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.

It will lead to more privatisation of public services, it’s the only way they will be paid for with lack of taxes and NI from a lower number of the population working.

I agree. In a documentary on assisted dying, a public figure said that they'd rather die than become a burden. I want to shout out that I'd rather live as a burden than die, because I don't want anyone who feels similarly to feel guilty!

Boomers getting the blame yet again! I don't actually know any Boomers who have 'loads of kids',I know 3 who have none and all the others have between one and three children. I am a Boomer and I have just the one. On the contrary, it's millennials and Gen X who seem to be the most prolific breeders!

Talk to Zarah Sultana, who is ‘ok boomer’-ing all and sundry. An elected MP no less.

My parents were slightly pre-boomer, I assume (born early 1940s). They had 2 kids in the 1970s and plenty of boomer friends. Most of these friends had 2-3 and this was the case for most kids in my Catholic primary school class, whose parents definitely fell into the 1946 - 1964 age range category. My best friend's family had 5 but they were an anomaly and the type of Catholic who were mad, bad and dangerous to know.

As for the generations before that, well, the first commercially available contractive pill wasn't until 1960.

I am mid Boom generation and have one DC, born when I was 43. Went on the Pill at 17 in 1973, and stayed on it. Degree, job, travel, professional. I think my cohort had the best of it.. No social media, no influencers. Met men in real life and picked nice happy men, preferably well-endowed. I am still married to the successful last one.

will the ageing population be supported though?

I dont think it will tbh. We will be left to rot.

Those of us who don't have kids will be even worse - absolutely no one looking out for us.

I fear the same. The future feels very bleak. I have no connection to the next generation - no children, no nieces or nephews - nothing.

Can you make one? Volunteer?

I would like to think so. But obviously it requires a bit of luck too and meeting the right people.

I'm 70 next year, and on family medical history, should be good for 90+. My DD is 92, BUT only comfortable and coping because of his devoted second wife. When/If I get to his age, I'm buying a cheap wetsuit and a dodgy firearm, and I will wade into the sea somewhere quiet but beautiful, and blow out my own brains with a single bullet rather than decline gently.

That's quite easy to say now when it's a fair way into the future, but will you really want to / be able to do it when the time comes?

I am not knocking the idea. I think it's probably a good one. I am just saying it will require an awful lot of courage and may not actually be feasible when the time comes.

We will be able to generate the labour that is needed to sustain social care for an elderly / infirm / disabled population but only if AI/robotics +/- working life extension are publicly owned and democratised.

Unfortunately, the main developers of AI/robotics exist in a multinational space which cannot be legislated for by a single country. These corporations have already influenced our lawmaking to the extent that we can't easily legislate against them without being liable to pay extortionate compensation for their losses (I believe)

As things get a lot worse, perhaps it will be possible for individual countries to deglobalise, develop their own artificial labour and refuse external corporate owned artificial labour to maintain independent economies and their own independent welfare state. These are just my utopian musings though.

I rather see us heading towards a dystopia of gross and worsening inequality where the only way to earn / gain wealth is to belong to the class which owns the artificial labour technology. And if this reaches an extreme where this class simply do not need human labour, then what will become of the rest of humanity?

We've already seen what happens to human beings whose lives are not considered by the powerful to have economic or democratic worth - poverty, famine, genocide.

In the past when an elite has pushed the ordinary population too far, the end result has been revolution usually accompanied by their destruction. Occasionally a more gradual process towards democratisation and wealth redistribution. But they have always needed the labour of the workers and have never been so powerful as they are / will be. I fear the rest of us will not be capable of any meaningful resistance and will have no bargaining chips.

Only democracy stands in their way by redistributing some power in the absence of wealth but I fear Western democracy is in decline / being actively dismantled by those with vested interests.

Another consideration is working-life extension. So medical breakthroughs which extend healthy working life, making the old young again. But if that is possible, unfortunately its benefits to humankind will be severely curtailed by the endless drive to profit of its corporate owners/developers. The same problem as for artificial labour but less bad in that working human beings will still actually be needed. The downside being the extended life or even immortality of those who are already most powerful / wealthy - further exacerbating inequality.

The only long term hope for the majority of humankind is to urgently legislate to protect democracy and address wealth/power inequality so that the sociopaths who get to the top don't get to decide humanity's fate by themselves. They're not up to the job.

Yes indeed, Boomers didn’t have loads of kids, Boomers WERE the loads of kids.

Yes. I see a lot of scared older people who don’t want to die. Not a lot of older people killing themselves before they become a burden.

Overpopulation is a massive problem.

However, the least conscientious people are still going to be having as many children as they want, so I don’t think it’s as simple as that

Plummeting birth rates are a global occurrence with only some countries in Africa bucking the trend. I predict the causes vary from place to place (in South Korea it is linked to marriage rates plummeting. In the UK it seems to be smaller family sizes.)

Wrong.

She could switch off the air bags.

Getting elderly doesn’t necessarily equal being incapacitated and unable to function. There should be more education on how to get old while living a healthy life. Eating fast food and over indulging on booze is something you can get away with when you’re thirty. Once you start entering old age territory, then it’s important to focus on a good diet, exercise and to cut down on excesses, like drinking and smoking and sugary/fatty foods. You can get to 90 and be healthy and happy. You just have to prepare well as you approach getting old.

I was listening to an old episode of More or Less earlier. From about 2017. It was confidently talking about a baby boom coming, base on an uptick in births in 2003 and a consequent bulge in school pupils. There was also a surge in 2012

We were never going to be able to support all the boomers-there were 54 kids in my mum's class! Though she is an only child herself. How could we ever keep that sort of population up? I thought overpopulation was one of the biggest threats to humanity, and yet everyone panics when we're not having enough babies?

I only had one. I doubt my daughter will have any. Housing & the cost of childcare being the two main barriers.

Talented, ambitious young professional women at my workplace doing ‘one and done’ because of the cost of childcare. Yet the two child limit on benefits removed, including for families who have been claiming since before third and subsequent children and knew the score.

Resolution Foundation thinks deaths might exceed births... This year in 2026

Which feels like tempting fate

https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/new-year-outlook-2026/