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.

No surprise. I can totally understand that people would make a rational choice not to have a child now

It's been said life expectancy increases have stalled or might be decreasing with stuff like drug use, s**cide. The thing underpinning decisions to have children is that they'll grow up to outlive you and probably out earn you.

If that wasn't guaranteed would you still do it?

Where did I cheer drug addicted and impoverished babies ?

Your support for eugenics is duly noted with a corresponding lack of comprehension. Presumably you'd expose these babies a la Sparta ?

It’s not “eugenics” to incentivise things that benefit society and disincentivise things that don’t. Encouraging the feckless to have ever more children absolutely is a negative for society.

(But seriously you are using the word “eugenics” incorrectly.)

I am using it forensically. Also I haven't suggested anyone on this thread is (yet) advancing eugenics, but are certainly following the direction of travel.

My definition (which may or many not correspond with a dictionary definition but that doesn't matter) is that eugenics is the practice of attempting to create a human genotype with/without specific traits by enforced sterilisation and breeding

It's the "enforced" that is the fun bit. Insisting on same religion or ethnic marriages ? Prohibiting mixed marriages ? What's the line ? And not only where do we draw it, but who gets to draw it ?

imho everyone has a work ethic, well almost everyone, they just need a chance to show it.

By the "right kind" you mean people like my DD and partner? joint income 110k, under 30, they value travel, hobbies, going out, way over having children.

Or my best friend, lives in Surrey, joint income 250k, never wanted children for the same reasons as my DD.

Everyone i know who chose not have kids, did so for life style choices, i only had one, 2 is far more work and i didn't want that, plus xxxxing painful!! lol!

Perhaps it might be better to improve the life chances of poorer children, rather than writing them off before they are even born.

What has that got to do with birth rates? Other than people were having too many kids 60+ years ago? Babies born today will be future old people. The less people born the better.

We need fewer, high quality people. The days of mass unskilled labour in factories and on farms are long gone. Government policy should encourage people to become parents that are most likely to produce highly skilled children and discourage people to become parents to produce lowly skilled children.

What’s the statistic about the outcomes and life chances/successes of a child strongly correlating to the education level of their mother?

I’m not sure I like the idea of “low quality people”, but in general I agree with what you’re saying.

So they type if people that AI will end up taking jobs from? I disagree with not needed labourers. They will always be needed.

We still need unskilled workers and in any war, we need a lot of people willing to fight as infantry.
AI can't mix up latex for a tiler to lay in someone's bathroom.

Its likely AI will have huge impacts on people who we previous thought of as "the right kind of people" Lawyers, accountants, software designers even Dentistry can be done robotically etc.

Meanwhile we will still need manual, semi & skilled workers, labourers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, tilers, hairdressers, carers, teaching assistants.

My son is two, so I don't know exactly what he'll want to do, but I will be VERY clear that in spite of him looking to have inherited his parents academic genes, that all forms of labour are valuable.

One of the richest blokes I know is an electrician who, because of his corporate background, was able to deal with very rich clients. There's no reason that academic skills and practical skills can't go hand in hand.

It SHOULDN'T be the norm that tradesmen are seen as flaky and unreliable etc. Although it's not the key focus of their work, it benefits everyone hugely if the education system didn't write them off as not needing e.g. good comms skills.

in any war, we need a lot of people willing to fight as infantry.

Not when a machine can do the work of a regiment.

https://gwaramedia.com/en/ground-drone-defends-ukraines-infantry-positions-against-russian-assaults-for-45-days/

Agreed. Oh no, we will have less cogs to feed to the tax machine and a less populated planet. How horrible. /s

Sorry. Resurrecting this (Easter themed ha)

Two new suspects identified.

1. housing affordability

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/01/uk-birthrate-fix-housing-crisis-research

2. smartphones https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5804591-smartphone-libido-decline-birthrates/amp/

The lower the population, the better the quality of life for those that are alive and living here.

Yes, I'm very much looking forward to being 70 and there being no doctors, nurses, plumbers, cleaners, or pretty much any young people to keep the world running day to day. I'm so glad I'll have to work till 80 because pensions cannot be funded due to lack of population. I'm also delighted that there will be a huge cohort of older adults who have no adult children and who also can't access any elder care because there is no one available to do the job. It'll be great.

This is why Japan is investing so heavily in robotics and AI

We need to shift the way society is structured but we always comment in how overcrowded we are becoming. And ever increasing population size is not sustainable.

I don't disagree. I was responding to previous poster who said we'll have a better quality of life with a lower population. In the long run, yes. But people who are in their 30s and 40s now are going to have a really shit old age.

We need a properly planned transition to cope with a lower population, but our incompetent politicians of the last few decades aren't capable of achieving that.

In theory, we can cope with a smaller population but with more people actually working and working more, i.e. reduce youth unemployment, reduce early retirement, reduce part time working. Basically get everyone more productive.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, and importing more and more people, many of whom won't be working legitimately (or at all) doesn't solve the problem and just makes it worse. Getting a higher proportion of a smaller population working, working more, spending more, etc., WILL solve the problem.

But we need some good politicians to make it happen (which it won't!).

Unless you can find a way to force people to work without infringing on their rights, then what you're proposing is almost impossible. There will always be a proportion of people who can't or won't work for various reasons. You can conscript them, put them into labour camps etc but generally these are frowned upon.

One interesting thing will be to see how politicians row back on their anti-immigration rhetoric. It's not going to be easy, but at some point the general population will accept that the only way to get working bodies is to import them. Those born around now will find themselves in high demand, for good or for bad.

For starters remove benefits from those who refuse to work. No need for their fellow taxpayers to fund their lifestyle choice.

Havent read all, but just did a quick google through the admittedly bleak lens of whether this will release housing stock. We are still looking at the UK population increasing due to migration. This does mean that there is not suddenly going to be housing available though, as not only does migration offset decline, people per households are shrinking, meaning more housing is required for more but smaller households.

So we stop immigration, let the population decline, and all commit to working all the hours we have until we drop dead? Reducing part time hours means less parental involvement in child rearing, disabled people working themselves into an early grave like a workhouse, is that the kind of future we want? And as the population ages we can all work as carers to the elderly, until we become so unfirm that we can no longer work, then it's our turn to be nursed.