true. In a grossly overpopulated world/country that's probably a good thing, though.

This one doesn't.

It absolutely will.