Birth rate hits record low - 1.49 children per woman

[MidnightPatrol]

The ONS has released its latest data on the UK birthrate.

The number of children per women has dropped from 1.55 in 2022 to 1.49 in 2022 - the lowest on record.

This is the lowest number of births in the UK since 2002 - when the population was 10 million people smaller.

Do we think this problem will inevitably worsen? Are there particular reasons people are having less children (unique to the UK vs the rest of the world?).

Should we be taking steps to increase it / stop it reducing further?

I think it's good tbh. We could probs half the number of humans on this planet and still have plenty.

The issue isn’t a smaller population which resource wise is a good thing. The issue is the demographics of that population.

Society/social media leads us to believe we need to constantly strive to do more. More holidays, more activities, more days out.

When I was growing up I didn’t know anyone who went skiing. Now over half my kids school class have been!

These things cost money and people need to have less children to be able to afford it.

More women work that ever before (cost of living and above mentioned quality of life assumptions) mean there is less time to have children.

40 years ago having one more child was no issues, mum would be at home anyway, no-one holidayed abroad, you were funding kids through uni etc.

For a lot of people the life styles are very different now.

With all the focus on "making good choices" relating to having children, I'm not surprised women are choosing not to. We have to choose the right man to be a father, or it'll be our own fault when we end up as single mothers. We have to choose the right time- financially stable enough to give a child a good childhood, but not so old our fertility is declining or there is an increased risk of birth defects. And we have to choose to prioritise the child or they will grow up feral.
Yeah, impossible choices, easier to stay childless.

The human population grew rapidly and I think a reversal of that is necessary as we are destroying the planet. So I'm not too bothered about a fall in birth rate.

I have two sisters but have an only DD. If I'm honest, a second child would just be a drain on our finances (would have to either move to a larger place, or do some kind of extension as both DH and I also predominantly wfh).

We didn't see any benefit from 30 free hours as our mortgage went up at the same time we qualified, so basically was at a net zero (which is better than a negative!).

Also, my DD is nearly 4 and I absolutely love having the freedom to treat her to various days out and have fun. We wouldn't have that same freedom with another child and selfishly, I don't want to have to just break even in a month.

Plus our DD had medical issues at birth which could cause long term effects with comprehension in the future, so I want to make sure we can afford whatever additional needs she may require (tutors or whatever). This also makes me weary of ever being pregnant again, just in case something else goes wrong.

My DD is also extremely sociable so I see her as being the one with a 'found family' in a sense. Plus, there is no guarantee she will even like her hypothetical sibling!

Yes, this doesn't help.

Well - I think we always knew. I think now we just can opt out, so people are opting out.

There is still a long way to go to create equality in terms of the impact of raising children.

It's a good thing.

Exactly. A sudden inversion isn't a comfortable thing to experience. Actually it's a problem

I say this a lot on housing threads and get laughed at so I am very glad to see a thread on it.
For the environment, it's a good thing, but for society it's not a good thing.
I am in my mid 20s and housing is just so expensive childcare is so expensive is too much to have a child, I am just surviving as an adult let alone bringing a child into the world. it's just not appealing and it's something all western states are suffering with, but particularly in the UK this is something politicians have to start thinking about rather than protecting the boomer vote.
Either we have policies that favour having children or we accept immigration has to go up.

Isn’t that the first thing that happens in developing nations - once you educate women and girls, the birth rate drops. It will happen to all countries eventually. This can only benefit the planet.

In the U.K. we have a small, heavily populated country with net inward migration (which I see as a very positive thing). In this situation, a low birth rate is offset by a young migrant population arriving.

What a sad post, and doesn’t reflect my reality at all!
I have 3 children of 14 and over and they are all lovely, and dh and I are close to our parents.

I just felt fortunate to be able to afford as many children as I wanted without it impinging on quality of life, not every has that choice.

The UK doesn’t even have the housing infrastructure in terms of accessibility to account for the fact that in 2050 25% of the population will be over 65.

“Last year, pension costs increased by £6 billion to £110 billion. By 2025 they are expected to have ballooned to £135 billion, a figure £2 billion more than the combined day-to-day budgets for the Department for Education, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence, Times analysis shows.”

it’s a massive issue

@rubyredknowsitall I find it staggering people don’t get it. Aren’t they looking at the council tax bills now, the state of schools, hospitals etc how can you not join the dots?

Having children when you were poor and rural is a and was an economic decision. The more children you had , the more money could be brought in. And no access to contraception meant women had no choice but to have large families.
Now there is no economic advantage to large families- quite the opposite. And women have the choice and on the whole their choice is for smaller families, or no children at all.

You're not disagreeing though are you.

It may be harsh, but it's true.

According to Stephen Shaw - a data scientist who researched childlessness, if a woman in the UK/USA reaches age 30 without a child, the probability of her ever having a child is just 50% (which is the most shocking stastic I've seen in a long while). For 80% of women that never have a child - it's purely because of life factors (didn't find the right man at the right time, finances etc). 10% were woman who didn't want children (planned childlessness) and 10% were fertility issues.

If a woman does have a child, she's more likely to have 2 or 3 (in fact the number of 2 or 3 children families has remained largely unchanged over the last generation). It's the number of women having no children that has drastically increased.

I think you can tell I'm interested in this topic 🤣

I wasn’t sure if I wanted children at all for a long time. When I finally had DS, the birth and postnatal care was so dreadful I didn’t have another.

I’m ok with a falling birth rate. Yes o get the demographics issue but it’s a good way to help with climate issues

I have two teens, 15 and almost 17 and neither of them have even screamed at me and slammed doors. They are kind, interesting and lovely kids on the road to being kind, interesting and lovely adults. And their friends are all similarly pleasant.

In fact, thinking about this a bit more. Out of my immediate friendship group, three are child free by choice and four of us only have one child each. There’s only one of us with two kids and she had twins so didn’t get much choice. We’re all late forties early fifties so won’t be having any more.

That’s very interesting, thank you.

@lemmefinish I think the UK is still being shielded by immigration etc, so it's not so easy to see yet, whereas a trip to my little home town slams the reality right down.

People imagine a labor shortage so more jobs opening up, actually it's derelict streets and seriously stagnant wages (minimum wage here is about ￡4.90 an hour).

Good.

I work in education & you can already see the impact on schools as funding is based on head counts.

“London Councils says almost 15% of school places in the city are now unfilled. It is forecasting a further 7% decrease in new pupils between now and 2026-27, equivalent to about 243 classes of children.”

I'm assuming the people who say good are particularly insulated from massive financial and social instability?

Wow, is it falling that quickly? Is that because London is particularly expensive to raise a child - so the effect is more pronounced there than say Hastings?