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?

Ah then I think I misunderstood and we actually do agree that this is the solution, but that the government wouldn't do it!

Those who chose not to have children shouldn't have to support those who do

Where does this end though? Many tax payers tend to pay for things for others.

The difference now is that the benefits system has ballooned to the point that we now have a nanny state and people who won't go without their Costa coffee, tattoos, football club annual ticket, holidays

🙄

People would be able to afford to have children if they could afford to live.
So either salaries need to increase, or costs of the essentials needs to go down.
No benefits needed.
Personally, I think any business that pays its staff such a low wage that the workers have to rely on government handouts to live, have no business being in business.

Rubbish. I am already too old (and to disabled) but I'll be there anyway. I will probably need them to have handrails though so that I don't fall over when chucking the molotov's... See you there 😂

Ah, this is exactly the kind of attitude I was referring to in my original post. A shame, up until this point I was just thinking what a great, thoughtful, intelligent thread this has been that had really made me feel a bit more optimistic. There's such a level of ignorance in this that I'm not sure where to start.

'Those who chose not to have children shouldn't have to support those who do' - this is what our entire system and society is based on? I could say, I don't need to access cancer treatment so why should I support people who do need it through the NHS? My kids aren't currently secondary school age so why are my taxes paying for secondary schools? We all contribute financially towards society. This is a weird thing to say.

Then you go on to say that no generation has it easier than any other, things are hard and that's just life - I think this is an incredibly ignorant thing to say. If you look at how much house prices have risen compared to wages, it is absolutely not comparable. My grandparents were working class and not well off at all, but they both worked which meant they could afford to purchase a property. People in the same or better paid jobs nowadays cannot say the same. There are so many things which on paper literally show that current young adults have it far worse financially than your generation and it is ignorant to suggest otherwise. It doesn't mean you didn't work hard, or make your own sacrifices, but it doesn't help anyone to deny that things are more difficult financially now. Two full time incomes used to be enough to buy a property, and now it often isn't. This especially 'people who won't go without their Costa coffee, tattoos, football club annual ticket, holidays' it's like the whole avocado toast fisaco. You can't budget your way out of a housing crisis.

Then for some reason you go off about immigrants and get very personal and nasty. 'decamping to a country to live off their benefits when you have left the women and children of your country to face this without you. Cowardice or laziness?' As I said in a post earlier, if immigration is a problem, then it is because out government have not managed the situation effectively. If they are going to allow a certain number of immigrants, they need to plan, build housing, put infrastructure in place, develop a functioning benefits system. You can't blame individual immigrants for legally moving here and doing what they are allowed to do by our government. If you don't like it, maybe direct that towards the people in power and the decision makers, rather than the individuals who are just doing what they are allowed to do.

Whether we agree it is the solution depends - I am not expecting "the government" as it stands to do it. It may be an unfashionable idea these days, but only one person has written the seminal text on economics over the past 100+ years and has accurately predicted where we are now. I am a Marxist.

This is impressionistic and may be entirely wrong, but I get the idea it's not poor people choosing not to have children because they genuinely can't afford it at all, it's middle class couples avoiding children because they don't want to sacrifice any of their higher standard of living.

Women don't want to have children though. It's not just about money. You're more likely to end up alone with them now and can end up in trouble financially as a result. Life is more insecure as a result of housing problems and children are a challenge to raise due to poor behavior and difficulties with schools. Many women are deciding they don't want this stress in their lives and I can't say I blame them. Throwing money at the problem isn't a solution.

@JeremiahBullfrog I'm pretty sure the data shows poorer people are less likely to have dc these days.

One thing to factor in is what the workforce needs will be like when dc born now reach 16/18 and above.

We need to not have too many without work due to AI / tech advances

The figures actually show that the number of women chosesing not to have children hasn't actually changed that much. It's more that women are leaving it later to start families for a number of reasons often cost. This then means they either have less children then they would have liked or non at all due to fertility issues. From the group that want children apparently 50% of women over 30 end up childless even though they said they wanted a family.

This is unintentional childlessness not that they actually planned on not having any at all.

Yep this.

As I’ve said before I work with a few women who are all in their late 30’s and are all at various stages of fertility treatment having prioritised their careers and then at the point they decided they wanted children have struggled, they all want kids, but whether they will be able to have them we don’t yet know. There is another woman we work with who was in their position a couple of years ago, had 3 cycles of IVF which were unsuccessful and then decided financially and mentally they couldn’t cope with anymore, so again she wanted children but was unable to have them.

The way it works in some European countries is that you get a job or you rely on family eg. Live with or paId for by parents. Or it’s charity like the church. The state hardly steps apart from extreme disability cases, and you certainly can’t just live off the state for a lifetime. If you explain our benefits to someone in Greece for example they don’t understand how that’s possible, it’s alien and tbh unnatural fo be kept in housing and benefits. They earn maybe 800 euros on average and rent is 500, so life is hard. But that is life, not our bizarre bandwagon that more and more people are jumping on.

Sorry this universal income nonsense. Explain how it works when everyone or a lot wants it and the mug taxpayers don’t have an incentive work lower paid occupations if others are parasiting off them. Yes, I understand the danger of AI, we need to find ways where people produce and earn in some way, either everyone works if nobody does. Having this half and half taxpayers and non contributors is unjust, benefits are a safety net for all, and is being abused , it was not set up for how it has been treated.

I can’t believe the posts I have read on here going hmm not a bad idea culling over 70s. Why this blanket age thing? Most/many have paid their dues to society. Why not cull non contributors/tax payers. Bet some would pull their finger out quick then. The ones left who just can’t due to disability, why aren’t the culler posters after them? They’re just dead weight right?

Do you think they’re being serious…? !

I can’t believe the posts I have read on here going hmm not a bad idea culling over 70s. Why this blanket age thing? Most/many have paid their dues to society. Why not cull non contributors/tax payers.

Those posters are being facetious but what does paid your dues to society mean? The majority of people take out than they put in financially.

We already do cull them. Over 300,000 excess deaths were attributed to austerity.

The problem is global, the planet's over populated, Sir David Attenborough has said this.

Yes we have an aging population but encouraging women to have more children isn't going to solve that, because what happens when those children grow old. You will need more children being born to support them in old age, plus as medicine and health care becomes even more advanced, people will be living even longer, so the working population will need to be even bigger. It's a never ending cycle.

I recently read a book where it was set in the future and the over 70s were not allowed to have antibiotics as a way of killing off the older generation.

From some posts I read, yes I do think they are serious. Plus 70 isn’t really old, 90 plus is, I will admit that I do find it strange to try and save the life with operations etc of a 95 year old, when the resources could be better used elsewhere.

I agree with this, we need less people in the long run for the planets sake as well as the inhabitants inc animals. We have to go through the imbalance stage though tough. It’s a blink of an eye to get to the other side time wise in historical terms. We should be thinking long long term.

True, so why all the emphasise on allowing so much in benefits before pension age? Why the vilification and chasing out of the country of the rich who pay a disproportionate amount of tax?

so why all the emphasise on allowing so much in benefits before pension age?

I don't know what you mean by this?

And what did you mean by Most/many have paid their dues to society. ?

Why the vilification and chasing out of the country of the rich who pay a disproportionate amount of tax?

I think there is a bit more nuance than that.

We should be thinking long long term.

Long term for any country/society to progress & survive you need new blood. A reduced population is a good thing, a reduced but older population not so much.

In 1925 the average life expectancy in the UK was 56 for men and 59 for women.

One hundred years later it is 79 for men and 81 for women.

I think retirement age will just keep rising.