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.

Surely if a man leaves a marriage for sex it isn't the sex but the fact that he's a bastard that's the problem?

I wouldn’t want people to have unwanted children, and governments probably should make having kids easier. Whilst the earths population will fall to, how many billion?

It’s obviously very complex, and I’m not offering any thought out solutions. But it is an interesting discussion.

@Horsie no, much closer to your age, and with similar issues to you. It’s not a competition, but children are expensive, and emotionally the responsibility for them is just the biggest challenge I find. I understand that my childless friends have stressors relating to adults and particularly their parents, but really, it’s this aspect of child rearing I find the toughest which my child free friends do not have.

Yup!

Ew.

Speaking for my own situation, I moved in with my parents to look after them, which I couldn't have done with children. It was immensely stressful, because you don't have the authority over stubborn elders that you do with children.

There's no doubt that parents carry a greater load than the childless, in general. But parents are probably less lonely, too. I am lonely without immediate family, now that my parents are gone.

Each choice has its ups and downs!

It's interesiting that retired [random]man hasn't been back to comment since 00.31. Obviously doing important man things and not get into furthur debate with mere women who won't have more kids because it's what women should be doing and when not doing that providing sex on tap to keep their man.
Glad I'm not married to OP and his 'opinions'.

I don’t think it’s all that terrible. A population decline will help ameliorate humanity’s impact on climate change. Throughout history there have been population booms usually in the wake of particularly devestating wars or disease, and then immediately following those booms is a slump. We deferred our post World War II dip as the boomers had the financial wherewithal to replace themselves, but that’s come at huge economic cost and has proved unsustainable for following generations.

Yeah it’s sad for people who might have liked to have a child but won’t be able to now, but we have our hands full funding an increasingly aging population. Once there is a slump things will find their equilibrium again.

Slightly off topic but talking about children and how much we do / don’t value them as a society- I have an idea that I think of frequently when I see these children in Gaza and elsewhere suffering: that all the children in the world, are all of ours. I think there should be some kind of special legal status for children recognised the world over, that children belong to all of us as a human race and all of our children, wherever they live or regardless of nationality, should be given some kind of universal absolute protection. It won’t change things we are mentioning so much on this thread but I think it says something terrible about us as a global population, that we do not protect all of our future people. There could be a huge shift in thinking towards children and how was all see the people of the future. Obviously I’ve no idea at all how that could work in the real world- a universal children’s’ passport or ID system; a universal income or investment fund for every child, some kind of socialist system only for children, harsh consequences for any harm to children in international courts, etc etc - but I love it as a concept.

The ONS stats are that 60% of children born in London in 2023 have at least one parent born overseas. And it is possible to be British and not white, or foreign and white. Or white British and born overseas - look at Boris Johnson.

(I am agreeing with you not arguing with you)

Tell us you have perpetual arrested development, have never bothered (or weren't capable of) moving beyond treating dealings with others as transactional and believe the fact you've failed to sustain any long-term relationship with an opposite-sex partner is somehow women's fault - without telling us.

If you want to understand why birthrates are falling because women, specifically, are chosing not to have children I'd suggest that you seek out documentaries, articles, podcasts made by women, which go deeper into the many facets of the issue than a doc made by a man who believes "divorced with children/divorced without children" is the only (frankly absurd) metric on which to assess happiness at 50.

This is so true!!!

Some people just don't want children and that is completely their choice. I got together with my husband mid 20s, we have always had good jobs and been financially comfortable and I have always known that I will never want kids. Everything about it looks so, horrifically unappealing. This however hasn't always been the case and many women have felt forced to have kids that they don't want. That pressure is no longer there anymore and hallelujah for that, women can make their own choices about their lives, all over the world. Sounds great to me.

Thats really interesting. I was the first of my friend group to have a baby, I was 30. Nearly all of my friends have gone on to have children in their early 30s

60% of children born to mothers born abroad, not counting children born to 2nd/3rd generation immigrants i.e. not part of a "white British" ethnic group, is an absolutely astoundingly high number regardless of how you try to spin this. That's a rate of demographic change virtually unprecedented in stable societies in history.

I think children are a blessing regardless of the race of the parents having them, but this minimisation of massive population change is a bit odd.

@anon666

It's very sad, and in the case of the white British people in London - has almost led to their extinction. 90% of the primary school population is born to mothers borm abroad. If it weren't for this ability to attractpeople from overseas, the capital would be a ghost town.

That particular statistic (primary school children with mothers who were born overseas) isn't collected, so I'd be interested to know where you think the demonstrably untrue fantasy of "white British extinction in London" comes from. And why you've got up early on a Sunday to parrot a far-right lie.

I dont think anyone views humans are an infestation.

We've constantly been warned that:

• the world is over populated

-many countries have economical housing crisis

-intensive farming has resulted in soil having no nutrients making it difficult to grow enough food that is nourishing

-capitalism has resulted in irreversible climate change due to the sheer amount of pollution, farming/hunting animals to extinction

• catastrophic weather events resulting in difficulties growing food for humans and livestock globally

-climate change will increase immigration

-People are struggling to get jobs as they are being overtaken by technology/AI, or jobs are given to people with more experience (think of many newly qualified nurses struggling to get jobs)

Then on the flip side:

• the birth rate is falling globally so we need more migration and babies.

Of course there are huge economical and social repercussions coming, but more needs to be focused on the long-term issues that are inevitable, instead of politicians worldwide sticking their head in the sand and hoping more women will have more babies.

I now understand your view. She sounds selfish. Why bring innocent children into the world without nurturing and protecting them? You're obviously upset for the children, but you're providing the stability for them. Use all your energy on them, rather than wasting it on the mother with an agenda. They're fortunate to have you and your husband.

Had mine at 43!

I wanted kids age 27 but had to break up with a guy who didn’t want kids by 33 and I didn’t meet a man who wanted kids until 35!

It may be part of it but I think studies have shown fathers are seen as more deserving of pay. Like beforehand not so much then on the birth of the first child... boom, deserving. Now is that because they are naturally just more talented? It appears unlikely to me. It wasn't too long ago that people thought women working was taking jobs from "good" men. We have an implicit bias.

If Mumsnet is at all indicative, there are plenty of women for whom a rubbish partner is a price they are willing to pay to have children. Maybe not entirely consciously, but for many women the desire for children is obviously stronger than the desire for a truly equal partner.

For that reason, and my own experience of child-free women in my circles, I’d question the stat that 4 out of 5 women without children are involuntarily childless. It seems to me that for many women with independent prospects, children and a potentially crap partner hold very little appeal.

@OldOrMaybeNotThatOld where is 'here' if I may ask?

No radical feminist I’ve ever read makes this argument!

my own experience of child-free women in my circles, I’d question the stat that 4 out of 5 women without children are involuntarily childless

Me too.

Oddly enough I could believe that if it was about men - because they just don't seem to get the same messaging as women and it's only recently become clear older men do increase some risk to offspring.

I've seen a few interviews and known a few men who seem surpirsed how late it is to have kids in mid to late 40 or even early 50s.

Agreed