Cost of living in the UK v the birth rate

[Potterpot]

I was reading an article where a young couple living in an expensive part of the country said they wouldn’t be able to afford having kids so they’ve made peace with that decision. I can understand why, especially after seeing on another thread that some people’s full time nursery bill costs £1600 a month for one child. The UK average property price at current rates is £1300 a month. That’s £3000 gone, before you’ve even thought about council tax, utility bills, food shopping, travel, saving, disposable income.

I understand being able to make the short term sacrifice financially to afford one child.

Unless one parent can be a SAHP or have significant family help, how are people affording two? Do you have to be high earners for this lifestyle now?

Some people might the towns you refer to as a bin of a town. No need to be rude.

As a grandmother who has done my fair share of childcare I don't see it as fobbing them off. I loved my time with them and have a close bond. They did do part time nursery from about 2. I agree it is very hard if you don't have any family support with childcare but childcare from a grandparent isn't some second rate fobbing off.

But it depends on what it cost to conceive, whether they can afford two kids for twenty odd years not just nursery age. I have a friend who had one because she can give her daughter more opportunities - private school for one. More than I can ever do for my three.

We are sticking to one not just because of direct costs like childcare, but because of the shoddy state of healthcare and education.

In order to provide him with the same level of care we enjoyed as children, we need more money. Ergo no second

Havent RTFT yet, but this is very much us too. We have one DD and won’t be having any more - technically we could have afforded a second child, as in they would be provided for and wouldn’t go hungry, but for us ‘affordable’ wasn’t enough; we wanted a decent quality of life and level of opportunity for that child too.

So in that respect, yes our decision to stick at one was down to wanting to maintain a particular lifestyle - but that lifestyle was something I, DP and our siblings enjoyed growing up in two very ordinary, middle of the road households. It is very clear to both of us that many of the things that we had access to for free as kids - reliable healthcare, good state schooling, vaguely pleasant and functioning public amenities and extra curricular opportunities- are now often not forthcoming unless you pay privately for them. For example, we now pay extortionate for a private gym/pool whereas we learnt to swim in perfectly nice public pools (our local ones are now grim bordering on outright dangerous). We pay for DD to have private musicality classes because we would like her to access instrument lessons, but local state primaries do so little music that the kids aren’t exposed to a range of instruments to choose from (whereas I had free recorder lessons, played in the school band and then progressed to clarinet off the back of that, with free taster lessons). And so on.

I say this as someone whose household income falls within the top 10% nationally - but we’re on London, and the cost of living her means that even the one DC feels like a stretch. We’re planning a move out of London soon for more space and better schools - local ones are all military style academies and even with our income we can’t comfortably afford to go private.

I adore DD and don’t regret her for a minute, but I completely understand why many women slightly younger than me are opting out.

@AlpineMuesli Anecdotally I'd say yes. Where my kids go to school 3 child families are close to the norm and some, not a small amount, have 4 or more. 2 seems to be the minimum and 1 child families are incredibly rare.

Exactly.

If I had waited 5 years, I’d be 40+.

Um… have you have forgotten about women’s fertility window?!

If you’re in your mid to late 30s when you have your first child (increasingly common for a myriad of reasons), waiting 5 years for the second child could mean costly IVF or no second child.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/birthsbyareaofusualresidenceofmotheruk#:~:text=The%20East%20of%20England%20and,with%201.72%20children%20per%20woman.

• Main points from our latest release:In 2016 the total fertility rate (TFR) in the UK was 1.79 children per woman, a slight decrease from 2015 (1.80).
• Northern Ireland had the highest TFR of all UK countries in 2016, with 1.95 children per woman, in England and Wales the TFRs were 1.81 and 1.74 respectively; Scotland had the lowest TFR with 1.52 children per woman.
• The East of England and the West Midlands were the regions of England with the highest TFR in 2016 with 1.91 children per woman, while the North East and London had the lowest with 1.72 children per woman.
• Among the local authorities in England in 2016, Barking and Dagenham had the highest TFR with 2.47 children per woman while City of London had the lowest with 0.75 children per woman.
• Among the local authorities in Wales in 2016, Denbighshire had the highest TFR with 2.09 children per woman while Cardiff had the lowest with 1.59 children per woman.
• In England in 2016, there were 5.6 births per 1,000 women aged under 18, in Wales the figure was 7.7.
• London was the region of England with the lowest birth rate for women aged under 18 (3.8 births per 1,000 women) while the North East had the highest (10.2 births per 1,000 women) in 2016.
• In England in 2016 there were 1.1 births per 1,000 women aged 45 and over, in Wales the figure was 0.7.
• The North East was the region of England with the lowest birth rate for women aged 45 and over (0.5 births per 1,000 women) while London had the highest (2.7 births per 1,000 women) in 2016.
• In 2016 the North East was the region of England with the highest percentage of live births outside marriage or civil partnership (59.8%), London had the lowest (36.5%).
• Among the local authorities in England in 2016, Knowsley had the highest percentage of live births outside marriage or civil partnership (73.3%), Harrow had the lowest (19.4%).
• Among the local authorities in Wales in 2016, Merthyr Tydfil had the highest percentage of live births outside marriage or civil partnership (70.8%) while Cardiff had the lowest (47.6%).

N.I and Midlands are highest - maybe don't know much about N.I - my families bit of midland isn't cheap - though mostly better than SE but there is work.

In my circles the cost of living is a consideration amongst my friends when thinking about their family size - but it has been more around deciding to have 2 rather than 3 kids, or deciding to start a family a bit later, rather than deciding to not have children at all due to expense.

People prioritise what they care most about. I know several couples with the husband in badly paid professions (youth worker etc) who have had more than one child. The Mums are all sahp. That was their dream. They choose to live in cheap accommodation for their area, don't go abroad or eat out etc. Children share a bedroom. They sacrificed a lot to make it happen in the early years.

We are in our 20s so could wait ‘five years’ but I don’t know what difference it makes? The cost of the older child doesn’t go away… they’ll both still need clothing, school trips, Christmas prezzies, childcare of sort (even if it’s summer holiday clubs), savings for their future.

When I was in primary school (15-20 years ago) it was normal for families to have two or three kids, one parent working or two on lower paid jobs - think receptionist and customer services in a bank - and they could afford holidays, even if not abroad then in the UK. House prices have rocketed in an unsustainable way and things just aren’t the same anymore, they’re not even the same as they were for people starting their families 10 years ago.

All these "we managed, just adjust expectations blah blah blah" people - break it down for us. How are you managing so comfortably? Are you having to do it now at today's house prices, with 2024 childcare costs and after 15 years of wage stagnation? If it's really so easy, tell us how.

Just for contrast our two bed terrace was £340 15 years ago. We are SE but zone 5.

I don’t agree about it being unable to afford children is simply unwilling to downsize on lifestyle. As humans we are hard wired to want children from an evolutionary perspective. Mine are 13 and 9 now. 13 years ago the UK had the highest birth rates in recent years. The current year 7 and 8 are the largest school years.

It wasn’t long enough ago and I remember life being a lot more affordable. We spaced ours to have only one in nursery at a time. I earned a good wage and I could afford full time childcare from my income. This meant you can also rely solely on one wage and one income if you don’t want to keep your career going. Mortgage, house prices, food, energy were all so much cheaper. We managed to save enough to upsize from a 3 to a 4 bed during my second maternity. We could then use childcare vouchers to save on nursery costs because childcare vouchers are employee benefits that can’t be taken away during maternity, similar to pensions.

I just don’t think it’s possible now to do all this as a dual income professional couple. You can see it in our plummeting birth rates. It’s really bad for the future of the country. We aren’t investing in our next generation.

Exactly. They couldn’t. The truth of the matter is, unless you’ve started your family after 2020 and don’t earn six figures plus you’d never understand.

When I read these threads, people always forget to take into account tax, national insurance and student loans when quoting monthly salaries.

Childcare is disgustingly expensive. We pay £1.5k a month, which increased in December by £200 a month. This will be going up again in June to £1.6k a month as the government have royally fucked up the 15 “free” hours and underfunding nurseries. When we signed up our son the year before he was due to start it was £1.2k, so increased £400 in two years.

Aside from the increase in childcare, interest rates have doubled, as has things like gas and electricity, council tax, food, and every other bill.

Unsurprisingly, our wages haven’t had the same kind of increases to keep up with the cost of living.

When I fell pregnant in October 2021, our finances said we could afford two children but we will now have to time it for when our son is 3 so we only ever pay one set of nursery fees.

I don’t think people realise how much everything has increased in such a short space of time! Our household income is £110k a year too, so we shouldn’t be struggling.

You have no mortgage!

Define a decent job? Many people living in those areas will manage to live on their salary and have children.

This! I think people just don’t get it unless they started a family in the last few years. It’s mind boggling just how extortionate EVERYTHING has become. I really feel for you

Savings?? Loads of children have no savings!!!

Some kids go to state school, do no hobbies, only have Vinted and Primark clothes and presents are minimal- certainly not the gaudy pile of gifts in a Facebook status. no holidays either unless it’s a cheap caravan.

its perfectly possible to raise children cheap- which is why I constantly receive a ton of shite from my family about sticking at 1.

i want my DC to go to the lovely local girls school. do every hobby. Go on every trip they want to. Pay for driving lessons and a tidy little first car. I don’t want her working through university (I spent my 4 years doing 25 hours a week at a supermarket instead both studying and societies). I want her to have a fat housing deposit. I have other reasons for being OAD but finances certainly play a part.

I’m not stupid. i certainly could raise two children or three very nicely compared to how some kids grow up (like I grew up) but I just see it as depleting resources for my first.

fine if you have the urge and the need to have a big family makes you change your priorities- but I never had that urge.

FWIW I grew up as a very poor only child. Thank god my parents didn’t have any more. I never wanted any siblings. I did however want to do horse riding and go on foreign trips with my school.

Gentrification. If we all move there it’s going to make it really expensive and there will be less work. Why should the solution be move to two areas of the country where you might be able to buy a house with an extra two bedrooms? It doesn’t fix the problem.

I can only do my kind of work in London. To live elsewhere, somewhere cheaper, I would have to retrain, or give up my career. That’s not really a ‘lifestyle choice’.

@NavyPeer I get it. I don’t particularly want to be able to send ours to private school, it’s more I want to be able to fund their driving, uni and a contribution towards a house deposit cos life ain’t getting any cheaper. I see it as part of being a parent. As it is DH and I will be working our backsides off to make that happen- you have to start putting away for them from the start. I cannot see how you could guarantee that for two kids if their early childhood is spent with our finances gobbled up by double childcare fees etc.

Well this is all part of the issue tbh.

Waiting until youre way into your 30s before you decide to get your life together and think about getting married, buying a house, having kids etc.