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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To tell you that if a UK woman has not had her first child by 28, there is a 50% probability she will never have children.

609 replies

RetiredMan · 20/09/2025 23:47

I just watched the documentary linked below, about falling birth-rates, released on Youtube yesterday, by the guy who did the research.

(The fact in the subject is from an interview, the documentary itself only give the statistic for Japan, where the equivalent age is 26.)

Some factoids for those who won't watch the video (some are from the documentary, some are from two interviews with the maker that I've also watched.)

Birth-rates are below the level needed to keep population stable everywhere except sub-Saharan Africa. (It looks like only a matter of time until it's true there as well.)

That the invention of the pill is causing this is disproved by the fact that rates fell suddenly in Japan 20 years before the pill became legal there. They fell at the same time as birth-rates in multiple other countries, so it's not that Japan has a different cause.

Women who do become mothers are not having fewer children than before, the issue is that suddenly a large chunk of women are having no children at all. In other words, the problem is not smaller families, the problem is fewer families. (If I remember rightly, Japan went from 1 in 30 women childless to 1 in 5, in the space of three years. It's now 1 in 3.)

I think I caught a statistic somewhere that 40% of US women are now destined to be childless. (Presumably that is among those becoming adult now. But I might be wrong about this statistic, may have misheard/misunderstood.)

One reason childlessness is a problem is that 4 out of 5 women who never have children are biologically fertile and would have liked to have had children, but just never made it happen. Obviously there will also be economic issues, if each 20-year-old entering the job market has to generate enough economic output to support multiple 70-year-olds.

Even though birth-rates are falling. generations already born before births peaked will caused older age brackets to have increasing numbers of people, so for a few decades, overall population will still increase despite births decreasing.

The birth-rate of a population can be 90% predicted by the average age at which a women has her first child. The exact figure has not yet been researched, but it appears to be the case that population will inevitably decline if women who want children do not have their first child by their mid-twenties.

Immigration will not be able to solve the economic problems caused by falling population. There will be nowhere with a people surplus for them to come from. (There was a jokey interview claim that India already has ghost villages, they need immigrants!)

The cause of the decline seems to be a failure of couples to get together in time to have children. The data shows a big drop in birth-rates every time there is a major economic crisis. In response to the crisis, people postpone having children, but once society has shifted to aiming to have children at an older age, it never shifts back to having them at the original age.

A metaphor that explains why couple-formation is down. Imagine you live in a village with a dance-hall that is open for three hours on a Saturday evening. Every young person is there for the whole three hours, and gets to see every other person they could potentially marry had have children with. Now imagine the opening hours are changed to six hours, but most people still only have the energy to go for three hours. Some people leave before the person they should have met and married arrives. Some people are half-way through getting to know one person when another person enters and catches there eye, one courtship is interrupted by a new possibility. Perhaps this disruption kills one potential relationship. If the time-period during which most men and women think they need to mate has changed from maybe as little as five years to as long as 20 years, the likelihood that any potential pair will be on the same page at the same time goes down.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/m2GeVG0XYTc?si=rzbxoEDDxcy3hn6d

OP posts:
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frozendaisy · 21/09/2025 09:33

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 09:29

You have to be kidding.

We pay and support and love the children 100% while she explores her career and is in a new country every month leaving the kids with the newest husband who is on his way out because he too has had enough of a women happy to have kids but not really prepared to be a mother.

So he didn’t stop to think before he added another child into this set up either? But everyone blames her, she’s just acting like most men but she will get more bile because she’s female

“oh those poor men trapped by her vixen allure”

not saying it’s good it’s clearly not but it’s what men have done for centuries and get blue plaques on buildings because of their “nothing related to fatherhood” achievements for

Wemetatascoutcamp · 21/09/2025 09:33

Whats the old saying- there’s lies, damned lies & statistics!
Whilst i’m not disputing birth rates are continuing to fall (quick google tells me it’s now fallen to 1.41 births per woman in the UK and has been falling since the mid 60’s). However the average age to be a first time mum is now over 30 so there must be plenty women hitting 30 and going onto have successful pregnancies. ONS stats say 50% of women are childless at 30 but it’ll not be known for some time how many of these remain childless- but looking at women born in 1975 48% were childless by 30 and only 18% have ended up childless by the end of childbearing.
We are an aging population and unfortunately the figures for government just don’t add up- hence rising pension age etc etc.

Walkingroundincircle22 · 21/09/2025 09:31

Daily Mail style scaremongering - get pregnant ladies, get back in the home, let the men go to work.

Honestly, if any government was really serious about this, they would be offering equal pension and pay to women who choose to have kids. The financial penalties women face for simply procreating are staggering, shameful and blatantly sexist.

ChihuahuaKeeper · 21/09/2025 09:31

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 09:27

Sure. She is on her 3rd marriage and it’s on the way out. 5 children with 4 different fathers. She doesn’t have a man problem she has a business plan.
Definitely not a me problem.

But why do you care?!

ThreePears · 21/09/2025 09:30

If the birth rate is falling over the world, then well... good.

This planet cannot sustain a continued increase in the human population, and there will be a humanitarian crisis in future if steps are not taken.

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 09:29

frozendaisy · 21/09/2025 09:24

I thought that, actually no I thought wonder if “D”H exH still took full responsibility including financial for the child he happily pumped out!

You have to be kidding.

We pay and support and love the children 100% while she explores her career and is in a new country every month leaving the kids with the newest husband who is on his way out because he too has had enough of a women happy to have kids but not really prepared to be a mother.

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 09:27

ChihuahuaKeeper · 21/09/2025 09:22

No need to be nasty.
It sounds like a you problem.

Sure. She is on her 3rd marriage and it’s on the way out. 5 children with 4 different fathers. She doesn’t have a man problem she has a business plan.
Definitely not a me problem.

Cavello · 21/09/2025 09:25

k1233 · 21/09/2025 01:42

I think men need to accept their share of the responsibility for falling birth rates.

Facts:

  • not many men earn a sufficient wage for women to be SAHMs
  • women are expected to bear the load of children, parenting, household and working. Men go to work. Refer the inequitable question that is always asked of women, not men - how to you balance a career with a family?
  • men these days are children - wasting time on gaming and hobbies while their wives are their skivvies but still expected to work and bring in money (EDIT forgot to say women also need to be pornstars in the bedroom, at the end of a long day of doing everything for everyone)
  • then divorce / separation. Give me strength. The kids typically stay with mum. The dad is "too busy" to have the kids 50% but that busy-ness does not convert to the actual cost of supporting and raising children. Child support is based on what the absent parent "can afford" to pay, not what it actually costs to raise the child. The resident parent has to somehow make up that cash shortfall while also solely raising the children.

What can be done

  • support for women to have children - career programs to help them return after children and work support to help with childcare etc
  • men actually man up and stop behaving like children. Pull their weight in the house. Just to make OP happy, that may lead to the adult relations he thinks men need to commit - mothering a grown man kills any sexual desire, as does doing 100% of everything.
  • have a compulsory amount absent parents must pay and that comes out of their wage or benefits BEFORE the money goes to them. That would free up court time, enforcement time and ensure the chidren are properly provided for.
Edited

I haven't read further than this post, so apologies if I am repeating another poster.

For context - I am a married mother with 3DC and also with a professional career. I had DC1 at 31.

Completely agree with this post. 👏 Hungary's policy is mothers with 3+ children are exempt from income tax for life. If the UK introduced a policy like this it would certainly go a long way to helping with the extra costs of raising a family.

frozendaisy · 21/09/2025 09:24

ChihuahuaKeeper · 21/09/2025 09:22

No need to be nasty.
It sounds like a you problem.

I thought that, actually no I thought wonder if “D”H exH still took full responsibility including financial for the child he happily pumped out!

Youdontseehow · 21/09/2025 09:24

I voted YABU because people don’t really understand statistics.

Statistics like this apply to populations not individuals. Your statistic means that in a population of say 1000 women over 28 who have not had their first child, 500 will go on to not have a child.

But each individual woman has two “chances” of having a child after 28 - zero% or 100% - ie she will either have a child or she won’t.

Same with cancer statistics that say for example, a woman has a 70% chance of getting cancer X if she smokes for 20 years. That means in a population on 100 women who smoke for 20years, 70 will get cancer X. But each individual woman’s chance of getting cancer X is 0 or 100% - she gets it or she doesn’t.

bookworm14 · 21/09/2025 09:24

Uricon2 · 21/09/2025 09:16

I will just say that advanced search is instructive on the OP's opinion of marriage.

Isn’t it just. Also on a number of other manosphere talking points topics.

OP, given that you don’t believe anyone should get married, and that marriage is more detrimental to men’s interests, are you suggesting all these young women should have babies out of wedlock? And then have no financial protection when the men bugger off? Do you think this is more or less likely to make young women want to have kids?

Onegingerhead · 21/09/2025 09:24

And as for old age — just my opinion — I’m not set up for a good pension. Being in my mid-40s and not on a great income, I’m unlikely to build much of a pot now.

The state pension may well be gone in 20 years, but I really don’t want young women to be bullied into having loads of kids just to fund old me.

By the time I retire, assisted dying will probably be a thing — even for people who are relatively healthy but simply not wealthy enough. When I shared that view with my colleagues, they were absolutely aghast, lol

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 09:23

The world should be concerned about the quality of the humans that inhabit it not the quantity. Just like being a mother is so much more than giving birth and being a father is so much more than biology.

There is an abundance of evidence about single parent households and the likelihood of divorce, success and criminality in adulthood. It’s all cause and effect. Women need to make better choices when it comes to choosing who to procreate with and men need to start being better humans.

frozendaisy · 21/09/2025 09:23

padso · 21/09/2025 09:18

DH would also retire earlier.

Looking at the nice cheap places our teens want to go uni, Kensington are you kidding me child, 😁, H reckons he will never retire!

“you can sleep when you’re dead babe”
”I’m not even sure I’ll be able to then”

(he is one of the seemingly few good ones who also says he can’t think of anything he would rather spend the money on than their education)

ChihuahuaKeeper · 21/09/2025 09:22

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 09:12

oh piss off. If there is one thing I can’t stand more than anything it’s women who think that they are better than others simply because they gave birth.

My DHs ex wife is one of these golden vaginas who thinks that by popping a human out she can claim all sorts of special accolades.

No need to be nasty.
It sounds like a you problem.

Star458 · 21/09/2025 09:21

It's good news for an already horrifically over populated world as far as I'm concerned. Infinite growth is not sustainable.

neveradmit17 · 21/09/2025 09:20

ILikeMaths · 21/09/2025 00:40

😀

Tomorrow I’ll either be dead or alive. It doesn’t mean there’s a 50% probability that I’ll be dead.

Shrodinger's poster 😁

frozendaisy · 21/09/2025 09:19

Uricon2 · 21/09/2025 09:16

I will just say that advanced search is instructive on the OP's opinion of marriage.

Which are? Spill the beans - just the highlights will do

about to make a coffee so will be up for a scrap with him if he thinks women’s fought for freedoms “have gone a bit too far now ladies” type thing

padso · 21/09/2025 09:18

DH would also retire earlier.

padso · 21/09/2025 09:18

Also when women dont have children more will be working full time.

I'm also not sure that's true. I like my job & work p/t but a lot of my salary is spent on the dc or saved for them. If I didn't have dc I could work less & definitely retire earlier!

Sunshineandoranges · 21/09/2025 09:18

Not so long ago we were being told the world was overpopulated.

Uricon2 · 21/09/2025 09:16

I will just say that advanced search is instructive on the OP's opinion of marriage.

padso · 21/09/2025 09:15

Older people already pay more in tax than the young and as more people have workplace pensions state pensions will become even less important

Do they?
State pensions will be even more important because workplace pensions are less generous now & more people will be renting into retirement.

WetHair · 21/09/2025 09:15

ChihuahuaKeeper · 21/09/2025 09:09

It's called mumsnet. The clue is in the title. It isn't a good place to gloat about how clever you are that you are not a mum.

It’s been clarified many times that you don’t need to be a parent to use mumsnet. The childfree even have our own specific discussion board on here.

frozendaisy · 21/09/2025 09:14

ChihuahuaKeeper · 21/09/2025 09:09

It's called mumsnet. The clue is in the title. It isn't a good place to gloat about how clever you are that you are not a mum.

It’s a good place to stop a woman being lumbered with a useless excuse of a baby father though

(and I say this as a mum)