To think the abortion rate will increase after April this year?

[RocketQueenP]

When the new rules on tax credits / universal credit come in ie when no one can claim benefit be it top up or otherwise for any more than 2 children

Sadly I am helping a good friend cope who has just had an early abortion, she did not plan the pregnancy and one of the main reasons is she and her DH are low earners/ They already have 2 at school, and won't be able to afford to have this baby. She is devastated and has admitted they could have squeezed another DC in if it wasn't for the new rules. I think this will happen a lot. :(

In times gone by people would adopt out children that were unplanned that they couldn't afford and I really feel that this is what we are headed back to. Not adoption but, you get my drift

I also think the government fully know this and its one of the reasons they have brought it in. Simple population control

Thanks batteries

dawn

Friends of mine had a bogoff as well

One woman i know had two boys , was desperate for a girl so tried again...and got twin boys

My family were poor. On both sides.

Their birth rate was huge but surviving children was low (2 or 3 got to adulthood) until my grandparents generation when suddenly no one had more than 3 kids. But they nearly all survived.

1900 isn't a useful comparator. There was no contraception and no NHS. People died. All the time. I remember I was 10 when the first family member (since my birth) died. My grandmother (born 1915) said she couldn't conceive of getting to TEN YEARS OLD before anyone died. By the time she was 10, her mother, an uncle and two siblings were dead.

That was the reality pre-NHS.

My mum was one of 4... Absolutely poverty stricken

My dad was one of 6

I have quite a few friends who have very large families 4/5 plus and one of 10

I am in my forties

Years ago pre contraception we had large families, some countries still do (and not only ones where you need lots to cover the children who will die)

It's only Africa where they're substantially above replacement childbearing - so at the risk of being reductionist, I disagree. There is still famine in Africa.

Havent made a study museum

I just thought that traditionally placses like greece and italy had more than two

I will back out now as i was just musing with no agenda, i think two children is Absolutly fine, one of two myself

The average fertility rate encompasses a growing number of women having no children, or only one child. If everyone were as risk averse as the women who actively choose to have no more than 2 children because of fears of sudden death or unemployment, I think this country would be in the shit and trying to find ways to increase the birth rate. Without immigration by families from cultures where a larger number of children is the norm, our fertility rate would be lower, in any event, so there is already a problem with the over-cautious not having enough kids... I'd love to hear the reaction of the families with only one or two children in the future (that includes me, btw) if the political atmosphere and rhetoric had changed and they suddenly became the selfish ones who are more interested in feathering their nests with unnecessary luxuries than producing the next generation of children. Some people enjoy sticking the knife in and twisting it far too much. One day, if the level of venom on this thread from some posters continues to be encouraged, the knife will be turned on those who are enjoying twisting it into others, now.

The birth rate in 1970 was 2.44.

I might be wrong but I thought the combined impact of the NHS and the pill (within a couple of decades of each other, so one generation of childbearers saw a huge impact in their lifetime) brought the birth rate sharply down to 3 and falling.

Knowing lots of people with large families isn't representative. Small families are the norm.

One reason the UK doesn't need the 1m refugees in Germany and why Merkel welcomed them and we did not isd the UK has a lot of babies being more often to Pakistani families in the UK with 5+ children actually.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/parentscountryofbirthenglandandwales/2015

"Over a quarter (27.5%) of live births in England and Wales in 2015 were to women born outside the UK, the highest level on record. The small increase in live births between 2014 and 2015 resulted from a 2.5% rise in births to women born outside the UK; births to UK born women decreased by 0.4%. The estimated total fertility rate (TFR) for UK born women remained unchanged, with 1.76 children per woman in 2015; for non-UK born women the estimated TFR decreased to 2.08 compared with 2.10 in 2014. Poland was the most common country of birth for mothers born outside the UK, followed by Pakistan and India. Pakistan was the most common country of birth for fathers born outside the UK, followed by Poland and India."

Italy has the lowest birth rate in the EU, interestingly. So in 2016, the government launched a fertility drive! The same will probably happen in the UK in a couple of decades from now. The British government encouraged the baby boom post war, and a future government will probably implement a pro-natal policy when they start worrying about the replacement rate being substantially off. The balance of opinion on threads like this will entirely invert!

when they start worrying about the replacement rate being substantially off. The balance of opinion on threads like this will entirely invert

I don't think peoples opinion will invert in the way you think. In the scenario you suggest (population unable to replace itself) people will probably support systems that help "hard working families"

So you might see more support for childcare, better flexible working and encouraging dads to be more active looking after the kids.

It would be better to divert the money that currently goes into tax credits to heavily subsidise childcare (like they do in northern Europe and Scandinavia) and provide good provision for before and after school care.

It would also make sense to increase the minimum wage and raise the tax threshold so low earnings are not subject to tax and working pays a liveable wage.

The replacement rate is 2, so presumably this is why the cap has been set at 2 children.

I'd love to hear the reaction of the families with only one or two children in the future (that includes me, btw) if the political atmosphere and rhetoric had changed and they suddenly became the selfish ones who are more interested in feathering their nests with unnecessary luxuries than producing the next generation of children.

Have you people not heard of job automation, this major technological and economic shift that will transform the employment landscape?

Indeed the Financial Times or some of their writers are talking baout a universal income, no tax on earned income etc because they think there will be so few jobs to support so many people due to drones and the like. Mind you as I was saying to my teenagers the other night I heard this in the 1960s when Harold Wilson spoke about the white heat of technology ensuring we all just worked 2 hours a day as machines did all the rest of the work and it hasn't happened yet......

I suppose we want people to have a lot of babies who will probably produce high earners who pay a lot of tax and work hard. If we could work out which parents produce that sort of child then may be concentrate financial help to those?

The only thing more morally repugnant to me than encouraging less children is encouraging more.

Here! Women! Endanger your lives and get some money for it! Husband wants another? You're not sure? What the heck, why not, you'll get paid! But what of all the health risks to pregnancy, you say? What of the long term debilitating effect of infontinence due to childbirth, and all the other innumerous possibilities for damage? What about the risk of death?

Pshaw. Stop being so risk averse.

Indeed the Financial Times or some of their writers are talking baout a universal income, no tax on earned income etc because they think there will be so few jobs to support so many people due to drones and the like.

Yes. Well-respected fiscal conservatives have now come to accept that the citizen's income is the future reality to avoid widespread poverty and starvation in the face of dwindling jobs. There will be no need to increase the birth rate. Already a pretty substantial number of jobs have been lost to automation, far outstripping the population decline.

When people are rioting for water and oil, there will not be a call for increased childbearing.

Well then I guess there will be a massive rise in the number of jobs for drone engineers, operators and manufacturers of parts.

And I don't think less jobs is the issue. There are always jobs, albeit different ones as some become redundant with advances. The issue is pay. People are not being paid for their jobs as all the money is being sucked out of businesses for shareholders.

people will probably support systems that help "hard working families"

But the measures that are being debated on this thread do support 'hard working families'. Tax credits support those families. Child tax credit is support for childcare.

The unemployment rate in this country is 5%, it's pretty much 'full employment'. Most people are working, but are not paid enough to support themselves. Hence TC and CTC.

Well then I guess there will be a massive rise in the number of jobs for drone engineers, operators and manufacturers of parts.

Automation is an investment undertaken only if it has a reasonable payoff. The rise in automation-related jobs will not offset the jobs displaced.

And I don't think less jobs is the issue.

Practically everyone disagrees with you.

Yes, of course, all those drones that will administer the lethal injection to the frail and elderly care for an ageing population. There is still plenty of shitty work to be done by human beings, just none of it that would sustain a family or result in a reasonable quality of life.

It would very much have to be a Big Brother sort of a world, where automation has replaced jobs, as the majority are not otherwise going to tolerate no prospects and a citizen's income to avoid starvation, while a tiny elite control the machines they have grown to hate. Besides, the elite are too fucking stupid to manage providing enough food, water and shelter for everyone, so actually, mutually assured destruction of the entire human race is more likely - taking the rest of the planet along with us.

Besides, there are limited resources for building all these machines.

Want2bSupermum

I do think it's terrible that men are not required to support their children when they move on and earn more. I have a good friend who gets zero from her exH because he moved in with his GF and got her pregnant plus adopted her two kids from a previous relationship. I don't think he should have been allowed to adopt those kids. Pay for your own kids first before you take on others.

For maintenance purposes he would be classed as responsible for those children whether he adopted them or not. And he should still be paying her something, albeit a reduced amount (CMS say my ex has to pay me £7 per week from his benefits even though he lives with his wife's 2 dc plus the 2 they had together)

Oops meant to make the first paragraph italics