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.

ChatGPT answer for 50, 100 and 150 years hence in Europe.

Let’s break it down systematically — demographically, economically, culturally, and geopolitically — and look at three time horizons: 50, 100, and 200 years.

I’ll base this on current European fertility trends (most countries have birth rates between 1.2–1.7 children per woman, far below the replacement level of 2.1), ongoing improvements in life expectancy (but possibly plateauing), and patterns of migration.

50 Years from Now (2075)

If current fertility trends hold:

• Population Size & Structure:
• Europe’s population will be smaller and much older.
• Some projections (UN, Eurostat) suggest a population decline of ~5–15% overall by 2075, but with large regional differences (Southern & Eastern Europe shrinking more).
• The median age could exceed 50 years in some countries.
• Dependency ratios (number of retirees per working-age person) will be historically high, straining pension systems.
• Economics:
• Persistent labor shortages — automation, AI, and robotics will be critical to maintain productivity.
• Wealth concentration among older cohorts could shift politics toward preserving retirement systems.
• Some countries may become more open to immigration just to keep economies running.
• Culture & Society:
• Smaller family sizes normalized; singlehood more common.
• Intergenerational dynamics shift: fewer children per elder, but potentially more attention/resources per child (“intensive parenting” on steroids).
• Education and healthcare systems heavily geared toward older populations.
• Politics & Migration:
• Immigration from Africa and Asia could keep some European populations more stable (France, UK, Germany).
• Countries that resist immigration (e.g., Hungary) may see sharper population declines and economic stagnation.
• Increased debates over citizenship, identity, and cultural integration.

100 Years from Now (2125)

If trends don’t reverse:

• Population Size & Structure:
• Many European countries could lose 30–50% of their population compared to today.
• In extreme cases (e.g., Bulgaria, Latvia, Italy), populations could halve.
• Entire rural regions could depopulate, leaving ghost towns.
• The median European could be in their 60s if life expectancy keeps rising.
• Economics:
• Highly automated economies — far fewer workers, but each vastly more productive.
• Wealth may be distributed via universal basic income or state dividends, as traditional work becomes scarce.
• Property markets in depopulated regions could collapse, while thriving cities become highly concentrated hubs.
• Culture & Society:
• Multi-generational households could become the norm again (but this time with far fewer children).
• Culture may become more conservative or more radical — both are plausible.
• Conservative scenario: Societies focus on preserving traditions with shrinking populations.
• Radical scenario: Societies abandon old family norms entirely, leaning on artificial wombs or state-planned reproduction.
• Geopolitics:
• Europe could become militarily and politically weaker on the global stage due to sheer numbers.
• Influence shifts toward Africa, India, and other high-growth regions.
• Migration pressures could intensify — and Europe may actively compete for young migrants.

200 Years from Now (2225)

This is speculative territory, but assuming birth rates stay low:

• Population Size & Structure:
• Europe might have just a fraction of today’s population — possibly 100–250 million people total (vs. ~740 million today).
• Some countries could be functionally empty outside a few urban centers.
• Without major pronatalist policies or technology-driven reproduction, ethnic and cultural continuity could be unrecognizable.
• Economics & Technology:
• Hyper-automation could mean humans do little labor.
• Artificial intelligence and synthetic biology could allow designed reproduction — children grown in artificial wombs with selected traits.
• Some societies might deliberately limit population for ecological reasons, embracing a post-growth economy.
• Culture & Society:
• Family structures may be entirely redesigned: state- or community-raised children, or reproduction as a rare, deliberate choice.
• Cultural identity could be hybridized — Europe as we know it today might be majority descended from non-European immigrants who arrived in the 21st–22nd centuries.
• Alternatively, some regions might intentionally preserve “heritage populations” as a cultural project.
• Geopolitics:
• Europe may no longer be a major global power — Africa and parts of Asia could dominate demographically, economically, and militarily.
• Europe might become more of a cultural/heritage zone than a global driver of innovation — or the opposite, a small but technologically dominant elite society (think Singapore scaled up).

Key Wildcards

Several factors could dramatically shift these outcomes:

• Migration policies: Will Europe open up to large-scale immigration or close itself off?
• Fertility technology: Artificial wombs, gene editing, and fertility treatments could normalize having children later or increase desired family size.
• Cultural shifts: Pro-natalism could emerge if having children becomes a strong social priority (as seen in some nationalist or religious movements).
• Global crises: Climate change, pandemics, or wars could disrupt demographics unpredictably.

Would you like me to build two contrasting scenarios (e.g., low-immigration Europe vs. high-immigration Europe) to show how dramatically the picture changes over 50, 100, and 200 years? This might help clarify just how much policy and culture will shape the outcome.

Even more controversial but I personally think the way to get men to commit is to offer NO SEX until after they have committed!! This means the relationship is far more focused on whether you are compatible in all the other important areas which get over looked when it is all about good sex.

And they are increasingly not buying into the hype around motherhood, realising you don’t have to have children to feel complete and fulfilled as women.

I think that the men who should reproduce would take it and the men who shouldn’t reproduce wouldn’t take it thereby making the problem worse leaving even less traditional healthy family setups and more fatherless children.

People including so called proponents of traditional families have gone so batshit in their obsession for reproducing that they applaud men like Elon Musk and Trump who have kids here there and everywhere. In what way is that traditional values or beneficial to the kids? Ffs these people don’t even stick to their own morals at this point!

I am in my 30s and any man I meet who has kids I tell him no thanks.

I don’t want to marry nor have kids with a man who already has them. If that means I don’t have kids then so be it.

He is best focusing on his existing family even if he’s not inside the home any longer. i don’t want him to reduce child Support or child care so we can have a brand new shiny family.

This second/third family stuff often doesn’t benefit anyone aside from the men who get another go at it. And this is another reason why women in their 30s/40s aren’t settling for the already had kids/married crew who circle back for them in their 40s.

I think the problem isn't declining birth rates, it's that we keep people alive longer than we previously did due to improved medicines/care etc. If we didn't do that, then there would be less pensions to pay out, less NHS staff keeping these bodies alive and less overpopulation of care homes.
I think it's swung towards quantity rather than quality of life now and we need more people making money to prop up the quantity end of the scale.

Thinking personally, the second part of your post resonates. I'd planned to have 2 children. But my husband was so uninvested in sharing the household / child load that I wouldn't have a 2nd child. I worked just as many hours as he did but it was expected that I carried a good 90% of the housework, cooking and childcare.

When he wanted to think about a 2nd baby I told him I wasn't doing it all again. I've got friends who have only children because they didn't want to add to the load at home due to having demanding careers/work outside the home.

Men do indeed need to step up. IMO, they just aren't evolving as quickly as women. Most posts on mumsnet with any commentary about marriage reflect this.

I don’t know - not much of an impact? What do you think?

Agree, both my parents are from bigger families (1 of 5 and 1 of 7) they went on to have three children. Between the 3 of us we have 6 children.
I definitely couldn’t afford to have 5 and wouldn’t want to…

Exactly, it’s education. The more educated women are the less children they have medical support aside. Even in countries where medical support is top tier, birth rates are falling and probably faster than elsewhere because usually top tier medical support comes from a better educated society.

I reckon within a few years the problem of low birth rates will be solved with artificial births anyway which will solve all economic/age imbalance issues.

The trade off however being that it will begin the slide into a dystopian hellhole where the creation of humans is outsourced by governments to big tech in order to serve economic demand… our genetic makeup will be molded to serve the job market, and then the stage after that will likely be experimentation with direct insertion of nano technology so that humans can be controlled at will throughout their lives. Yay!

yes but developing countries rarely educate their women population and it is still a very traditional society where women are the home makers.

Compare it to the US which has the highest maternal mortality rates in a developed nation, add on the costs for medical care, and the 10-12 weeks unpaid maternity leave they get it really does not encourage women to have babies (despite Elon Musks objections!)

I don't think it's a bad thing that birth rates are falling. The world is overpopulated, natural resources are diminished and societies are crumbling.

Plus, the original poster put all the nuance on women, but men and their behaviour towards women are also a factor.

I asked earlier and nobody responded. What do you think the impact of a male birth control pill would be on this problem?

I completely agree. There’s been a sharp increase in these sort of threads recently, too. I think they should be pushed back against, firmly, every time.

Perhaps they should hand out awards for good breeders, OP. What do you think?

Another more minor factor is men. Men also face the same standards of living issues. And on top of that they see in the media multiple famous men becoming fathers (albeit usually not for the first time) right into their 60s. Why struggle financially being a dad in your 20s when you can do same in your 40s-50s (and in the meantime have fun with OLD)

Sub standard medical support may be a factor here but in developing countries where medical support is non existent women still have many children.
I think it’s more about education and opportunity’s for an alternative for women than anything else.

As David Attenburgh (I think) said the best contraceptive for women is education. the birth rate is falling as women in education is rising - no longer looking to be a SAHM women now want (need) their own jobs, money, careers etc and realised men have been taking the p*ss for years.

Having a child now is a choice, not an expectation. And women are making other life choices. Add on the substandard medical service for women, lack of support and work inflexibility is it any wonder this is happening.

Are we being slowly prepped here in the UK for women to have our rights stripped away “for the good of mankind”?
It’s fucking scary for anyone with daughters

It really is scary, I always thought if I have kids I leaned towards wanting daughters, now a part of me thinks hmm do I really want daughters ( or any kids)

The mere suggestion that in 2025 with all we know about the systemically unfair way the world operates, how the rich are getting richer off the backs of most of us , climate change and how male violence and misogyny is rampant that woman should be risking their bodies and bringing kids into the world for the “good of a society” that increasingly dehumanises all of us is bonkers and highly distasteful.

There are good reasons (for those capable of doing it well) to have and raise kids, and I’m not anti-kids but “future taxpayers” aren’t good reasons for individuals to decide to have kids.

One idea was that the government needs to step in and help? Hmm, where is all this extra money going to come from then?
A lot of the problem comes down to financal but more than that feckless fathers who don't 'forget' they have a child and go on to father others with other women.
Men in relationships who are generally useless and don't support with childcare and looking after the home where they live, because they are too lazy to learn ans would rather be gawping at their phones, gaming or out spending hours a week on hobbies.
Many women aren't, thankfully stupid enough to have kids with idiots like this and the ones they do have cost a lot to raise properly.
I read the only post and some of the remarks from this read like a political agenda from Germany at a certain time with it being a womans place to have children and be the perfect Aryan mother.

They creep me out too and I’m childfree. I don’t see it as a problem if population is dropping and it’s certainly not MY problem. If someone didn’t want to do a certain job, you wouldn’t force them to. Same with motherhood.

That's not how probability works. There's not a 50% probability we'll all murder someone or win the lottery just because there are two outcomes, "will" or "won't".

I posted after you but I too was taught that an unwanted pregnancy was life ruining… and I became hyper responsible in preventing that from happening.

Threads like this, along with those romanticised, rose-tinted tradwife posts, really creep me out.

It’s well known that in countries where women don’t have access to education or contraception, are expected by society to have lots of children, and basically don’t have many rights, the birth rate shoots up — often 5+ kids per woman on average.

Are we being slowly prepped here in the UK for women to have our rights stripped away “for the good of mankind”?

It’s fucking scary for anyone with daughters