In 4 years, 2029, UK deaths will exceed births!

[TheMintCritic]

Just came across this and thought it was wild… according to the ONS, by 2029 the number of deaths in the UK is expected to outnumber the number of births for the first time in decades.

• Our fertility rate is only about 1.5 kids per woman, well below replacement.
• Meanwhile, the population is ageing — all those baby boomers are moving into their 70s and 80s.
• The result? The natural population growth turns negative, meaning any population increase will rely entirely on immigration.

It’s crazy to think that in just 4 years, births won’t even keep up with deaths. Makes you wonder what that’ll mean for schools, NHS, pensions, and housing.

I'm not convinced it would happen anyway. Newer housing stock is poor quality. Houses will deteriorate faster then demand will reduce in my opinion.

They didn't passively benefit from it. They intentionally voted for it, in GE after GE. They voted in Thatcher instead of Kinnock for example (not saying I favour Kinnock). They voted to demutualise their building societies and insurance providers to get a windfall. They bought shares in privatised utilities and sold them on within days to make a quick profit.

These are examples of how voters of that time voted for policies that benefitted them, so can't now say were merely bystanders in the decades where they massively benefitted.

I have a friend who works in debt recovery for the Child Maintenance Service, and whilst it's a while since we've talked about it, she had a fair amount of power! For example, she could view the defaulting dads' bank accounts, then would phone them. "I can see you have £500 in that account. We're taking it to put towards your child maintenance arrears".

Most of those voters are now dead. Nobody in their 20s or early 30s in the 80s had the inclination or money to buy shares in newly privatised utilities. You’re mixing your generations up.

Certainly not my experience. I was told I had to have mediation with my ex just to keep getting the minimum amount! He was flying all over the world, living in an expensive part of London and attending horse events with his new partner while declaring himself an expert in his field all over the internet. They still said he only earned 9k pa.

I think what you are trying to say here is, if you don't have a child, expect to live a lonely life. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with that. I see a lot of potential loneliness ahead for myself and it makes me desperately sad to the point of significant depression.

However, I personally don't feel my circumstances are right to bring a child into the world. I would be an older parent and I have no safety net of extended family to offer a child. If anything were to happen to me or my partner, the child would be entirely on their own.

Therefore, I have made (what I believe to be - I may be wrong!) a selfless choice. I've put the life and future happiness of a potential brand new human being over my own.

I fully agree. The black economy, tax evasion, benefit fraud, CMS fraud, modern slavery, money laundering, etc all needs a massive clampdown and a compulsory ID card system is essential and central to that.

Far too many people have more than one identity - bank accounts in different names - not from forged/fraud ID documents obtained from criminality, but just legacy from when things were a lot more lax and banks weren't required to check ID quite so thoroughly, or even two identities after changing their name by deed poll or marriage and keeping certain things in their previous name. It's a lot more common than people think but prevents authorities like HMRC being able to cross check official databases properly. (Handy for those indulging in evasion/fraud and other criminality).

Then you have the "look a likes" - people taking driving tests for relatives, people sharing driving licences and giving false details when stopped by police for driving offences - getting a relative to attend the police station within the 7 day "production" period and the desk clerk not having any way of knowing if the person in front of them was the person stopped by police!

I think it's part of why HMRC, local councils, police, etc don't show much interest with the Turkish barbers, hand car washes, sunday markets, etc - the people involved aren't obliged by law to have identity documents with them, and will probably not turn up at court if summoned, so if the police can't arrest them at the time (either because they're not arrestible offences or no spare cells in the station), they're powerless to take action so it's just a waste of time.

That's why the "joint" operations like road stops, are more successful, but pretty rare, where you have a big attendance from all the different authorities, i.e. police, HMRC, council, border force, DVLA, etc., and those stopped are checked over by all the different authorities, and there being vans for taking away suspects, recover trucks to remove seized vehicles, holding cells available in police stations, etc., all ready and waiting, i.e. all the ducks in a row. Likewise with checks on "dodgy" takeaways where "slaves" are living on the floor above the shop, etc. If we had compulsory ID cards, we wouldn't need such labour intensive joint task forces just to try to identify someone, check their immigration status, check criminal record, check right to work, check tax records up to date, etc. - all could be done linked to the ID card.

Another Boomer Basher FFS.
You would bought your council house if you could have done 40 years ago. You wouldn't have given a jot to future generations.

I'm saying that it was circumstance and outside sources that created the 'boom', which the generation of the.time were lucky enough to benefit from.

But loads refuse to acknowledge their luck & put it down to hard work. They are also very bitter to younger generations.

Oh God!

I was in my 20s in the 80s, most of my work colleagues, elder relatives etc were buying shares in privatisations and voting for demutalisations. We're not all dead! Lots of 20 and 30 year old were buying shares - you could buy them typically for £100. Lots of 20 and 30 year old had building society accounts and life insurance/pensions and mortgages - given free demutualisation shares from firms like Standard Life, Bradford & Bingley B/S, etc for nothing they were "members" of such mutual organisations and actively voted to demutualise.

Someone 30 in 1985 is only 70 today - they're not dead as average lifespan is over 70! By age 30, they'd be settled in careers, have a home, etc. and have money in the bank, pension/life insurance policies, mortgages, etc

Even someone 50 in 1985 is 90 today and there are plenty of 90+ year olds still around.

I think you need a new calculator. To say most people benefitting from the privatisations and demutualisations are now dead is utterly deranged!

Nail on the head. They're the ones who think today's young workers can't buy a house because they have a Netflix subscription and an iPhone. Completely forgetting that house prices have risen out of all proportion compared with wages over the past 50 years!

In the circles I moved in none of my contemporaries had any interest in buying shares or £100 to spare. My dad - who would now be 109 - was all over it. As you say, “elder relatives”, the ones with money.

I don't know what my friend can do with the self-employed parents who under-declare their incomes.

She deals with the parents who have, by the CMS's own calculations, run up debts of more than £10,000 (not sure of the current cut-off amount). In her opinion, these men tend to not be the brightest and often say, "well, I didn't think of that" when they are asked why they failed to meet their legal obligation to pay CM, or why in a minority of cases, they chose to get multiple women pregnant rather than use contraception. I'm surprised my friend is allowed to say the latter, but according to her, she often finds herself saying, "for goodness sake man, put something on the end of it".

£4k a month on childcare? Get a nanny?

Well exactly! I guess at least they aren't trying to hide income though, which is more pre-meditated IMO.
Bring on the ID cards! Funny old Nige was so against them yet wants to know where and who all the immigrants now are.

Not a cheap option once you factor in paying pension contributions, employer's NI, sick pay, holiday pay, living in London premium, etc etc.

It's the lack of HMRC enforcement that's led to this. Back in the 80s and 90s, they were all over self employed and small businesses from local town centre offices. They know who was in their town, would cross check things like local newspaper adverts against tax records, would visit to physically check the book-keeping records, etc. It all acted as a massive deterrent when a taxman was sat poring through your bank statements! Of course, they didn't/couldn't check everyones, but everyone knew they did it!

Now, it's common knowledge in "self employment" circles like building sites, small industrial estates etc that HMRC don't do that much these days and they all know the chances of being caught doing cash in hand work, putting a holiday through the books, or even not registering at all is really small, so the black economy has massively grown since the mid 90s.

Alongside that, not just tax evasion, but also benefit fraud, CMA fraud etc.

Getting a grip on the black economy would bring in tens of billions, but without proper enforcement, compulsory ID cards, etc., HMRC, police, CMA, etc are having to work with one hand tied behind their backs.

Most of those voters are now dead. Nobody in their 20s or early 30s in the 80s had the inclination or money to buy shares in newly privatised utilities. You’re mixing your generations up

Always the same responses, they are dead or no boomer did this, you even see it about Brexit. Then it twists into well no one I know did, well the stop speaking for everyone!!!

And yet people are always complaining about schools being oversubscribed

There were surge years that are still moving through the system.

2007, who have just finished their A-levels was around the peak, iirc. There's been something of a major drop off in birth rates since then though.

So what you are basically saying is who is going to look after you when you’re old? I didn’t choose not to have children, I had fertility issues. But I realised I could still have a great life, am now early 60s and retired and very happy. I have friends, many with adult children, some of whom are causing their parents a lot of worry and heartache with mental health issues or selfish, grabby behaviour. At least I have been spared that. Having adult children is not a guarantee you won’t be lonely and neglected in your old age.

Yes not great that they should be starting so young but in practice it is later as funding doesn't start until beginning of school term after being nine months.

One of my earlier gigs was in estate agency software.

None of the reasons I heard about why it was the best place to flog software have been mentioned, let alone addressed in the past 30 years.

Anyone who thinks house prices will ever fall overall is living in cloud cuckoo land, and ripe for being rinsed by whichever party can pretend the most that they care.

I remember seeing one of those BBC docudramas decades ago, in which they were highlighting the dropping birth rate. It ended with the secondary school teacher who was teaching ‘family planning’ saying to the class that in the past he’d have been telling them to ‘be careful’ but now, well, ‘have fun’ (ie go out and have sex ). Anyone else remember it?

We knew the trajectory and likely timeline back then. We just ignored it.

The 'who is going to look after you when you're old' line is another one that gets trotted out. No one should have children to have someone to look after them when they're old. However, it is usually the case that parents like and love their children and vice versa, so at the very least people who have adult children have family to engage with. Having people in your life is generally better than not having them.