Pondering the Birthrate Decline...

[Upsideyourhead]

Was just reading an article about this and wanted to get other people's views. The birthrate in the UK is at a record low, 1.44:

https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pn-0745/

The Adam Smith Institute thinks the triple lock on pensions will be unsustainable by 2036, due to too few working people.

I haven't really seen this spoken about on here, in fact, it's normally the opposite: save the planet, have fewer kids, etc. Just wondering what people think about this and what they think the solution is. I'm pretty optimistic, so I'm focusing on the fact there might be more housing available for the kids we do have...

I feel like one of these three things has to happen, but can't work out which would be most popular:

1. Retired people from 2036 will have a raw deal when it comes to their pensions - they'll get far less than expected. There may be fewer workers to do, or willing to do, care work, so OAPs might physically suffer that way also. But that's the way it is, until the working age population can balance again, in a few generations time (assuming it doesn't decrease even more).
2. We will need to encourage and incentivise even more immigration, to get in workers to care for our old people (through tax and providing services)
3. Encourage more people to have children (e.g. South Korea offers cheaper mortgage rates to parents), although few countries have done this successfully.

As someone who will be retired in 25 years, I'm leaning towards 2 or 3. But perhaps the result will be a mixture of all three.

Thanks for the map but it dishonestly excludes the USA

I also think, in the UK anyway, that lots of women have a child and THEN discover their partner is unhelpful. They therefore decide to stop at one.

But decline is a bigger problem when the people you have don't contribute.

You could manage with less people if everyone did more but there comes a point when people say they've had enough.
People not working is part of the problem - people not working and not having babies isn't the end of the world: it's perhaps not good for humans. But we need less people on the planet.

We used to talk about a carbon footprint, but now we don't really - we talk about it in broad brush strokes of countries having to do their bit.

Less people is good. But there is work needs to be done and idleness doesn't help.
Universal income won't address that.

The government announces it's giving £7500 free childcare to people.
Will that encourage them or just make the childless realise how expensive childcare is?

It's all about housing, health care, the cost of living generally, the cost of childcare... all these things are making people not want to have babies... and for some have made working completely unaffordable.
So we import people to do the jobs people don't want to do (perhaps because of the financial inequalities we've created) and they're having a 1/3 of the babies now.

If we want more people in this country then we can't have more idle people.

There’s already been a huge shift in the number of children being born in just a few generations of my family. My maternal grandmother was one of eight, my mum one of four, I have two siblings - one is child free and both myself and other sibling have one child each.

Neither my son nor my nephew want children and I can’t say I blame them.

I have absolutely no desire to be ‘cared for’ when I get older. The moment I can’t do the things I enjoy, I’d quite happily opt for euthanasia. The idea of being dependent on another person for anything is abhorrent to me.

I’m also quite happy to continue working in some capacity once I reach retirement age in nine years, it won’t be in my current role but a part time job would be perfect.

I have friends in their late fifties who are part of a couple and can’t wait to retire, but the singletons amongst us are more than willing to work longer in roles that suit our capabilities.

The same for us. My grandfather was one of 15 and my gran one of 6, my dad was 1 of 7, we are 2 siblings (boy-girl), my daughter is an only and my brother hasn´t got children.

Children came to be seen as a problem rather than a blessing. Then came abortion and now 3 in 10 pregnancies are ended that way. And as a result, we have so few young people that our elders have become a problem. And the solution is to start killing them off too??

This does nothing to solve the birth rate problem and only hastens our march towards extinction.

We need to encourage middle/high earners to have children, as they are more likely to have net earners.

Take away the £100k cliff edge so they get the 30 hours.

Universal Credits to mothers during maternity leave to top up their salaries to a basic income regardless of their household income/mortgage instead of rent. (A women earning £60k takes home £3,300 ish but Mat pay is £750 a month).

Everyone mother gets child benefit regardless of salary or household income.

Wrap around care in schools and holidays at a reasonable price. Why do I have to pay £40 a day (£80 for 2) when I work full time and am a net contributor, when HAF children get the same things for free even when the parents aren't working.

The whole shebang just seems on the edge of collapse. The young can't afford to have children, the elderly can't live without young people paying and caring for them. A reduction in population isn't harmful, but transitions are always difficult for those living through them. I would say that the current setup benefits very few people - elderly people kept alive past comfort or enjoyment because monoey is made from keeping them alive. Some dementia care facilities are like bodyfarms - like something out of the matrix. And inmates are compelled to have vaccinations to keep them going longer instead of dying of pneumonia (which used to be known as "the old man's friend").

But I think immigration (no matter how unpopular) will continue to increase to plug the gap. And as parts of the world become increasingly uninhabitable (climate change) people will be keen to come here despite our treatment of them.

Interestingly, lots of countries have tried financial incentives to increase the birthrate, but with little success. But there's an archbishop in Georgia who said he would become godfather to any third or subsequent child of married parents. And this has apparently had a positive effect on the birthrate. So how much of it is status rather than finances? I find this fascinating.

How are they getting free rides and screwing you over?

We'll see anti-abortion / contraception regulations come into place, so that many women are forced into a position of having children they would otherwise not have.

Ultimately, the men in power will force a 'solution' to the problem. There are bigger systemic problems afoot than there appears on the surface.

I see a '4b movement' being touted in the Western World within the next 15 years

A certain Alanis Morisette song rings a bell here 🤣

I did at one point that offering every household £500 a month for every child under 2 might sort it (my last employer paid a £500 to parents for first year of child's life, which I thought was amazing). But apparently financial incentives, even really generous ones, don't work.

Honestly I wonder if it's a general state of the world thing, also a lot of women realising they get a shit deal. I also wonder if men are the ones who want kids more and they've just spent millennia convincing women than we are the ones who want them.

Thing is, that'll all fall on the women won't it? Like it did 'back in the day'.

Why the fuck isn't there more scrutiny and outrage at the lack of tax that big companies pay to actually help out at the bottom more, and more outrage at the giant concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few? Some of that money would go a very very long way to improving matters for everyone.

Joiners, plumbers, bricklayers etc working until they're 75/80....don't think so!

Yes if you work in a cushy office doing admin but for many their bodies are already crumbling after a lifetime of that occupation they chose at 16.

We don't need for the population to continue to rise in the way it has done. It hasn't worked and our planet is a mess because of it. We need adaptions to our expectations and the way we live e.g. more communal living, more shared resourcing to share costs, less pointless plastic tat to allow more opportunities for retirement savings etc.

What do you mean about people should take more responsibility for themselves?

I wonder if the birth rate would go up if nurseries were actually free, housing affordable and having a local community of friends/family who could help out on a ad-hoc basis.

So many people I know would have had children/more than 1 child if it was affordable.

I think this is what makes it tricky, I’ve read that manual workers die on average about ten years before their office based counterparts. Maybe you set a time limit on state pensions so you can claim it for ten years (or death whatever happens first) then it’s means tested pension credit.

I think there would have to be package of measures:

• put the retirement age up
• immigration
• improve cost and access to childcare and take other measures to lower the barriers to having babies
• increase taxes
• decrease the state pension

I don't suppose any of the above is going to be palatable.

I can actually remember discussing this issue at university. I graduated in tbe 1980s! Succesive governments have let us down but I guess they are not interested in long term plans, only what is going to get them reelected.

In the US where they are doing exactly this there are projections that by 2030 45% of women ages 25-44 will be single and childless. Presuambly women are voting with their feet or their uteruses on this matter.

Well exactly, it's not that we're all uncaring or inconsiderate, we have to work! Most people can't just give up their job to care for someone, though many are forced to.

Conveniently there always used to be someone around - someone female - be it a wife, daughter, sister or even a neighbour, to do caregiving and I'm sure many were unhappy doing it then. But it's certainly not people's fault if they can't give up work.

Sixty years ago women saw the life mapped out for them as - find partner, be mother, run household.

Now women work as well. And have seen that frequently children have many issues and bringing them up is expensive and bloody hard. A lot of men opt in and out of looking after their own children and many won’t financially support the children they have.

I completely see why intelligent young women have no desire to have children.

One of the solutions in assisted dying - millions is spent keeping people alive who don’t want to be alive.

I want to see proper euthanasia coming in. Im 63 now and still working and I have always said if I get dementia and end up needing a care home I choose death.
I don't have that choice right now. I'd have to pay a fortune to go abroad which I will if I have to. I want to die at home in a manner of my choosing. Not having to worry about overdoses.
I don't want to be forced to stay alive against my will. I've worked in the NHS so I know what's what.
That would solve a lot of problems.
We can't just keep breeding to keep up with the generations before.

I think the cost of fertility treatments has a huge impact on declining birth rates. I know couples who have spent £60,000 - £100,000 to have a child the latter still have not had a successful round of IVF. As we urbanise are fertility declines. Add to that fast/convenient foods brought to you in plastic tubs wrapped in a cellophane bow. I think surrogacy is going to be a become a boom business. I suspect westernised kids born now are going to be severely challenged/impacted with infertility.