will you have another baby if the two child limit is scrapped?

[Itsmetink]

I’m just curious what the results of this would be, if you could have another baby financially due to this being scrapped, will you?
before it becomes a benefit bashing thread, remember the majority of people claiming do work. Keep it civil and polite please 🙏
Im done having kids and I can see why they want it to be scrapped with the cost of living issues.

Its worth a lot but I think the biggest consideration is the increase in rents and house prices.

£3000 won't even touch the sides if you need another bedroom. if you've had two boys and now are having a girl. On top of all the clothes, ,food, uniform etc.

£3000 won't even touch the sides if you need another bedroom. if you've had two boys and now are having a girl. On top of all the clothes, ,food, uniform etc.

Exactly, who on earth would have a dc for 3k, I think a lot of people who think this are older & don't realise how much things have changed!

Child benefit in the uk is only 25 a week for the first child and less for subsequents. It’s not capped though it’s the child part of universal credit tha is capped and over 200 a month per child

Countries like Denmark that have offered much greater support and financial assistance to mothers, have also seen birthrates continue to decline.

When you give women a real choice - subsidised childcare, lengthy maternity leave, job protection, birth control, legal and accessible abortion - they choose to have fewer children (at a population level).

There are a huge number of really good reasons they make that choice.

No, i dont breed for money but I bet the birth ratw will boom!

One parent earning £75k with a sahp has no childcare costs, yet still has free nursery provision etc whereas 2 working parents have huge childcare costs and probably don't have the option of having one sahp as £40k isn't enough to support a non working adult and children without resorting to benefits. It is unfair for single parents but then we go back to the first post where we should be compelling absent fathers far more strongly to financially provide for their children.

@DecemberPlusFebruary I'm not sure why you have replied that to me? I already said upthread that hefty incentives have increased birth rates in any country once they are below replacement rate.

That doesn't mean the government doesn't need to do something about the changing demographics & the economic impact.

They haven't really done much and this government doesn't even want to comment much on it because they fear being seen as telling women what to do. Plus they are looking 5 years ahead - short term to next election thinking dominating - not so much at 20 + when we won't have the workers/tax payers.

Other governments have done much more financailly to make it a bit easier but they dont get back up to replacement level but they do see increased in birth rates but it costs money - something we are apparently short on.

Plus no governement will penalised a huge voting block so the older voters are at an advantage - not just here in South Korea and Japan - if we had better poltcians I think they could do more but it would still be a risk at election time.

There tends to reach a point when electorate is aging when doing anything to improve birth rate is hard because older people don't want to pay for it and socially increasing numbers of young don't want kids and don't want to pay for others to have them. We're probabaly already there TBH - and need to adapt to the realty of high immigration to fill jobs and aging population demands.

Personally I think taking kids we have out of poverty and improving their life chances would benefit the country most at this point and it will have minimal impact on birth rates - but if it was easy Labour would have done it already.

It's not just the 3 k its everything that goes with it ,if you are a single parent who relies soley on benefits or a couple on a low income your UC can be quite significant, if you have another baby you won't be required to look for work for a few years
It might be unimaginable to some posters
But some people prefer to stay home looking after another child rather than working long hours in a minimum wage job paticularly if there is no discernible difference in their income.

No, i dont breed for money but I bet the birth ratw will boom!

@ComfortFoodCafe can you explain why? No country has reversed birth rates once they are below replacement rate.

The cap didn't cause the birth rate to plummet, so it's removal is unlikely to encourage a boom.

Nope.
I’m a firm believer of only having the children you can financially support and provide for yourself.

I think the benefit system being there as a backup for families in the event of situations changing is amazing, but to actively plan to have a child with the expectation that the government will fund the raising of them doesn’t sit right with me.
same as people who live in a 1 bed flat, but go on to have 3 kids and then kick off that the council can’t house them.

If you can't afford to feed and clothe 3 children don't have a 3rd child. Its not compulsory. The person in that situation is hugely disadvantaging their existing children, condemning them to less food, space and resources. The state isn't doing that. They are.

It's not just the 3 k its everything that goes with it ,if you are a single parent who relies soley on benefits or a couple on a low income your UC can be quite significant,

@x2boys but UC is also based on housing & childcare costs, so whilst it can be high it's not staying in your pocket.

That was an error! Didn't mean to reply it to you.

No! What is it for child 3? £28 a week or something?! 🤣🤣🤣

Only yet again, its not child benefit its the child element if universl credit which can be significantly more.

Right, but how many of those people would have had more children if they didn’t have that additional £3k? People are misunderstanding that the majority of people don’t think people are having kids for money; more that lack of money isn’t stopping them. How many parents stop at 2 because of childcare costs, if childcare was free (for example) I expect lots of families across the financial spectrum would go on to have a 3rd. And that’s the kind of choice people assisted by the system can have (or used to have, I’ve already said I don’t know much about UC, I had TC back in the day).

As I’ve previously stated, pre cap I could have afforded to have a 3rd and a good lifestyle. I actually could have chosen between having the childcare heavily subsidised by TC as I already was with 2, or actually, been better off staying home with 3 (due to wider ranging costs like commuting etc also). Nowadays, I am a high income household, and I have much less of a choice as would have been the case had we been high income back then.

It was all just a bit ludicrous and whilst I sincerely don’t want children in poverty, we can’t go back to those days (and I’d be interested to know how it compares today) but I don’t know what the answer is.

I agree 🙂

You are thinking of "Child Benefit" which isn't part of the cap.
It's about £11 for a 3rd child (or 2nd, 4th etc)?

@CatHairEveryWhereNow I'm not arguing the government should do anything about birth rates, they can't as that ship has sailed. But they should be doing something about the economic fall out of the changing demographics

We're probabaly already there TBH - and need to adapt to the realty of high immigration to fill jobs and aging population demands.

We are & it's already impacting us eg tax rises.

South Korea & Japan have tried to mitigate some of the issues eg Japan changed its social security policy decades ago. Both countries have opened up in the last few years to immigration. We haven't done a thing, just took more & more away from the young.

People forget that much of the world is ageing so it isn't just about birth rates but the fact that some of our young people will be incentivised to go to other countries eg Portugal offering low taxes for under 35s

@rzm but financial incentives won't boost birth rates, no country has managed it.

No but neither is a low wage my point is some people would prefer to stay at home looking after another child then ,working in a minimum wage job ,paticularly ,before they are obliged to look for work
In neither scenario will they be living a life of luxury but I can see why people could opt to have another child.

@DecemberPlusFebruary no worries

@x2boys but you are basing this scenario on "feels". It really isn't going to lead to a baby boom.