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.

Yes that is exactly the answer.

Dementia causes immobility and incontinence, reduced mobility and incontinence result in urinary tract infections, reduced mobility increases the risk of respiratory tract infections. It is a natural part of a tragic process. Treating infections doesn't treat the underlying dementia. There is absolutely a humane case for more pragmatic use of antibiotics in dementia care.

Arguably giving antibiotics in these cases is 'playing god' not the act of withholding them.

I for one will NOT be recieving 'care' like this when I'm elderly, i have already taken measures to be sure of this.

I understand what you mean and I think it's a sensible position.

Dementia is not a natural part of ageing. It’s a disease. A terminal disease.

How are people supposed to look after their elderly relatives when they have a full time job themselves?

My own parents would have been horrified at the idea of me looking after them in their old age.

Where did i say otherwise?

The "natural part" is the knock on deteriation that comes with a terminal process.

heart issues that ‘left alone would be fatal’. So treatable then with a pacemaker. If people are treatable they should be treated.

You noted ‘we need to stop intervening quite as much’ which means exactly this ie as you put it in your first message.

If someone suffers a terminal event then it’s terminal whatever their age. If they can be treated, then it’s not terminal.

Interesting article in the FT about the ageing population in the UK and France.

https://www.ft.com/content/d419bd2d-a6ba-44a5-a93a-1276f3e5d2d7?shareType=nongift

“Britain’s health and care bill for over-65s has doubled since the turn of the millennium, and absent commensurate increases in revenue is both squeezing out spending on infrastructure and increasing borrowing.”

We need to work out how we’re going to pay for an ageing population. If the answer is tax the workers more, people won’t be able to afford to have kids I don’t think. But then I was learning about the ‘demographic timebomb’ 20 years ago in school!

I do in part agree…. But how can I look after my young high schoolers, work, help with grandchildren and also care for my elderly parents and / or in laws?

Another factor that hasn’t been mentioned on this thread is the exponential rise in children with SEN.
I teach - 58% of my class have additional needs.
I would think perhaps 1/7 of my class will require care and in no way be able to contribute financially to society. Probably 30% of my class will find holding down a job a challenge due to poor educational achievement, or sensory issues or other social differences.

This is the case nationwide- the ‘pot’ of future workers is smaller than a lot of people realise.

And I mean this in no way to be critical of people with SEND but it is a point that is getting overlooked.

This has been in the pipeline for years. It’s not just state pensions- it’s everything- healthcare, education, etc etc- having to be covered by a smaller and smaller number of working age people while the number of economically inactive people grows. it’s not sustainable.

AI could help, I think. Fewer jobs, fewer people to do the jobs. But it needs to be done with care and not just left to businesses.

How can that possibly be the case though, and why? This must be due to the way we deal with SEN. There have always been children around with additional needs. We see them around now as adults, and many would have benefitted from the care that we provide now and the recognition of those with SEN. But 58% is just so high and means we must in some way be medicalising normal differences between people, or not instilling resilience in people, where if they have a mild to moderate additional need we concentrate so much on what they are incapable of that we ignore what they are capable of. I work with many people who clearly have ADHD or other SEN conditions. They are highly capable of working. Some of them have dizzying arrays of coping mechanisms, charts and to do lists that I would find difficult to follow, but they work very well, and full time.

I agree to a point.
Dont want to derail the thread but where once we encouraged people to ‘fit ‘ with societal expectations, now the whole of society (from school classrooms upwards) is supposed to change and be more accepting of their differences.
While this is on the whole a good thing, we are not helping children develop the coping strategies you describe your colleagues as having. We are telling them instead that everyone should change their expectations, allowances should be made and it’s other people who need to fit with them.
Not wholly wrong but realistic in the long term?
Are we growing a capable and resilient workforce?
I don’t think so. And at any point where expectations are enforced such as uniform, for instance, there’s a massive outcry. ( Again not saying this is wholly wrong)
I guess what I’m trying to say it’s so much more complicated than just having a certain number of children.

Isnt there a similar thing happening between parents and schools though. Back in the 80s if parents had complained that school hours didnt fit in with their job hours the school would have said "thats nothing to do with us" Now schools are expected to accomodate parents different working hours (we all know thats what breakfast clubs are really for)

Africa will eventually go down too. Surely?

Immigration won't work indefinitely, it's unfair on countries who get brain drain.

I think we need to value care work much more and also make it easier for people to live closer to their families. I know quite a few elderly people who probs could have been independent for longer if their families, who were happy to support, had not had to live further away for work

Why is it increasing?

Some think people delaying having children means that grater paternal and maternal age increase SEN possibility. Also that being able to save premature babies more easily means we also have more SEN children

There aren't enough jobs to go round anyway, and in the future there will be less, so with AI and the AI companies being taxed to support UBI, as they will be making huge profits, not everyone will need to work, and those who do will earn a wage on top of UBI, so it will be worth it for them.
Not ideal, but one solution.

Yes, it will eventually;

Based on United Nations World Population Prospects (2024 revision):

• Africa’s population is expected to keep growing throughout the 21st century.
• The median UN projection has it peaking around the year 2100 at ~3.9–4.0 billion people (up from ~1.5 billion today).
• Unlike Asia, Europe, and the Americas, Africa’s population is not projected to decline within this century — only its growth rate slows down (from ~2.5% per year now to <0.5% per year by 2100).
• A decline (i.e. negative growth) would only occur after 2100, unless fertility rates fall much faster than expected.

The reason is that fertility remains high in many African countries (averaging ~4 births per woman vs ~2.3 globally), combined with a very young age structure — nearly 40% of Africans are under 15 today.

📌 So, in summary:

• Africa’s population will not start decreasing this century under current UN medium projections.
• It is expected to keep rising until ~2100, after which it may plateau and eventually decline.

@Periperi2025 I'm considering this but unsure how to word it. Did you copy the text from somewhere?

I suppose the Human race started in Africa, we may as well end there too!

Maybe there will be less jobs in making plastic crap worldwide and over production of stuff we don't need. I'm never going to reach retirement age and said as a teen that there wouldn't be a state pension when I got there. I'm 53.

they'll probably bring in a workhouse type system to shove all the elderly. Conditions dependant on government at the time.

I feel like I am stuck in the generation where I'm going to be totally shafted at both ends. No free education, exorbitant rental and house prices, 2008 financial crash, brexit, covid. Now it looks like I won't be able to retire perhaps ever and any state support will be pitiful even though I've worked and paid in all my life. I am also hearing more and more about how inheritance is wrong and should be done away with or should be heavily taxed. I won't inherit much at all to be honest, if anything but overall it just feels like everything that other generations got we've had taken from us. Even now young people here under 22 get free bus travel not something I had access to but it would have made a huge difference to me at that age.

Another thing to consider is that the Baby boomers are a huge cohort and so were always going to cost us a lot in retirement. Once that cohort has gone the cost of paying pensions will go down dramatically and so Gen-X a relatively small generation will be less expensive to pay for and rough again when millennials retire.

Thank you for sharing. I had no idea about this. Certainly puts a lot of our daily gripes into perspective. The percentage of female child marriages there is shocking.

Honestly most of my mates aged late 30s have had 1 child. Thought husband or partner was an equal then got left doing it all, working and doing all household chores and thought fuck this so stuck with 1.

My mother would have loved being shipped off to Thailand if she had lived long enough to need a care home!

Good