To think it’s obvious why the birth rate is falling

[workidoos]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnvj3j27nmro.amp

Life is prohibitively expensive in this country. We earn the UK average income each and can’t foresee being able to comfortably have a second child without the financial impact being too great. I understand sacrifices can be made but in addition to extortionate childcare and the essentials we want to be able to afford extracurriculars, birthday parties, Christmases, trips away for us and DD and some basic savings for her future. I’m not talking private school or extravagant holidays either. With another this would be harder, I’d have to definitely work full time and for longer to afford it and thus losing out on work life balance for what’s likely to be increased mental load and stress in some way or another.

On a local group someone was saying it’s over £100 for two adults and a child to enter a festive park nearby and see Santa. Mind boggling. As a family of 3 it then feels like the natural choice to stay that way, despite the fact we always saw ourselves with a bigger family.

Does this sound like anyone else’s situation? AIBU to think this news shouldn’t be a surprise?

Many young people can't afford to have children, so it's not surprising.

The Santa example is just one recent one off the top of my head but sure there is more!

I listened to the pm programme it’s an international problem they blamed on finances and housing but SURELY it’s also global warming -the planet is fucked.

I imagine shit maternity care also plays a part.

Ive never wanted children for multiple reasons but cost and the idea of being left to fend for myself by medics are two of them.

No chance.

It's not quite that simple though is it?

Perhaps if you said people can't have the lifestyle they expect with multiple children

Because plenty of very poor people have childen and plenty of abysmally poor countries don't have a problem with birth rates

I do think people are leaving it later then finding they're having trouble or having fewer than they would have wanted.

I do also agree that the desire to have kids is probably reduced by the cost, the impact on your life, lack of any societal recognition of the importance of being a mother, knowledge that many men do not pull their weight, difficulty in finding a man you'd want to father your DC, concerns about the environment and the future life of your kids.

I think people's aspirations are higher now. When I was growing up it was very much not the norm for people to go on a foreign holiday every year, have multiple extracurriculars, and have parents who saved for their futures. Those people were unusual.

I was one of three. We had one extracurricular each, never went abroad, and got loans for uni. No help with house buying etc. I had a phenomenal childhood. Obviously a few thousand towards my house would have been wonderful, but I wouldn't trade it for my sisters! I'd rather have grown up in a big happy family with fewer luxuries.

So you need to choose priorities.

Life feels unaffordable for the average family doesn’t it?

And even if you get through the nursery stage, there’s another tough point ahead where you’re trying to simultaneously support your kids through higher education, help your ailing parents and put enough into your own pension to be able to afford to retire before you drop dead.

Well we've had kids and both earn average salaries each and have found it really tough. Both work full time. I wouldn't do it again. My second son is disabled though, so that has held a lot of progress back in our lives, but I think it still would have been tough without that.

The financial hit is manageable for four years whilst in nursery, but to do it again with another child whilst working full time is hard going both financially and physically/mentally.

Yes it's bloody obvious to me, but the press won't report it that way. They will just say young people are too selfish to have kids, or can't cope with it because it was oh so tough 30 years ago and they are too snowflakey🙄

I also hear a lot of "why would you want to bring a baby into this world." That's certainly where my teens currently lie on the situation (obv far from baby making days but there's a definite shift).

Honestly, I think it's because it's become much more socially acceptable to leave a relationship where you aren't happy (not far enough in my opinion) especially for women, and the social change that's happened in terms of recognising abusive or shitty behaviours, and women having places to go online that are free of their immediate circle, who may themselves have ingrained ideas on what's acceptable to put up with, to talk about what's going on... honestly I think women are just no longer putting up with shitty partners in the way we once did, and I think that the advances on how we see fatherhood (again, not far enough) mean that women are thinking twice before proceating, as opposed to having a baby with the man they are with because society expects them to. It's not everyone, of course - but I just think women are wising up in general about how having a baby can tie you AND your child to a sub par dad for many years to come, and they don't like the look of it.

I think there's been a societal shift for women, but maybe both

I know many who are happy with just one and the pressure to keep going has just dissipated more

And possibly the same for cf but I don't know as many

Since covid children no longer get discounts on anything. They used to pre covid, always at least half price or more. Theatre tickets, entry to parks, airline tickets almost anything you can think of had fair ticketing for children. This now seems like a distant memory and my eldest child is 7. It looks like this new pricing structure is here to stay which is vastly unfair and is like taking advantage, because not so long ago it wasn't this expensive to have a few children. Also it is disgusting most venues charge for babies 12 month+, there all in on it. For anyone who had children pre covid the difference is massive. Also this expensive santa thing, also a hangover from covid. Before that non existant practically!

I agree. I'm 66 and from a very poor background (my extra-curricular was brownies and then sports at secondary, v little cost at all) - but my middle class friends had very little going on (some had musical instrument tuition, the rest sports like me).

There were very few costly family outings of the kind many parents feel obliged to pay for these days (a visit to Santa at the local church hall for my little brother was the only one any of the 3 of us got and it cost peanuts). Holiday was one week each year at a holiday camp in Skegness.

It's about aspirations versus affordability. Many parents can't afford everything they'd like to for their children these days.

maternity care that is too frequently abysmal

the triple whammy of mortgage costs, uni loan payback, and childcare all hitting at once

the soulless drudgery of trying to fit everything in - school runs, homework assistance, commute (particularly by train), extra-curriculars, food shopping, housework - which is felt disproportionately by women

and it marriage/partnership goes tits up, a child maintenance service which isn’t fit for purpose.

younsters can see all this happening to their older siblings and others. They’re not stupid.

Very obvious

It doesn’t matter why the birth rate is dropping, it is a damn good thing it is dropping for us as a species and the planet. We should absolutely not be making it easier to have children.

I agree with what you’ve said, but I also think it’s down to people prioritising their careers and leaving it to late to have children, then finding that they either can’t have any or can’t have as many as they would have wanted. I was 24 when I started trying for a baby, and even though I was married and had a house, I did feel pressure to wait longer. I had only just started my teaching career and ideally could have done with more time to progress before I had children, and I felt that this is what was expected of me. If doing what was best for my career was really important to me I probably would have waited but I wanted children a lot more and that was my top priority. However I faced a lot of judgement for my decision. Yet my grandmother who was also a teacher had a baby at the same age and no one batted an eyelid. It was completely normal then and she would probably have been judged for waiting longer.

Is it a bad thing? Overpopulation is one of the biggest problems we face. In 1900 there were a billion humans. By 1960 that had trebled to three billion. It's now eight billion and heading for ten. Africa's birth rate is so high their population is going to double – just as climate change gets worse. Overpopulation is at the heart of so many issues, yet no one ever acknowledges it. I remember a discussion on declining fish stocks, for example. Not once did they mention overpopulation. Now my maths is pretty bad, but even I know that eight billion humans are going to eat more fish than one billion.

I'm in rural Essex, and at times it feels like I'm suffocating. The traffic is so bad I could scream, and my local woods have been hacked down to make way for a disgusting new housing estate. We've also heard that the main road into town is going to have five hundred new homes built along it. That road is clogged with traffic now, so what the hell will it be like when an extra 500 cars are added?

On top of that, life expectancy is about to rise dramatically. Pretty soon, we'll have the first generation of anti-ageing drugs, pushing average lifespans to 100, 120, maybe even 150 and beyond. In other words, people won't be dying and making room for the next generation.

I agree that it’s obviously a money thing. Housing is also another obstacle to having kids. I have 3 kids but I wouldn’t be surprised if my kids all had fewer babies than me. Life is so expensive and it’s better to concentrate resources.

I agree totally but the population collapse is not going to be pleasant 😔

I think it's many things... i find myself wondering how much of a role feminism has played in it...

In the old days when women didn't work, houses/rents could only cost as much as one salary could support but now many households have dual incomes which has helped drive up house prices as people can afford more.

Then you add in our expectation of equality and we look around us and realise many women work AND still do the majority of child rearing, house work, house admin etc. And we fuck our careers by having kids... the pay gap is not improving and no ones even talking about the pension gap.

If the men in charge want us to have more children they are really going to have to step it up in terms of making it worth our while. Maternity benefits, career protection, education programs for boys/young men, tax benefits, funded childcare. They need to stop men beating and murdering us as well. The falling birth rate is a global issue in developed countries and the UK is no where near the worst impacted.

Oh and it pisses me off that almost all reporting on the issue is written along the lines of "women putting off kids till later life" like it's somehow our fault. Most women i know would have had more kids if it wasn't for the money/time/lack of family support/health concerns.

Totally agree with this too, the planet is suffocating and drowning in humanity

Agree with points above. Add to that the decline in fertility rates, the pill works twice! once as expected and again when all that oestrogen ends up in the environment. Sad but true

I agree with last few posts, I'm happy to see it's dropping.

The population increase has been high as pp laid out

Tech will change things a lot, so in some ways we're at the time where we should drop now