UK fertility rate drops by 18.8% in 12 years

[MidnightPatrol]

The UK has the fastest falling fertility rate in the G7.

2022 saw the lowest number of births for 20 years.

The current TFR is 1.49 births per woman.

What do you think the reason for this is, and what could be done to reverse the trend?

news.sky.com/story/amp/britains-fertility-rate-falling-faster-than-any-other-g7-country-with-austerity-thought-to-be-a-principal-factor-13232314

I mean, its not what I want. I fear it might be what some people want though...

Yes exactly, my argument was that it’s not the mothers that are valued, but their ability to have children (and bonus domestic slave role). Women are shat on everywhere and in every culture, feminism is not to blame.

Arguing that it is a 'lifestyle choice' closes down any discussions on the politics of Motherhood, if you do that, those discussions on childcare, maternity rights, financial support e.g child benefit are automatically seen as less important as after all, it's a 'lifestyle choice' and why should any of these things be afforded to Mothers when the choice is wholly a personal one! If that is your political outlook, fine but you must also think there is no such thing as Society. It is Neo liberal, Thatcherite spoutings, that are all about the individual.

The opposite of the politics of Motherhood is not shaming women who don't want or can't have children, why would that be true? A Lifestyle choice is demeaning to Mothers and seems to not acknowledge the labour of Motherhood which is bringing up children to be the future adults that contribute to the functioning of society. Acknowledging that, does not equate to dismissing women that don't choose this path. I think if anything, this thread proves the opposite, that it is perfectly acceptable to belittle Mothers and dismiss them all as having no ambition, implications that Mothers are intellectually stunted to the point of being stimulated by playing with 'blocks'. Not exactly sisterly support there and this all stems from the inaccurate label of Motherhood being a 'lifestyle choice' as women on this thread feel justified in mocking a choice, being a Mum is reduced to a preference like your taste in handbags. Whereas in reality, what you are actually doing, is mocking other women that happen to be Mothers, whatever happened to female solidarity!

I have dc and I’m happy I do but I’ll join you

I’m glad women can rejoice as you just have for whatever reason and we’ll just get more wars and volatility if we keep ramping up numbers

Yeah people often forget that the most peaceful populations are the older ones.

Nobody has kids to do society a favour. It IS a lifestyle choice. Sorry if you want glory for it but that's not life.

I’m not sure which you are referring to, or if it’s the case as there have been pretty turbulent times in the past, but I think we will struggle as resources are fought over and generally adding higher numbers will make it more volatile

Where did I state that people had children to do society a favour, by default people having children are bringing up a future generation, the future workforce. A consequence of that is that Motherhood is politicised and ISN'T just a private choice which is very much what 'lifestyle choice' means.

Yes, all those older leaders around the world currently so peaceful in mindset. 🙄

that it is perfectly acceptable to belittle Mothers and dismiss them all as having no ambition, implications that Mothers are intellectually stunted to the point of being stimulated by playing with 'blocks'.

These threads frequently end up with this and focused on women/couples who never wanted kids.

If we really wanted to raise the birth rate we'd focus on families who want kids but feel they can't have them or want more kids than they get and barriers there - and that's mostly housing costs and insecurity and childcare costs.

Instead there lots of social messaging round 2 kids being more than enough and any more is a large family and not good insisting no-one enjoys parenthood.

There also seem to be idea that aging population is a one shot issue - instead on ongoing one as each generation had fewer kids than previous. Also as world population starts to fall and age the stop gap of importing workers may not be there.

There also comes a point in demographics where workers already under burden of higher taxes to support retried people and family elder care it gets to be undesirable they have kids that may reduce their work hours increase caring burden - a u shape graph - as demand on workers age ranges would be to high - at that point upping fertility rates is not really viable.

Looking at Japan, South Korea and Italy politicians tend to cotton on much to late to be able to do anything abut birth rate and countries that do move faster only manage to slightly improve fertility rates - which is helpful- slump not steep cliff- but not a solution.

World wide population falling has benefits as well as challenges - and tipping point could be as late as end of century or as early as 2030.

https://www.science.org/content/article/population-tipping-point-could-arrive-2030

The population growth presented challenges and the aging world population will just present new ones.

I'm late 40s and suspect later and poorer retirements - pressure/duty to euthanise - will likely hit current 25-40 year olds as we get older - the generation grappling with high housing costs and high childcare costs and one who want kids already facing tough choices.

This. I'm surprised at how often people treat demographic imbalance as a one-off issue, e.g. a problem that will only really affect one generation until everything rebalances. The reality is that it will be an ongoing problem affecting successive generations.

Exactly! I heard about this on Matthew Wright's show on LBC, lots of hand wringing about why WOMEN aren't having children, what can WOMEN do, what can be done to make WOMEN have more families??

Give the earth, and women, a break.

I definitely agree more messaging about declining fertility with age needs to be aimed at men not women.

However I still don't think it will have a huge impact if it really is financial and security issue delaying or stopping couples having children - though may have a slight affect. It depends how much it is money and job housing insecurity or even worries about parental break ups/lone parenthood affecting discission making across entire currently fertile cohort.

If you look at birth gap man - it's all people leaving it too late - men and women - but UK ONS figures suggest decreasing family size is bigger impact - which could also be ages of parents but could be other factors like money house sizes societal expectations/norms.

This big drop in 12 years as PP say happened in Tory years - happen in less prospect areas just as there were huge sweeping cuts - it didn't happen in other countries as much - so government policy and decline in economic growth/outlooks is probably a big reason on top of all the other background reasons.

No, that isn’t what ‘lifestyle choice’ means. Lifestyle choices are personal ones, yes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have societal ramifications, or that they can’t be political.

From the point of view of the people living in them... Yes they are measurably the most peaceful. "🙄"

I disagree and really this is just an argument in semantics, you are not right because you think you're interpretation is correct. This is just a deflection from the truth, which is that it is used prejoratively when discussing this issue, this thread is awash with it's use in that way, example after example.

Exactly. Everything we do has knock on effects. Doesn't mean they're not lifestyle choices.

Not having kids is also a lifestyle choice. It's not pejorative to say so.

If what you are suggesting is true, what specific areas of the world are you referring to? The healthiest and happiest people across the world, the Blue Zone areas are that way from Multi generational living, not from one old demographic living in isolation. In fact that has proven to be detrimental to people's health. Even if you name these areas across the globe presumably 'peaceful' is generally a default position from being older, not necessarily a result of some higher moral grounding like your argument implies.

I forget how ignorant a lot of people are

https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2019/08/06/why-old-societies-are-the-most-peaceful-and-young-societies-are-conflict-prone/

Fully agree, and the financial aspect which is largely underpinned by the above with a lack of investment in affordable childcare and decent services for children and mothers.

I have two kids but am so, so happy that women don't feel pressured into having kids any more. I think there were many people in previous generations who didn't really want kids and shouldn't have had them but did because it's "just what you do". The kids of these people then became adults with all sorts of mental health issues as they were raised by distant/abusive parents or parents who simply couldn't cope. They then pass that terrible parenting example on and the cycle continues. Not saying all parents who want kids are perfect but having the desire there definitely helps when the going gets tough!

In terms of people who do want kids having fewer - in my circles this is mostly due to money (I know a few families who would ideally have had three but feel they can only afford two), but also due to starting families later and feeling too old to have a third, and due to women valuing their careers, so not wanting to take 3 mat leaves or have to try to be successful at work whilst also successfully bringing up 3 children. I know two families who had one child, were glad they did but felt they couldn't cope with more with busy careers, so stopped at one who they give an amazing life to. This would have been less socially acceptable even one generation ago.

You’ve decided that ‘lifestyle choice’ is pejorative and dismissive terminology that doesn’t reflect the societal weight and impact of the choices in question, but that doesn’t mean that it is.

Your opinion is not the same thing as the truth. People are, largely, free in the west to decide whether they do or do not want children. They are lifestyle choices. That does not mean they have no instinctual/biological component, or they’re without wider impact, or political/societal significance.

Why the need to belittle other posters so much?

So you have linked an article from 2019 (before many of the Global conflicts that are being led by older men) to prove your point but not extracted any of the Indo to support your argument. I have read the article but as I have the ability to critically analyse their argument, I don't think what their supporting evidence backs up their argument- essentially a majority of young people as a demographic in an area causes issues, jeez, how insightful. The longest, healthiest and happiest communitys are multi-generational- fact!

Lastly, Dartmouth college is 161 in The Times Higher Education World University rankings- just saying!

Most of what I've read says Russian made it's demographic crisis worse original consequence from second world war where they lost many men and later famines and the 90s economic crash.

However you do seem odd article suggesting entire reason for war may have been that people that Russian needed to get more of.

https://jacobin.com/2023/04/russia-ukraine-war-putin-demographic-crisis-social-reproduction-biopolitical-imperialism

The demographic doom loop has not, it appears, diminished Mr Putin’s craving for conquest. But it is rapidly making Russia a smaller, worse-educated and poorer country, from which young people flee and where men die in their 60s.” So concludes a recent Economist article about the demographic situation in Russia, a year into its invasion of Ukraine. However, what the British weekly isn’t counting — unlike the Russian government — are the approximately two million Crimeans who received Russian citizenship after the annexation in 2014. It also fails to mention the over 2.8 million Ukrainians who had to move to Russia since the beginning of the invasion, the more than one million people from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions who had to move to Russia over the last eight years of war, as well as those who have stayed in the occupied territories, and are currently lining up to receive Russian citizenship.

...

It is vital to note that these amendments to citizenship law came from Putin’s own initiative, upon the eve of the invasion. This helps us understand how he sees the “saved” Ukrainian population — as a silent and obedient workforce requiring zero support and investment. In this sense, the kidnapping of Ukrainian children is only the tip of the iceberg of the demographic politics of this war.

If working people are a resource like war or oil - if follows wars to capture workers could start to be a thing.

China and South Korea are starting to struggle with military recruitments due to population declines. With China stating they want to take Twain back - best time to do that is when they have a strong military.

Older population may be more peaceful because they don't have strong militaries due to lack of people - though tech may mitigate some of that - point leading up to that may be most dangerous especially in non democratic countries (democracy in a country apparently also mean less likely to go to war).