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

Childcare and everything else!
Middle dd has a 3 year old, off to School next year. She has no desire to chuck herself back into paying out for 4 more years.

Are intellectual people not up at 3am then. You seem to weirdly making this personal. For some reason I have answered the question and you've told me as a non parent what it is to be good parent i.e take a pragmatic approach. I was suggesting that IME as hey, an actual parent with teens, this is not the be all and end all. They are a success but I never said anything about a 'wonderful' life, I've said my children brought and bring me joy, I'm not sure why that is an afront to you. Bringing up children is hard work no doubt about it but for me it was the best thing I ever did. I only mentioned my career as you can have an amazing career, and interesting life and still come to the conclusion that comparatively speaking having children is pretty good. It isn't for everyone, which is of course people's free choice but no need to denigrate parents on a parent forum by suggesting it is someone's 'entire' personality because when you do that on a parent forum, it looks very much like it is your 'entire' personality to make the point that you're superior to parents everywhere.

The key reasons have been mentioned. Cost, housing, scary world and social media.

Where it was a norm to get married and have kids. You can now do and be whatever you want.

I think the emphasis on individualism plays a role.

I have 2 children - both surprises. Had one young when I was naive and managed to work my way up my career but I had a supportive “village” - so many people just don’t have the support. Plus it’s acceptable to not want them - and if you do want them then have them.

Children suite my lifestyle - and I think people are more conscious of if children fit theirs (which is actually a good thing) - I’m super homey - work for myself - enjoy parenting and don’t care for crazy global adventures - but if I didn’t fall pregnant I would delay having children as much as possible - simply because there is so much more you can do with life but also it harder to get the basics like a house, climb up for a decent salary etc.

Lots of my friends held off having children until being older (I don’t blame them). But now that they are finding their long term partners, issues around fertility has been a huge concern with my friendship group.

We have a four and a half year gap so if it isn't age that might be the issue I would say go for it. Seem to notice many reception children have a new sibling that year.

The title of this is rather disingenuous. People are having children later than the 'usual' (20s) ages, where they are at their most fertile. Therefore, it follows that individual fertility will be lower as they age. It is not the case the overall fertility of the country is dropping; people are still at their fertile best in their 20, it's just that they are choosing not to take advantage of this peak fertility, thus birthrate is falling.

@PleaseAskSomeoneWhoGivesAFuck The fertility rate is about how many children a woman will have in her lifetime.

In 2012 this was 1.94 in the UK - that was the average number of children a woman would have.

In 2024 it’s 1.49.

So people are overall having less children = this is called a lower fertility rate, or ‘total fertility rate’ is the term often used.

Don't seem to be fewer children where I live. Most people seem to have three here. It is a deprived city in areas.

I do think infertility is on the rise though.

Having children just looks like an incredibly unappealing lifestyle choice to me. No amount of financial incentive or whatever could ever change that.

Housing & childcare costs underpin all of it.

Poor diet. Particularly ultra processed foods. Mcdonalds etc. You may as well eat plastic.

Another issue as far as I’m concerned is the way that gender roles are still in play. Women are still expected to be the default parent, still expected to work part time (so they can do pick ups, drop offs, holiday cover etc), still expected to be the one who organises everything and carries all the mental load.

A hell of a lot of men are quite happy with this and it’s hardly surprising that more and more women are looking at this - having grown up with the expectation of equality - and thinking “No thanks”.

We had a meet up of our parents friends yesterday and I'm the only one with a second (happy surprise) the answer to would you have more for everyone else is the expense, childcare fees are mad. We're lucky as I work very part time but if we needed two full time wages we couldn't do it

Because the government hasn't invested in support for families.

They do the 15 hours free childcare thing but it's not enough and besides, most mothers would probably be supported to be with their children rather than have a stranger do it.

There's very few community and local free family stuff on. There always used to be weekly midwife drop in and baby weighing but now I have to drive to get my baby weighed and I'm made to feel like a nuisance for wanting to weigh my baby.

Schools are overcrowded. There's just no facilities. it's shit

The two child limit on certain benefits won't help.

Also back in the day household income was based off one person working full time mostly. Society and the way its structured has completely changed so now in most cases two full time incomes are needed to sustain a family.

One of the negative outcomes of feminism.

The biggest factor that is limiting the size of our family is cost.
We had our first at 32 yrs old, which is also when we got on the housing ladder. We could only afford a 2-bed in our area (I fully appreciate we are lucky to be on the ladder at all) and we've now got 2 kids, can't afford to move so that's us done.

Housing in this country is honestly a joke, my parents go on and on about the interest rates in the 80's yet they still seemed to afford their house on just 1 income whereas we both have to work to be able to afford our mortgage! Childcare is also a big factor although things are slightly easier now we get some free hours.

Another way to look at it is in terms of physical fertility, not just costs. Biological fertility is also declining in both men and women, and this also results in families having fewer children than planned.
One straight up consequence of starting families later is that the fertile window is then shorter. I read some statistics somewhere that looked at when women started a family, and how many of their desired kids they actually had, and (I think) that after 30 it was 50%. These kind of statistics are bit woolly, but do capture that half of women have fewer children than they wanted. Costs of children aside, as we can actually do something about that if we want to, we should be worrying about what is driving infertility.

Exactly this. My home country has excellent maternity/paternity leave, brilliant natal care and heavily subsidised childcare (it's max £200 or so per month no matter no how many children you have). The birth rate is falling there too because more people are choosing different ways to live their lives. The difference in my circles is that nearly all my UK friends who want children have delayed pregnancy due to financial worries, whereas among my friends in my home country all those who want to have children already have (we are early 30s). It's so stark, and surprised me massively as I always considered the UK to be wealthy when I was younger but never realised how unevenly that wealth is spread.

I'm not sure we need to increase the birth rate overall - there are plenty of people in the world and there's no need for people to have more children than they want, but it would be beneficial for all of us if it weren't so financially punitive for those who do want to give birth to the generation who will pay our pensions!

Where I live infant schools are closing as there is the space but they are not full enough - the birthrate for the locality is lower than the falling national average. The demographics of the area have completely changed, I would say this was a top place to bring a family up on the 00s and 10s but housing is extortionate now and it means the families have declined.

For me, time and money. I want my children to have a quality childhood which to me is being financially comfortable, stuff, holidays, savings, but also time, we both need to work full time for our lifestyle but I still want to spend time with each of my children in their relatively short childhoods, for leisure and to support them educationally, it's not like the 80s and 90s (and before) where parenting was much more hands off. I couldn't raise 3 kids the way I want to raise my children. Plus, I want my own life, I don't want to be defined by parenthood.

I think there are two other factors:

1. Women my age (40s) bought into the myth of equality. It felt realistic when we were young and child free. Then kids come along and it's like a bear trap slamming shut. The women I know in their 30s watched our crew and thought, fuck that!

1. Also middle class grandparents have a very different attitude to 'the village'. My parents had me young and basically let my granny raise me 50% till I was at secondary school. We live too far away for them to give us any help but they spend their lives on cruises anyway. They do no community work or volunteering. There is an entitlement and individualism that I don't see again until you look at much younger people. It's like they haven't got the wisdom that normally comes with age. I appreciate these are my own experiences colouring my view.

All pensions need a working age population to pay them. That account you're beaverishly paying into? Might end up worthless. Or at least worth a lot less than you expect.

Obviously I don't care enough about this to breed myself 🤣

It’s obviously a good thing that people no longer feel they have to have children in order to fit in with societal norms and expectations.

That's a big factor. If you come off the pill at age 35 with the ambition to have two or three children then you might well get them, but the risk that you'll end up with only one is much higher than it would be if you started at age 25.

Across the population that makes a difference, and it is a problem that's worth trying to fix. Unlike women who don't really want children having the social freedom to say "no, it's not for me, regardless of financial factors". That isn't a problem and doesn't need fixing.