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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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.

609 replies

RetiredMan · 20/09/2025 23:47

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.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/m2GeVG0XYTc?si=rzbxoEDDxcy3hn6d

OP posts:
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GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 21/09/2025 10:10

The other issue with men in all this, is that they seem to want to wait til they’re older to have kids and then have them with a younger partner.

Then they say, “oh you’re so much younger, it’s much harder at my age to get by on broken sleep, look after little ones, bend down etc”. They’ve got it all worked out!

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 10:11

There is a lot of man bashing and hating going on here.

OutsideLookingOut · 21/09/2025 10:11

frozendaisy · 21/09/2025 10:04

Marriage detrimental to men
Parenthood detrimental to women

Stalemate!

Except marriage is advantageous to men in terms of lifespan, health, employment etc etc etc.

AliceMaforethought · 21/09/2025 10:14

Who cares? The world is overpopulated as it is. We will need a new economic model for pensions, obviously, but other than that this is no bad thing. Women are waking up to the fact that there is more to life than kids, and seeing most threads on this site, I wonder why on earth anyone wants kids anyway. (I'm childfree and have known I wouldn't have children since I was about 12)

latetothefisting · 21/09/2025 10:14

By age 28, if I looked at the group of, say, 30 women my age I knew best- so school friends, uni friends, work colleagues etc, only 1 had a child. 8 years later there are maybe 3 who haven't/aren't currently pregnant with their first.

so in a very rough cohort only 3-5% had children before age 30, but by age 36 something like 85-90% had.

Obviously anecdata etc and I imagine varies in different social groups ( I know of a few people from school who had kids much younger) but given the average age for a woman having her FIRST child is now 31 in the uk your 50% after 28 stat doesn't seem accurate.

DoinFineIThink · 21/09/2025 10:14

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 10:11

There is a lot of man bashing and hating going on here.

I usually notice and call out stuff like that if I see it, but haven't on this thread?

padso · 21/09/2025 10:15

The human pop'n of the planet is already way past ecologically sustainable levels, and this will enable us to lower our population to a sustainable level without drastic measures

But smaller ageing populations won't be sustainable either. I don't understand why so many don't get this bit.

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 10:15

latetothefisting · 21/09/2025 10:14

By age 28, if I looked at the group of, say, 30 women my age I knew best- so school friends, uni friends, work colleagues etc, only 1 had a child. 8 years later there are maybe 3 who haven't/aren't currently pregnant with their first.

so in a very rough cohort only 3-5% had children before age 30, but by age 36 something like 85-90% had.

Obviously anecdata etc and I imagine varies in different social groups ( I know of a few people from school who had kids much younger) but given the average age for a woman having her FIRST child is now 31 in the uk your 50% after 28 stat doesn't seem accurate.

Your data is probably offset by the number of girls who are unlike your cohort who have multiple babies before they are 19.

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 10:17

DoinFineIThink · 21/09/2025 10:14

I usually notice and call out stuff like that if I see it, but haven't on this thread?

Maybe it’s more that everything seems to be because men are useless that women don’t want to have children with them? I know a few women who really shouldn’t have been mothers and I equally know a number of men who would make great dads if they met the right woman.

Agapornis · 21/09/2025 10:18

LeftMyScarfThere · 21/09/2025 01:40

If people are wondering where posts like this are coming from, it's the pronatalist movement emerging from the American right. It goes along with tradwives and is inherently misogynistic - I mean, the OP has adequately illustrated that for us. I wanted to barf when he included something about 'the mating window' at the end of his first post.

The degree to which they're bombarding forums and social media is pretty sinister. They are coming after women's rights, so we'd all better look out.

Indeed - wish we had community notes or could pin your post to the top as a warning. I want to see actual scientific data rather than interviews and ChatGPT generated crap. Bet the commentary was sponsored by Musk etc al. And birth rates are known to go down as women become more educated. More children = fewer opportunities for women.

padso · 21/09/2025 10:18

We will need a new economic model for pensions, obviously, but other than that this is no bad thing.

It's not just pensions though! the NHS won't exist in its current form. We don't even have enough suitable housing to cater for the changing demographics.

padso · 21/09/2025 10:19

Your data is probably offset by the number of girls who are unlike your cohort who have multiple babies before they are 19.

You think there are a lot of these?

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 10:22

padso · 21/09/2025 10:19

Your data is probably offset by the number of girls who are unlike your cohort who have multiple babies before they are 19.

You think there are a lot of these?

Enough to bring the data to some sort of median age of 30.

Educated more affluent women having children mid to late thirties and less educated women from less affluent social groupings having children in their teens and early twenties bringing an average to about 30 makes mathematical sense to me. But I’m happy to wrong.

latetothefisting · 21/09/2025 10:22

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 10:15

Your data is probably offset by the number of girls who are unlike your cohort who have multiple babies before they are 19.

But teenage pregnancy has been steadily declining and has been very low for least the last decade? I grew up in a very working class area, still have most of my school year on social media and can think if maybe 2 or 3 girls who had kids by the time they were 19, and that was one child not multiples.

Also that wouldn't explain the average age of 31 for first child stat which comes from the ONS and is based on the whole of England and Wales

Whereas your views (and stats) seem hugely outdated. You can't even back it up other than "someone" said it in "an interview".

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 10:23

latetothefisting · 21/09/2025 10:22

But teenage pregnancy has been steadily declining and has been very low for least the last decade? I grew up in a very working class area, still have most of my school year on social media and can think if maybe 2 or 3 girls who had kids by the time they were 19, and that was one child not multiples.

Also that wouldn't explain the average age of 31 for first child stat which comes from the ONS and is based on the whole of England and Wales

Whereas your views (and stats) seem hugely outdated. You can't even back it up other than "someone" said it in "an interview".

Edited

I haven’t given any stats or spoken of any interviews.
You may have the wrong poster. I just made an assumption that different ends of the social scale may bring the average age to somewhere around 30.

ReleaseTheDucksOfWar · 21/09/2025 10:24

Just as a note, in Russia (where domestic violence laws were repealed some years ago) is now talking about making a law so that married women can't buy condoms.

chipsticksmammy · 21/09/2025 10:28

SquirrelosaurusSoShiny · 21/09/2025 00:32

Dude, you are giving me seriously creepy vibes.

Shudders

This.

I am calling troll or Tate.

DoinFineIThink · 21/09/2025 10:30

@Agapornis
The degree to which they're bombarding forums and social media is pretty sinister. They are coming after women's rights, so we'd all better look out

I've noticed that over the last couple of years, but you either feel paranoid for noticing it, or if you mention it you end up getting pooh poohed.
Things like women not going out by themselves, why it's not safe to, separate carriages and transport for women, but it's always been there under the surface. These are more blatant and in your face obvious, so it's interesting other people seem to be seeing it now as well.

DoinFineIThink · 21/09/2025 10:30

ReleaseTheDucksOfWar · 21/09/2025 10:24

Just as a note, in Russia (where domestic violence laws were repealed some years ago) is now talking about making a law so that married women can't buy condoms.

Sad
chipsticksmammy · 21/09/2025 10:31

I’ll be honest, having children IN THIS ECONOMY is a nightmare. Especially in the UK.

Money, decent child care and the general state of the country and the environment are just some of the factors I can think of.

If I was 30 now, I would never do it.

Oh and men. The horror stories never stop from my friends and family.

Blinky21 · 21/09/2025 10:31

But there aren't too few people in the world, and that's why immigration to countries like the UK is so important and I think will be more so in the future to ensure we have essential workers. I personally think it's refreshing that the younger generation is questioning having children, unlike previous generations where it has just been the expected norm, lots of people have children as it's conventional and arguably could have had much more fulfilling lives pursuing other things

padso · 21/09/2025 10:32

Educated more affluent women having children mid to late thirties and less educated women from less affluent social groupings having children in their teens and early twenties bringing an average to about 30 makes mathematical sense to me. But I’m happy to wrong.

There really aren't lots of teenage pregnancies anymore & the majority of women don't have multiples of children.

padso · 21/09/2025 10:33

But there aren't too few people in the world, and that's why immigrationto countries like ours is do important and I think will be more so in the future to ensure we have essential workers.

Immigration is not that popular at the moment...

Blinky21 · 21/09/2025 10:34

padso · 21/09/2025 10:33

But there aren't too few people in the world, and that's why immigrationto countries like ours is do important and I think will be more so in the future to ensure we have essential workers.

Immigration is not that popular at the moment...

Yes which is why there needs to be a rational approach to it rather than the sensationlist nonsense we are seeing. Migration will only rise in the future as climate change makes more areas of the world less habitable

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 21/09/2025 10:35

padso · 21/09/2025 10:32

Educated more affluent women having children mid to late thirties and less educated women from less affluent social groupings having children in their teens and early twenties bringing an average to about 30 makes mathematical sense to me. But I’m happy to wrong.

There really aren't lots of teenage pregnancies anymore & the majority of women don't have multiples of children.

That’s fine if that’s the case. I really was just assuming a mathematical case for a person having a child at 40 and another at say 20 that the median age would be 30.

I know women are having children later so it made sense to me that the median would also shift later.

In my defense I don’t live in the UK and unfortunately teenage pregnancy is not a problem that is under any sort of control here.