Chris Packham - one child policy.

[Meadowland]

Reasonable or Unreasonable ?

The current set up doesn't support preventing larger families in my experience. My husband asked for a vasectomy and was told we need to go private and it wouldn't be funded. I also cannot be sterilised even if I requested it. However they are happy to pay for the environmental cost of more children even when we have volunteered to stop at a low number of children.

ruffle it is common sense that if we keep adding to the population to ensure there are enough carers for the elderly it is then a never ending pyramid.

The size of the world population is the elephant in the room. There are too many people on this planet for its resources to cope with, but a one child policy seems rather draconian. Would education work in time, or have we run out of time?

I think two is fairer but It’d be morally wrong to police that.

In Britain we can't actually afford for the birth rate to drop any further.

I doubt a gently declining population is a problem, and if the decline is too rapid, we can always import people, educated english-speaking people, from abroad.

There's no shortage of people wanting to live in the UK, we can always import if local production is below our economic needs.

late abortions (forced in China)
& multiple partners where one hasn't had a baby but the other has
skewed sex ratio (because whatever anyone says people will try to have their favoured sex - also if inherited sex based severe illness/disability - what than?)
If one dc dies …
etc etc
Encouragement & increased availability of birth control & good quality of work/life balance - amongst educated working mums families are smaller (see Singapore where they are encouraging childbirth)
& who looks after increased number of older people or disabled
etc
= Bad idea -

I agree with making vasectomies/sterilisation easier to obtain and free. Also, don't force women with severe gynaecological issues to jump through hoops to get a hysterectomy if they want one.

I wouldn’t make it compulsory - that is clearly obscene on multiple levels. How would you even enforce it?

However, I do think there should be more effort to destigmatise the idea of having an only child - so many people seem to have two or more kids just because they feel they should ‘give their child a sibling’, or because they are scared their only will grow up weird, spoiled or antisocial. There is no evidence for any of this.

I find him smug & superior
in many developed countries a low birth rate is increasingly seen as a problem, just as populations explode exponentially so they crash exponentially
the problem is more that there are too many elderly people consuming resources but not contributing to the economy

there are too many elderly people consuming resources but not contributing to the economy

If the elderly are consuming resources, then they are contributing to the economy.

I like how everyone’s an eco warrior on here except when you mention the number of children people have. It’s the worst thing you can do. Don’t bang on about me using plastic straws when you have more than one child. It’s hypocritical.

Not at all, unless you cause a second baby boom @glorioussilence.

We have no idea of how Brexit is going to affect our ability to bring in foreign workers @PettyContractor. Even as a member of the EU with a free flow of workers from many nations our NHS and care systems are chronically understaffed and we can't seem to get our act together.

I don’t think it should be compulsory given the negative outcomes it would have.

There could be incentives for only having one child like tax breaks etc and very easy to limit the number of children people have by simply extending the current system of no more benefits after two children. So no help with childcare, schooling/healthcare would have to be paid for etc. Still a choice but one made knowing the consequences.

The answer to the problems in care for the elderly is not having more babies ruffle

So, people who think it’s a bad idea, what’s your better idea? This isn’t one of those “just keep doing what we do right now” scenarios*. If you don’t like Chris’s fix, what’s yours?

(* unless you are ok maintaining your current lifestyle at the cost future war, food and water shortages and mass deaths, because it’s not likely to be you that pays. Which let’s face it is the majority position right now)

Elderly are classed as dependent unless warning.

UK's dependency ratio is propped up by immigration at the moment. Otherwise we would be in same situation as Sweden and further down the line, Japan.

A one child policy would be non compulsory here as it's not communist China but may incorporate tax benefits for those with smaller families, or no Child benefit past 2, and other incentives to have a small family, rather than compulsion.

Oh and you do need babies to pay for the elderly as their taxes/NI are what the state pension comes out of....

glorioussilence - we don’t need an increasing number of people to care for the elderly (i.e. the pyramid structure you’re suggesting), we need a stable number (i.e. a rectangle). The problems associated with ageing population occur when you have a deceasing number (i.e. and upside down pyramid).

Once they earn, obviously

I'd have hated one, I know so many spoilt brat adults who were only children.
I'm sure some turned out fine, but who'd want to chance it.

mandarin I think you mean rufflecrow, I was agreeing with you

I'd have hated one, I know so many spoilt brat adults who were only children.
I'm sure some turned out fine, but who'd want to chance it.

Yes because all people with siblings are paragons of virtue. Don't be so bloody stupid. Enough with the tired old stereotypes.

It would be draconian to impose it like China did, though it could come to that. However, restricting child benefit to one child/pregnancy (and paid maternity leave too) would help, and as a pp said, an education programme to destigmatise only children. Free access to contraception and none of this nonsense with some medical "professionals" refusing to prescribe/dispense it, at least if they work for the NHS. Has anyone, in the history of medicine, refused to give a man a vasectomy because of their beliefs?

Oh and you do need babies to pay for the elderly as their taxes/NI are what the state pension comes out of in years to come the state pension will start at 90. You'll have to save, or work more, or both.

I'd have hated one, I know so many spoilt brat adults who were only children.

Just because you happen to know some only children who turned out like this, you think it's inevitable? What nonsense. I know plenty of only children who grew up to be great adults - and plenty with siblings who didn't!

I think one is unreasonable, two children is plenty though
(and yes, I accept that it might end up as 3, 4 or even more if the second pregnancy results in a multiple birth).