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?

We don’t want to grow it as big as before, no. But we also don’t want it to reduce so rapidly. There are some great videos about this online.

Sorry but it's too late. Where was mumsnet a decade ago standing up against ridiculous house price inflation? Too busy having dinner parties talking about how much their house had gone up, that's where.

What a strange thing for you to have been doing!

No, I was making provisions for this obvious situation. It's strange that when food goes up 5% people are up in arms, but when the biggest expenditure goes up 10% year on year for many years people are celebrating. What's ironic is a house in a Country which you can't get access to decent services is not worth a lot. The Country fully deserves what it's experiencing now. People are greedy and self serving.

And a lot are stupid unfortunately

But they do have a problem with access to contraception.

Also many women of my age [30s] in my social group have had a kid or 2 with Mr perfect. Then he becomes lazy and they end up doing all the school runs, mental load, working full time and never getting a minute. A few Women I know are still in the marriage but stuck at 1 due to the above. Resentment is huge. I wonder if these kids will see their mums sacrifices and think no thanks.

I don't know, though - cancer rates are rising fast.

And also, incidentally, with infant mortality.

The important stat - the one that informs population growth or shrinkage - is the percentage of children born who make it to about twelve years old.

In very poor countries, that tends to be a small number.

I think they mean proportionally speaking. You want a greater proportion of workers compared to retired people, to support them in their old age. Which we would have if the birth rate hadn't fallen due to all the reasons expressed in this thread.

People can't buy houses very easily, childcare fees are the same as an income and women are waking up to the fact that a lot of men can be really quite shit and that there are now alternative life choices to impoverished procreation. Also, the world is burning and good luck trying to see a doctor.

Depends...my ex-H and I came under intensive pressure to have kids, from family mostly, both sides, close and extended, but also from acquaintances, friends, and relative strangers! Then there's the prevailing narrative that people who don't want kids are selfish, immature, will die alone, etc etc...Oh yes, there was plenty of pressure. It started when we married when I was 30 and went on for 15 years. So that was fun. I think I had my last comment at age 47, from an aunt.

For a minute, I thought I'd written this post and forgotten about it! Everything you've written is my story too. I am SO GLAD I didn't have children with my abusive ex. I'd be tied to him for a lifetime.

Totally agree with everything you’ve said. It’s currently unaffordable for my partner and I.

I've been told I'm selfish to have 1 kid too. You can never win.

Yes, it is so expensive. Buying a house (likely flat), is beyond the reach for most working couples I find this not only sad but incredulous.
EY childcare looks to be getting fixed, but when they’re at school there are still school holidays which is often expensive. It feels the rich or people that wfh / have their own business / have nearby support do better in this area.

also something to note I do feel many (not all) students coming out of college etc having different aspirations. Many want to travel and when faced with uni debt or a feeling of no hope of an owned home I can understand a slight infantile attitude to do something different 1-2 generations ago was not on the table.

Extra stress in life to conform and this puts relentless pressure on couples which then have a higher break up / divorce rate. If and when you’re lucky enough to find someone everyone is a bit older, fertility is now an issue and this can rip apart marriages.

I don’t know the answer, but waving an expensive carrot over a tiny box flat that will cost huge sums over a 35 year term doesn’t feel the answer. People often want to aspire to live in a house or a nice place and constant sky rise flats with people smoking dope out of half the windows doesn’t do it for me.

we have lost something somewhere.

So does this explain the drop in China? Japan? Germany? All very different cultures…
and the lack of a significant drop in USA?

So did you have children in the end?

Back in the 1960's and 1970's when my brothers and I were born, having and bringing up children was almost an expectation for every woman, most women had at least two children before they were 25, and very few women went out to work until their youngest child started school.
Nowadays there is pressure on women to develop their careers before even thinking about having children, by which time for some women it's almost too late to have them.
That said, financial expectations and aspirations were much lower 50-60 years ago, and it was rare to see households dependent on two incomes. Only the very affluent could afford a new car, most people made do with a second hand vehicle and there were virtually no two car households as is common now.
As children, we had hand me down clothes and our neighbours used to swap children's clothes or pass on unneeded baby clothes to others that required them. Many requirements for children such as cots or prams were second hand as they weren't being used for long.
Also we hardly ever went out for meals, burger bars and other fast food joints didn't exist back then, so the main treat of the week was crisps and lemonade, or maybe chips from the chip shop. We weren't poor compared to some of our neighbours, but generally people just lived simpler lives and seemed happier for it.
It was certainly different times and if I was child bearing age now I would probably decide not to have children, not because of money but because our country and the wider world is vastly overpopulated.😐

I saw something quite interesting yesterday on Instagram of a young married couple. Small home with a dog, the lass said plants are now our pets and pets are now our children. They had no plans to have children due to the crippling amount it costs to basically survive these days with everything being taxed and extortionate food and fuel costs. I get it. If I was that age I wouldn’t want to bring up a child in this country, or world for that matter.

We have two children and are completely broke. We don't have a single penny in savings and fully expect to work til we drop dead. Thanks to Liz Truss we now have a mortgage that is £400 more. This and the cost of living has sucked us dry. Food is now going on a credit card which realistically we can't ever hope to clear unless one of us dies. It seems ridiculous that we both work but can't even really afford a trip out to the cinema or a Sunday lunch out together. I NEVER buy clothes, makeup and get my hair done. I don't have perfume. All these little things I think someone working 40 hours a week should really be able to afford in a decent society. I think there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between people like us who don't earn a great wage and people on benefits/universal credit etc who get a lot of things free or reduced! Except they get to enjoy the most precious commodity TIME with their children. I'm miserable and I guess deluded in my expectations

Tell me about it. I did some chat shows about deciding not to have kids in the late 90s and i got told that i wasnt human.

USA is very much in the same boat.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/20240525.htm#:~:text=For%20Immediate%20Release:%20April%2025%2C%202024&text=The%20general%20fertility%20rate%20in,3%2C591%2C328%20births%20recorded%20in%202023.&text=were%20unchanged%20for%20females%20aged%2010–14%20and%2040–49.

The problem affecting everyone is rampant inflation since covid. Money was thrown around like confetti to ‘stabilise’ the markets. But it was all debt that needs to be repaid. By someone.

Then war in Russia/Ukraine just added to high oil and commodity prices like wheat. Demand surged when things returned to normal but supply lines couldn’t keep up, and prices went up and have never returned to what they were.

Trump added $7.8 TRILLION to USA’s national debt during his presidential tenure. That money has to find a home somewhere. He massively devalued the dollar and now everyone else has to play catch up. All the money we own has less value and buys less than it used to.

Let’s hope he doesn’t get in again or we’re in for a very rough ride with his project 1925.

Companies have also got greedier using inflation as an excuse to keep raising prices. We don’t live in an ethical world anymore. It’s every man (and woman) themselves.

That said, financial expectations and aspirations were much lower 50-60 years ago, and it was rare to see households dependent on two incomes. Only the very affluent could afford a new car, most people made do with a second hand vehicle and there were virtually no two car households as is common now.

two parents working means more travelling & often the need for 2 cars. It’s still not common to have 2 car households though “with 34% of households having two or more cars in 2022 compared to 8% in 1971”.

Why do you think people still don’t make do with second hand cars?

“Used vehicles were the most popular vehicle type in the UK in 2021, representing over 82 percent of passenger car sales in the country that year.”

I just think it's such a hard decision these days.
I'm an only child, so is my partner. We get married in a few months time, I'm in my early 30s, and we haven't decided whether we'll have a child in the future or not.
I guess it's a lifestyle thing, we're quite accustomed to working long hours and enjoying any luxuries where we can. My career would suffer, said long hours would mean I'd end up bearing the brunt, and we're not sure if that's something we'd consider doing