To tell you that if a UK woman has not had her first child by 28, there is a 50% probability she will never have children.

[RetiredMan]

I just watched the documentary linked below, about falling birth-rates, released on Youtube yesterday, by the guy who did the research.

(The fact in the subject is from an interview, the documentary itself only give the statistic for Japan, where the equivalent age is 26.)

Some factoids for those who won't watch the video (some are from the documentary, some are from two interviews with the maker that I've also watched.)

Birth-rates are below the level needed to keep population stable everywhere except sub-Saharan Africa. (It looks like only a matter of time until it's true there as well.)

That the invention of the pill is causing this is disproved by the fact that rates fell suddenly in Japan 20 years before the pill became legal there. They fell at the same time as birth-rates in multiple other countries, so it's not that Japan has a different cause.

Women who do become mothers are not having fewer children than before, the issue is that suddenly a large chunk of women are having no children at all. In other words, the problem is not smaller families, the problem is fewer families. (If I remember rightly, Japan went from 1 in 30 women childless to 1 in 5, in the space of three years. It's now 1 in 3.)

I think I caught a statistic somewhere that 40% of US women are now destined to be childless. (Presumably that is among those becoming adult now. But I might be wrong about this statistic, may have misheard/misunderstood.)

One reason childlessness is a problem is that 4 out of 5 women who never have children are biologically fertile and would have liked to have had children, but just never made it happen. Obviously there will also be economic issues, if each 20-year-old entering the job market has to generate enough economic output to support multiple 70-year-olds.

Even though birth-rates are falling. generations already born before births peaked will caused older age brackets to have increasing numbers of people, so for a few decades, overall population will still increase despite births decreasing.

The birth-rate of a population can be 90% predicted by the average age at which a women has her first child. The exact figure has not yet been researched, but it appears to be the case that population will inevitably decline if women who want children do not have their first child by their mid-twenties.

Immigration will not be able to solve the economic problems caused by falling population. There will be nowhere with a people surplus for them to come from. (There was a jokey interview claim that India already has ghost villages, they need immigrants!)

The cause of the decline seems to be a failure of couples to get together in time to have children. The data shows a big drop in birth-rates every time there is a major economic crisis. In response to the crisis, people postpone having children, but once society has shifted to aiming to have children at an older age, it never shifts back to having them at the original age.

A metaphor that explains why couple-formation is down. Imagine you live in a village with a dance-hall that is open for three hours on a Saturday evening. Every young person is there for the whole three hours, and gets to see every other person they could potentially marry had have children with. Now imagine the opening hours are changed to six hours, but most people still only have the energy to go for three hours. Some people leave before the person they should have met and married arrives. Some people are half-way through getting to know one person when another person enters and catches there eye, one courtship is interrupted by a new possibility. Perhaps this disruption kills one potential relationship. If the time-period during which most men and women think they need to mate has changed from maybe as little as five years to as long as 20 years, the likelihood that any potential pair will be on the same page at the same time goes down.

Agree, both my parents are from bigger families (1 of 5 and 1 of 7) they went on to have three children. Between the 3 of us we have 6 children.
I definitely couldn’t afford to have 5 and wouldn’t want to…

I don’t know - not much of an impact? What do you think?

Thinking personally, the second part of your post resonates. I'd planned to have 2 children. But my husband was so uninvested in sharing the household / child load that I wouldn't have a 2nd child. I worked just as many hours as he did but it was expected that I carried a good 90% of the housework, cooking and childcare.

When he wanted to think about a 2nd baby I told him I wasn't doing it all again. I've got friends who have only children because they didn't want to add to the load at home due to having demanding careers/work outside the home.

Men do indeed need to step up. IMO, they just aren't evolving as quickly as women. Most posts on mumsnet with any commentary about marriage reflect this.

People including so called proponents of traditional families have gone so batshit in their obsession for reproducing that they applaud men like Elon Musk and Trump who have kids here there and everywhere. In what way is that traditional values or beneficial to the kids? Ffs these people don’t even stick to their own morals at this point!

I am in my 30s and any man I meet who has kids I tell him no thanks.

I don’t want to marry nor have kids with a man who already has them. If that means I don’t have kids then so be it.

He is best focusing on his existing family even if he’s not inside the home any longer. i don’t want him to reduce child Support or child care so we can have a brand new shiny family.

This second/third family stuff often doesn’t benefit anyone aside from the men who get another go at it. And this is another reason why women in their 30s/40s aren’t settling for the already had kids/married crew who circle back for them in their 40s.

I think the problem isn't declining birth rates, it's that we keep people alive longer than we previously did due to improved medicines/care etc. If we didn't do that, then there would be less pensions to pay out, less NHS staff keeping these bodies alive and less overpopulation of care homes.
I think it's swung towards quantity rather than quality of life now and we need more people making money to prop up the quantity end of the scale.

I think that the men who should reproduce would take it and the men who shouldn’t reproduce wouldn’t take it thereby making the problem worse leaving even less traditional healthy family setups and more fatherless children.

And they are increasingly not buying into the hype around motherhood, realising you don’t have to have children to feel complete and fulfilled as women.

Even more controversial but I personally think the way to get men to commit is to offer NO SEX until after they have committed!! This means the relationship is far more focused on whether you are compatible in all the other important areas which get over looked when it is all about good sex.

ChatGPT answer for 50, 100 and 150 years hence in Europe.

Let’s break it down systematically — demographically, economically, culturally, and geopolitically — and look at three time horizons: 50, 100, and 200 years.

I’ll base this on current European fertility trends (most countries have birth rates between 1.2–1.7 children per woman, far below the replacement level of 2.1), ongoing improvements in life expectancy (but possibly plateauing), and patterns of migration.

50 Years from Now (2075)

If current fertility trends hold:

• Population Size & Structure:
• Europe’s population will be smaller and much older.
• Some projections (UN, Eurostat) suggest a population decline of ~5–15% overall by 2075, but with large regional differences (Southern & Eastern Europe shrinking more).
• The median age could exceed 50 years in some countries.
• Dependency ratios (number of retirees per working-age person) will be historically high, straining pension systems.
• Economics:
• Persistent labor shortages — automation, AI, and robotics will be critical to maintain productivity.
• Wealth concentration among older cohorts could shift politics toward preserving retirement systems.
• Some countries may become more open to immigration just to keep economies running.
• Culture & Society:
• Smaller family sizes normalized; singlehood more common.
• Intergenerational dynamics shift: fewer children per elder, but potentially more attention/resources per child (“intensive parenting” on steroids).
• Education and healthcare systems heavily geared toward older populations.
• Politics & Migration:
• Immigration from Africa and Asia could keep some European populations more stable (France, UK, Germany).
• Countries that resist immigration (e.g., Hungary) may see sharper population declines and economic stagnation.
• Increased debates over citizenship, identity, and cultural integration.

100 Years from Now (2125)

If trends don’t reverse:

• Population Size & Structure:
• Many European countries could lose 30–50% of their population compared to today.
• In extreme cases (e.g., Bulgaria, Latvia, Italy), populations could halve.
• Entire rural regions could depopulate, leaving ghost towns.
• The median European could be in their 60s if life expectancy keeps rising.
• Economics:
• Highly automated economies — far fewer workers, but each vastly more productive.
• Wealth may be distributed via universal basic income or state dividends, as traditional work becomes scarce.
• Property markets in depopulated regions could collapse, while thriving cities become highly concentrated hubs.
• Culture & Society:
• Multi-generational households could become the norm again (but this time with far fewer children).
• Culture may become more conservative or more radical — both are plausible.
• Conservative scenario: Societies focus on preserving traditions with shrinking populations.
• Radical scenario: Societies abandon old family norms entirely, leaning on artificial wombs or state-planned reproduction.
• Geopolitics:
• Europe could become militarily and politically weaker on the global stage due to sheer numbers.
• Influence shifts toward Africa, India, and other high-growth regions.
• Migration pressures could intensify — and Europe may actively compete for young migrants.

200 Years from Now (2225)

This is speculative territory, but assuming birth rates stay low:

• Population Size & Structure:
• Europe might have just a fraction of today’s population — possibly 100–250 million people total (vs. ~740 million today).
• Some countries could be functionally empty outside a few urban centers.
• Without major pronatalist policies or technology-driven reproduction, ethnic and cultural continuity could be unrecognizable.
• Economics & Technology:
• Hyper-automation could mean humans do little labor.
• Artificial intelligence and synthetic biology could allow designed reproduction — children grown in artificial wombs with selected traits.
• Some societies might deliberately limit population for ecological reasons, embracing a post-growth economy.
• Culture & Society:
• Family structures may be entirely redesigned: state- or community-raised children, or reproduction as a rare, deliberate choice.
• Cultural identity could be hybridized — Europe as we know it today might be majority descended from non-European immigrants who arrived in the 21st–22nd centuries.
• Alternatively, some regions might intentionally preserve “heritage populations” as a cultural project.
• Geopolitics:
• Europe may no longer be a major global power — Africa and parts of Asia could dominate demographically, economically, and militarily.
• Europe might become more of a cultural/heritage zone than a global driver of innovation — or the opposite, a small but technologically dominant elite society (think Singapore scaled up).

Key Wildcards

Several factors could dramatically shift these outcomes:

• Migration policies: Will Europe open up to large-scale immigration or close itself off?
• Fertility technology: Artificial wombs, gene editing, and fertility treatments could normalize having children later or increase desired family size.
• Cultural shifts: Pro-natalism could emerge if having children becomes a strong social priority (as seen in some nationalist or religious movements).
• Global crises: Climate change, pandemics, or wars could disrupt demographics unpredictably.

Would you like me to build two contrasting scenarios (e.g., low-immigration Europe vs. high-immigration Europe) to show how dramatically the picture changes over 50, 100, and 200 years? This might help clarify just how much policy and culture will shape the outcome.

I find it hard to worry about our population decrease. We need less people. We are poisoning our planet and that is a bigger concern than too many pensioners. There is simply too many of us.

How we support our aged population will be the challenge of our time for Millenials, Gen Z, and whatever my child's generation will be called. But with ai and automation likely to take lots of jobs perhaps we can all work in care?

I think we need to campaign for policy that means that ai taking over jobs doesn't just mean more money for the super rich and everyone else in poverty. Compulsory 3 day weeks for everyone but remaining on full time pay maybe? Plenty of time to care fir granny then. You would need every country in the world to adopt the policy though.

I’m not persuaded that money has anything to do with it. Parents are ridiculously well supported (by UK/US standards) in the Nordics and their birth rates are falling just like everywhere else.

Is it that women, collectively, across the globe, cannot be bothered anymore?

Oh dude...

How vomit inducing is that post, and your attitude is exactly the reason so many women are saying no. Men should be stepping up because it's the right thing to do. Why aren't they? Because they are porn addled selfish fuckers who are a waste of space usually.

Which is basically saying that men are not capable of being equal to women.

Men are not capable of doing night feeds then going to work the next day, for weeks and weeks on end.
Men are not capable of running a house and doing most of the housework and parenting whilst still holding down a job.

If women can do it, why can't men?

Not excusing men’s relative laziness, but this issue is surely also emblematic of how Western society has changed over the last century. In the 20th century, women gained their independence and right to financial freedom. However, capitalism has absorbed much of the surplus profit, giving little back to the average family in terms of time off/leisure hours etc.

Capitalist societies are now demanding two human adults in a a household beaver away to serve its thirst for profit, whereas for most of the 20th century one would suffice. What was once sold as a individual choice (women leaving the home to enter the workforce/men helping more at home) is now a societal/capitalist demand. And even then millions of families are still struggling.

The average age to have a first baby in the uk is 30. That doesn’t really add up. Having a baby is a choice and not essential. I’m actually glad people are now realising this. Parenting is not for everyone. Plus this country is an island struggling to house everyone. Maybe it will go back the other way.

Depends on the individual circumstances really as drs we don't finish uni til 24/25 if no gap year, nnoome has kids that early. My cohort are only starting kids now age 33/34

I've always wanted kids in my life but there's far too many kids in care that need loving homes so I'll foster once my career has settled in a few yrs (I haven't even finished training yet despite no mat leave/part time work etc

Is it that women, collectively, across the globe, cannot be bothered anymore?

It's also because parenting is more of an investment these days. I'm conscious that I will need to support my dc for longer in a myriad of ways, I can see how that isn't attractive!

I’m not surprised. Women are expected to do everything now. Work and do the lions share of the household work. I have a very supportive partner so I feel like I can have it all. But the majority of my friends are shackled to useless turds. I can see why women are opting out.

I think people are prioritising quality of life over having loads of kids.

Childcare cost etc is one part of that - but actually affording a decent quality of life for lots of kids is just very expensive. I think most modern parents would rather limit their family size and actually be able to enjoy all the various possibilities of modern life vs having loads of kids and everything being a struggle.

Plus this country is an island struggling to house everyone

Fewer babies won't reduce the housing pressures.

It would seem that there are only two options

• both parents work and share the workload
• one works and one stays home to manage the home and children

option 2 doesn’t seem viable financially anymore but it appears only women have understood this?

I also think this is a factor…

The world has moved a long way in expectations and opportunities for women at work. The women I know are in equal kinds of jobs to their partners.

The domestic load does not seem to be so even though, and most of the women I know are exasperated at being the ultimate ‘manager’ of all things home and children.

This makes life quite relentless - and the more children, the harder that becomes.

FGS, only a man would trot out THAT line!🙄
What planet are you on random man? So many women would tell you that once a lot of men are like dogs once they've peed they will be sniffing around for the next lamp post.
I wouldn't even want to be in the same room if my h thought this way, it's so gross.
So sex becomes a transaction is what you are suggesting, I'll give you a bj and you walk OUR kids to school this week. Yeah, that sounds like prostitution without out the money.
That sort of thinking can fuck right off. I think the majority of women would agree.
Step up or no sex, you'll leave me ? Shut the door behind you Joe.

@Wallywobbles interesting & what I would expect it to forecast.

@BlueandPinkSwanit’s so funny how a lot of men seem to think they’re a prize we want to snare and keep at any cost. They don’t understand sometimes we just aren’t interested.