How do we solve this if people hate benefits?

[is30tooyoungformidlifecrisis]

I've been mulling this over for a while and really trying to avoid a goady post but I'm genuinely interested in what people think.

The reality is in the UK we have a rapidly declining birth rate and an ageing population, so in a decade we're going to be in trouble as a country.

On an individual level, people (that I see online) seem to be very anti-benefits for parents. I always see the line 'if you can't afford kids don't have them' etc. But the reality is that the cost of living is going up, childcare is up, housing is up, and if people literally cannot afford kids they won't have them and that's what we're seeing happen now.

On a wider society level, we need to encourage people to have children to keep our population stable, especially since politicians and the media have stirred up so much hatred towards immigrants so we can't rely on immigration to solve our population problem. The only solution I see is to increase benefits for having children and make it easier - eg. increase maternity pay, subsidise childcare costs, increase child benefit maybe in a means-tested way. But I think all that would go down like a lead balloon with people crying 'the government shouldn't pay for your kids, pay for them yourself' - but really, if the government have got the country to a point where it's a real problem, it's on them to sort it. What do you all think?

I know some people are having less kids because of money, but its rare you meet a child free person whose decided that because of money - it's either because they find kids or the idea of raising children to not be appealing, or because the veil has been lifted and for the first time ever in history women really understand the enormity of having a child, the dynamics between men and women when it comes to parenting, how a lot of men simply do not step up to parenting, how vulnerable being in a bad relationship with a child can make you.... the list is endless. Never mind the fact that we are educating ourselves against years of indoctrination that you MUST find a man and then you MUST keep that man even if he is a lazy, grumpy shit who expects you to be his mother. There are still a LOT of people out there who think that unless a man beats or cheats, he is still just 'a good man who makes mistakes, noones perfect, why are you so picky'
I firmly believe that the sacrifice women are expected to make, with the way things stand, in order to maintain our population, just isn't a fair deal.

The reality is in the UK we have a rapidly declining birth rate and an ageing population, so in a decade we're going to be in trouble as a country.

we are already in trouble now

On a wider society level, we need to encourage people to have children to keep our population stable,

that ship has sailed though

Kill off everyone over 70?
Edit to say that would include me.

Financially this is the better option.

it’s worth thinking about why the population changes mean that we are in trouble as a country.

there are countries like Japan that decided not to have immigration and accept the declining birth rate.

Britain has always had more immigration than Japan.

our population pyramid is now looking pretty much like a rectangle now compared to say 1970.

https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-kingdom/2025/

but why is this a problem?

Housing has fucked the economy, wages have stagnated and too much intergenerational inequality

I had been thinking the answer might be more benefits for parents, but IIRC, trying that in other countries, even with pretty generous amounts, has not been at all effective. Which kind of surprises me, but there you go. I guess there is still the ultimate instability and unaffordability of housing in most places.

I think this is very true. I think there's been a societal shift and more girls/women are asking why, rather than having children just being a thing you expect to grow up and do. The sacrifices mothers make outweigh those made by fathers by an order of magnitude.

And I also think… parenting in 2025 is like an extra job where you are required to invest time in your children, thinking about their education and future, saving for them and perhaps funding a university education and house deposit.

good point

We simply can't continue as we are as a society, it's unsuitable.

What does this mean though? It's unsustainable and uncharted to have an ageing population.

What if childcare was state supplied, like schools? So free but paid for from taxes.

I realise that this would be hugely unpopular among the childfree tax payers and, let's face it, we can't even staff schools so likely would never be possible, but if it were - could it be an answer?

But the posters who point out that the falling birth rate is an issue around the world, including in different economies, make a great point - I would be interested in reading some research into the reason for falling birth rates in the western world if anybody has any to share (too tired / lazy to search myself).

Once birth rates fall it's very hard to increase them by a significant amount. I'm not sure any country has managed it.

One of my siblings and SIL do not want dc. They have homes and good incomes but want to maintain their lifestyle. Can't say they are wrong tbh.

I don't think the quality has gone down; some men were always the way that they are except women were expected to put up with it and had to as they had no financial freedom. Behind closed doors and all that.

I don’t know that simply throwing more government money at benefits would solve it, I do think that better maternity/paternity pay would help, and free/better childcare offers. We had our first child last year, I have friends who would love to start a family, but the biggest blocks I would say of those I know are:

1. childcare costs
2. their household bills require both incomes, so any amount of time on SMP is not doable really
3. they want to be home owners so they have stability rather than renting, and house prices make that difficult

So for those people some of the suggestions here would help.

But part of the birthrate decreasing is that society has moved on but biology hasn’t kept up. As a woman your most fertile years are from your teens to mid 20’s, 50 years ago that was fine because most women didn’t do uni or career jobs, they did have children young. But now, women go to sixth form, we go to university, we want a career, we want to work our way up the ladders and that is great for women- we should absolutely have those choices. BUT- biology hasn’t changed to work with that. I work with a few women who are currently having fertility treatment to try to conceive because they’ve had amazing careers but now they want to start a family time isn’t on their side and they are struggling. It’s hard, but we as women can rarely have it all in that respect, so that’s a factor that benefits etc wouldn’t resolve.

Yes it would cause a generational issue over how to pay for a larger elderly population which would result in higher taxes and lower benefits for the retired.

How much higher should income tax be?

Would seriously reduced tax rates to women working a minimum of 30 hours a week with children of 0 to primary age help? … just throwing it out there…

I so agree with this. Especially since I've started browsing on mumsnet the last couple of years since becoming a mum myself, I am often staggered at the amount of women who have husbands who, after having children, they just go back to work, gym, football, and gaming as if their life is exactly the same, and the women are left to pick up the pieces and basically treat him as another child. I think the internet and social media has really made people see this side of things.

Unfortunately, changing this kind of thing is a huge societal shift that will take generations, so it'll be too late to address the more immediate issues we'll face as a country

We cannot continue the ponzi scheme of just stuffing the base to balance the top.

We're going to have to go through the difficult time - the people at the top of the demographic tree are going to have to pay for themselves far more than they are at the moment or they are going to have to accept less of everything - less health and care resources/less financial resources to pass on to their family.

This will limit the amount the working population will have to subsidise them.

Retirement will have to go back to being short and not as luxurious as it has been for the past 10/20 years. It is not fair for the retired population to live better lives than the working population. It wasn't meant to be a life of luxury - just not one of penury. At the moment we've got people in both categories and that age group have to become more balanced (by paying more as a group toward the services the whole group uses)

I absolutely do not support children being born to serve the needs of retired population - so servants of the old. No.

We have enough immigration that can be used at the moment - but this involves those immigrants being trained and put into the workforce as quickly as possible, so that they can contribute to taxation.

but why is this a problem?

it's the financial implications and a society not ready for the changes. Japan at least has don't some planning.

Allow cohabitating couples with children up to the age of six to share their tax allowance.

You're highlighting a range of different problems.

In-work benefits have proven to be a disaster. They subsidise relatively low wages (not necessarily a bad thing) but what they're largely used for is paying rents and mortgages. The wage subsidy has caused property prices and rents to be bid up to ever higher levels (requiring yet more subsidies) with no actual increase in living standards! The main problem is the fixed supply of property to rent and buy, so the wage subsidy has led to asset price inflation and higher profits for landlords. We need to address the supply side of that equation.

We cannot continue the ponzi scheme of just stuffing the base to balance the top.

We don't have this though. And we need a softer landing or at least discussions about it. We don't have enough of the correct housing and transport for example to cope with the ageing population.

We're going to have to go through the difficult time - the people at the top of the demographic tree are going to have to pay for themselves far more than they are at the moment or they are going to have to accept less of everything - less health and care resources/less financial resources to pass on to their family.

Can anyone see this being a vote winner? 😆

I agree and I do think the premise of my question is flawed - treating children as a replacement for the existing labour workforce, harkens back to why schools were invented in the first place as a way to just train children up to go and work in factories. The more you look at the problem the bigger it gets, the more factors are influencing it.

I suppose a better question might be, if a low birth rate is going to set this generation of children up with big problems in the future, then how can we tackle those and prepare for it