… as the family dissolves.

[rickyrickygrimes]

I listened to an FT podcast today about demographic change, which was fascinating and quite 😱. One phrase that caught my attention was : ‘“There is a huge vulnerability that I don't have an answer for, and that's what happens as the family dissolves, as the family evolves. I don't know what fits into that space.”

The interviewer asked him to explain what he meant by this, and it was basically: when so few women are having children, and the generational family structure that humans have evolved to rely on for thousands of years essentially ceases to exist, what will replace it? And where will people find meaning in life, when family doesn’t exist? And an answer to loneliness?

I can see this playing out in my own family, with 5 out of 6 grandparents now entering their 80s, with only 3 grandchildren between them. My sister chose not to have children, my SIL has only 1. All for reasons that are very valid on an individual level - but at a population level the consequences are huge and will impact everyone. And I choose to live outside the UK - I’m not on hand to provide any kind of care for my own parents - again for valid personal reasons but which will have big consequences at a societal level.

What do you think will replace the family structure, as it dissolves?

From The Rachman Review: Our shrinking and ageing world, 24 Jul 2025
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-rachman-review/id1504048545?i=1000718767539&r=1001
This material may be protected by copyright.

I work for a charity for older people and yes we get loads of clients looking for help because all their kids are abroad or died before them. So many older people seem to just have no-one to help them when they need it.

I think we’ll see more chosen families and co-living setups, friends aging together, mutual support circles, that kind of thing. Not a one-to-one replacement for the old family model, but maybe something more intentional.

People will turn to AI chatbots and similar, as many already do for therapy and for the closest they can get to social interaction.

The less people have to ground them in their real lives, the more they seek to create a fantasy version that actually makes it harder to interact with real people and form real connections.

Just like computer games, computer 'friends' always want what you want, are there 24/7, ready to listen or engage, never turn against you or disagree unless you want them too, so they don't teach you how to coexist with real people.

But when you really do have nobody, sometimes a pretend somebody is better than being completely alone.

I agree that family structures are changing. Technology is invaluable though when families are small and scattered. I live abroad but can still organize a fair amount of support for my elderly Dad with emails and messaging. Phone calls are also much cheaper with a plan so I can call him pretty much every day.

I can also easily keep in touch with friends and family in the UK.

Another statistic that made me 😱 was that the 80+ yrs age group is the fastest growing contingent in every population, and that we have no cure for Alzheimer’s/ dementia - but we are deliberately extending life expectancy to an age where more and more people live long enough to develop these conditions, and require intensive, expensive nursing care just to keep them alive.

My own MIL was kept alive in a nursing home for 4.5 years - doubly incontinent, immobile, no communication, physically and mentally unable to do anything for herself And it cost the tax payer over £400,000 in nursing home fees. For one person. How on earth is the dwindling younger population meant to provide sufficient tax income to support that level of care for the expanding older generations?

Who cares what happens in the future as you will be dead?

I’m going to get a walk in nature today, listen to music and try to enjoy my life. Yes things are changing but things are always changing. 💕

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jul/29/grandparents-kids-rely-raise-family-childcare-costs

i think coming back to the UK for a holiday just now has made me see how individualistic people have become and how little state support there is for families.

I live in France, which still manages to have a higher fertility rate than other European countries. There, it’s completely normal for grandparents to take on childcare especially during the holidays. Most of my children’s friends spend weeks in the summer staying with grand parents. They also have fully subsidised state crèches and nursery school, with extended hours to got the working day. There are significant benefits available to families with three or more children. At the other end, there is a legal obligation on children to be responsible for the care of their parents - either hands on, organising or funding it (means tested). And parents are not obliged to sell the ‘family home’ or any other property, they can gift it to their children and retain the right to live there or even rent it out. The authorities only go back 10 years in terms of assessing deprivation of assets. Also, in France you cannot disinherit your children.

so in all these ways, the institution of the family is supported and bound together. In the UK it really feels like every man for themselves, that each individual should be able to live a life entirely free of obligations to others if that’s what they desire. Thus the family dissolves.

I see it myself on here ‘I have no friends, no family and no neighbours I can ask’

I think this might be a temporary blip. People are having fewer children because of the affordability. But I think there will be bounce back in a generation, when children who have grown up as only children with older parents, nursery from a young age think 'I wonder what life would be like...?' and look to previous generations for examples of idealised big families. Nurseries will have closed down because of a lack of need, so may well open up again but in a new model. Workspaces will be keener to attract workers (because a low population will mean fewer workers) so make it easier to work AND have a family.

I don't think things will return to the Victorian families of fifteen, but I do think that, as the memory of how life is now fades and moves a generation down, future generations may well idealise past life and try to recreate it, hopefully with a bit more help from workplaces, Government etc.

it really feels like every man for themselves, that each individual should be able to live a life entirely free of obligations to others if that’s what they desire

This is the crux of it. And it works both ways - people don't want to help others, so others don't want to to help them. You see it on here with, for example, grandparents who spend their 60s off on cruises and buying new cars every year whilst their adult kids struggle financially and/or practically. Then in 20 years time those same kids aren't going to want to drop everything to help (understandably).

The resent thread about how many cousins you have vs your children was also showing this. For my own ratio there I have 18 cousins. My children 5. Only 1 on their mothers side

We can’t keep growing the population- we haven’t got homes, we haven’t good enough land to feed and ever growing population. It’s an animal population that grows beyond what its environment can support and then crashes with starvation and violence. I would like to think we have evolved beyond pure animal.

what are the options ? Under the assumption the world population and the UK population are both too large to be sustainable - Have loads of children and kill off anyone over 60 ? Saves the pension problem yeah!

Or work out a way to live that involves a community rather than a nuclear family ? After all relying on children and grandchildren for you support and entertainment as you get older seems very selfish. Look beyond your own immediate genetic pool for friends and support.

It's kind of strange to think people only have meaning in life via their family. Loneliness is far more complex then family relationships.

As people age, if they need help or support, they use services or pay people. Just like parents pay for childcare instead of family helping out.

The world is constantly changing, society changes, it always has and always will.

I think it’ll go back the other way. Lots of us who have young children now and aren’t getting as much help from our parents as the parents and grandparents generations are thinking that we will be there for our children and have a better family set up with grandchildren when older. Childcare is becoming cheaper now for the first time in a long time with the new funding hours. I think the last 15 years or so has been an expensive blip.

Yes, I see it in my family.

my mum told me early on, long before I even thought of having kids, that she wasn’t going to be ‘one of these grandparents that takes on childcare’ because she felt she’d done her turn and there were far more pleasant things for her to do with her time - mostly gardening and holidays. It was not a sacrifice she had any interest in making. And tbh she looked down on grandparents who did childcare, like it was old fashioned or something, she saw herself as being more ‘liberated’ than that - she’d worked, had a career, she wasn’t going to go back to something as lowly as childcare.

And my sister choosing not to have children… that’s a tricky one because I understand and respect her personal reasons for that choice. On paper her life looks so much better than mine as a result - she has a lot more money, she has gone further in her career, she will likely retire a lot younger than me, she partnered with a man who also doesn’t want kids and who is pretty wealthy. They do what they want, when they want to do it, and do not need to take account of anyone else’s needs / wants. They live in a beautiful big house, they travel, they buy only the best of everything. Materially they have so much more compared to DH and I, who have two boys and uni fees to come. We’ve had 17 years of endless compromises of our own needs / wants for the benefit of the children, smaller incomes split over 4 people - everyone who’s a parent will recognise the relentless nature of it. On paper, you’d be mad not to choose my sisters lifestyle over mine! But… her investment in society stops with her. It goes backwards to caring for my parents, but it doesn’t extend forward.

and so the family dissolves.

Yeah, I have 5 cousins, DH has 8-9 I think. My kids have 1.

If I look back, my paternal great great grandparents had 7 children, 6 grandchildren and one great grandchild (my father). This contraction was caused by two world wars killing a lot of people. My father has 5 grandchildren so far. That’s just above replacement level.

The data shows that the proportion of mothers having 2, 3 or 4+ children is the same as it has been since WW2 in relation to each other (in other words the U.K. has long had modest family sizes with few in the 4+ range). There is an increase in women having only one child and a large increase in women having no children. This last group stands at about 30% of the population, but only about 5% of women are childless by choice. This means a quarter of women are not becoming mothers, despite having hoped to.

Relying on a tight knit community rather than just the immediate family is exactly what humans are evolved to do. Biologically though, it’s shared genes and family bonds that form the solid basis of those connections / obligations.

where my parents live is a great example. They live rurally in a pretty well to do community full of retirees. They all support each other with the slightly younger ones keeping an eye on the older ones, offering lifts, organising social events etc. But when push comes to shove and you are looking at hospital admissions, dementia, lack of mobility, incontinence, arranging carers etc neighbours popping in once a week is not going to cut it and it’s family that steps in - whether arranging care, moving in to care, moving closer to help out.

When I was younger, my family included my grandma's best friend (grandma died before i was born). my dad & uncle cared for her as if she were their own DM. My DM used to shop for her. She was from generation that lost many men to WW1 so had never married. Her ndn was also heavily involved in making sure she was ok. She lived alone but never seemed lonely. I wonder if we even have the space in our lives now for this type of inclusion of non-family.
I check on my ndn from time to time, but I don't come anywhere close to the commtment of the ndn of this 'aunt' of mine.

This means a quarter of women are not becoming mothers, despite having hoped to.

This was also picked up on in the podcast - it being observed across the world now in different countries including in the developing world - India, South America etc. That women hope to become mothers… and then they don’t. And we don’t really know the exact reasons why.

My dad’s mum basically took on his best friend when he was a boy, as his parents were just terrible. This would have been in the 1950s. Nothing official, they were very local and my gran could afford to have him move in with them. He was like a second son to her, and he and my dad remained very close all their lives.

But looking back there were many women, because it was the women, looking after many in their family and extended family and utterly resenting the trapped obligation.

How many would have made the same choices if there was the same contraception options, work options and the freedom to choose not to marry that man or have that child?

Personally I don't think a bigger house would give me any pleasure, you can only sit on one sofa, read one book, pee in one toilet at a time. My two teens on the other hand, much more expensive than a bigger house for sure, have given, still give me & H endless joy. They make us belly laugh every day, some days it feels like endless belly laughing. They haven't been looked after by grandparents, they wouldn't expect that from us, apart from the fact we are encouraging them to look outside the UK to build their life and careers. And we don't expect them to look after us, perhaps advocate for us if we are dotty, but nothing more. They owe us nothing, it's a privilege to bring them up.

We just have to enjoy the family, however small, we do have.

Because they don't meet someone they can have children with, or feel in a secure financial, housing position, during their fertile window.

The reasons for this are complex, many and varied. And can't really be had without including the modern men in this equation.

I decided that who I had children with was far more important than if I had them.

I wasn't particularly broody, but when I met H it shifted and having children with him has been and continues to be a hoot.

When I had my forth child I was rounded upon on here for personally causing the demise of all natural resources, contributing unfairly to global warming, and hastening the end of civilisation as we know it.

You can’t have it both ways - we can’t save the planet with the current global population and pay for the old people without replacing the population.

(Actually my youngest is disabled so she will be a net loss on contribution terms which doesn’t help my case)

My mum and dad had 2 children and 2 grandchildren, so purely replacement level.
My PiLs had 3 children and 4 grandchildren, so together a 4/5/4 generational change. That's with my DS and DBiL not having kids, though.

We felt very conscious that our 2 DC would only have 2 cousins (see other thread) so we have leant heavily into relationships with our cousins and their children. My 2 have close relationships with 6 of their 'second cousins' - possibly because us having a London house means that they visit a lot!