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.

I think we've infantilised our children so that they're not very mature when they leave school. Men see no reason to settle down while they have their game consoles and can live at home, often rent-free.

Marriage and fatherhood is no longer swapping your mum's house for your wife's, and being waited on hand and foot. Men have to pull their weight domestically and they don't feel like it till they're about 33 if you're lucky.

Women get with said 33 year old and it takes 2-3 years to get serious and have a home together, potentially a wedding and kids. At which point they split up before the kids and a woman has a few months to get over it, then another 2-3 year relationship before she has children. If she was 30 when she met the 33 year old, she's now 36 before she has her first child.

Seriously Gen Z men need to grow up if they want kids because no woman wants kids and a childlike partner.

South Africa, where teenage pregnancy is a symptom of a multitude of social failures. Lack of education, manipulation of younger girls by older men, gbv, children as a means to access government grants. We very much have a problem with too many people and not enough resources or government will to provide a solution. Children are born into poverty and the cycle is repetitive.

My late husband was from Aberdeenshire. One of the less kind sayings from his area was used to refer to someone who had an older father: "Aye. He's the shakins o an auld man's bag..."

They will soon stop living longer when there aren't enough working age people to staff the various services which facilitate those extended lifespans.

https://x.com/thealiceroberts/status/1968953193771016434?s=46

A link via X from Professor Alice Roberts on the rise of Christian nationalism in the UK, which might be of interest to this discussion.

You’re a creep.

I agree with this and I think a huge part of the reason for the failing-to-couple up aspect is driven by men not being worthy of being partners.

I do think we let down our daughters in a different way by failing to advise them on how to select a man. We do a lot of "ahh follow your heart" and "pursue your passions, build your career, and the right man will come along" and "don't be desperate, you sound really calculating, you should only marry for love".

This also includes the stages of relationships. What extra information do you gain in years 2-3 that you didn't know about the person in year 1? It's one thing if it's your school/uni sweetheart - makes sense to wait a few years to see how his adult character develops, and early 20s is still quite young - but 30/33yos plausibly could marry within 1-2 years of meeting each other even allowing time to organise a wedding. But again "don't even hint that you want marriage and kids until 2 years in or you'll look desperate, bit soon love".

I have several friends who didn't want kids, marriage etc but looking at the childish guys they were dating (for years at a time) it was no wonder. I think we should encourage women to either be properly single or to look intentionally for a strong partner - to assess as if he's going to be a father and provider, even if you intend to have a 50/50 marriage or might not have kids. Shacking up with these childlike gamer types gives them no incentive to ever grow up, and doesn't give you what you want either (an actual grown-up partner).

I'd prefer to be divorced and childless. Imagine losing your financial safety net and then having to support your children on a lower household income. No thanks

I agree as a childless person who was working for 30+ yrs in maternity care. I always thought how are these women allowed to reproduce, they didn’t want children but it was the only thing they could do. The men including married ones had very little input with the children or wives. My friends all non working stayed with husbands that cheated all the time, children gave women that passport, that was the choice they made.
i am sure witnessing these relationships had an effect on me having children I would have loved children in my 20’s & 30’s even thought about doing it alone but realised that was a selfish need. The men in my life were infantile not capable of working the one in my 20’s by 30 had never worked a day in his life, in my 30’s other one was an alcoholic prolific cheater.
Things need to change women need to be taught what is a healthy relationship, men need to be taught how to be a good mate & father & if not the effect it has on women & children in thier lives. If something doesn’t change the family unit is doomed.

Isn't it more like 1.5 in the UK now, overall?

But they were saying the birth rate among those who do have children is much the same - so if you look at DH & me and our siblings families the overall birth rate per woman is 1.8, but if you only include those of us who've had children it's 2.25.

I completely agree.

I never wanted kids and I don't regret that. ExH was the same but then had a kid in his late 30s, with the woman he cheated on me, around 12 years later. Maybe he grew up.

Met my completely worthy DH 14 years ago in my early 40s, but it took me four years to go out with him because he was really obese. He is now slimmer but still fat and I don't care. He is a brilliant kind man who does all the cooking and washing and most of the housework. And earns a very good wage.

We probably don't tell our daughters enough to look beyond the looks.

THIS.

Mumsnet is easy prey. Scary.

I haven't read the full thread, so apologies if this has been posted previously.

When a female of any species is born, there is a 50% chance that they may have children.

I haven't researched this, but given that they either will or won't choose to have children, anecdotally I believe I'm correct.

If there is a third option, please educate me.

Not sure why people keep parroting the line that women are are not having children because of housing and cost of living. Highest birth rates in this country and and around the world are in countries where housing security doesn’t exist and people live in poverty.

Housing and income has zero to do with birth rates.

In fact the better these things, the lower the birth rates, as we have seen before our very own eyes.

Rich (absolute or relative) women simply do not wan to have children because children take away your freedom. The more you have, the less you are willing to sacrifice. It’s really not any more complicated than that. No need for mental gymnastics.

The issue I have with this is if you say on here that it was hard work at times and you had a wonderful time and having children changed your life for the better you get shot down for saying such things.

Apparently it is complete drudgery having children. No exceptions

Roberts has no credibility when it comes to discussions about the effect of religion/ideology on society and on women in particular.

She soon goes very quiet when women want to talk about other belief systems that impact our reproductive and gynae rights and our place in society.

We don't have to look too far back in time to see how the government and society treated single and teenaged mums.

They were treated like scum and scroungers.

YAWN.

In my anecdotal experience, it’s men who get lazy and sexless a few years into a relationship - which then has the knock on effect of women not wanting to have sex with them, because who finds a lazy, uncaring slob sexually appealing? But because men aren’t allowed to say ‘actually i’m not that interested in sex’ women get blamed for not ‘making the effort’ 🙄women not wanting sex with a man who sits around scratching his arse all day and does nothing to make her feel sexy or appreciated does not equal ‘women don’t like sex’ - they just don’t want sex with men who treat them like emotional support humans/maids.

Yup. My ex-H was the moodiest person I've ever met. Complete turn-off.

Just bumping this for the daytime crowd. We need to be really vigilant against this bollocks.

I'm open to having children. I only have few years left. But I have to say, looking around, nothing makes it particularly appealing. I totally understand biological need but for us fence sitters there is nothing really pushing it to the yes side. Besides financial concerns, I feel like parenting has been made very difficult.

Hundred percent this. Same with medical care.

I saw the original post and it all makes total sense now.

I absolutely loathe all that tradwife rubbish. It makes my piss boil, partly because of some personal circumstances too

I think women are often told not to judge by looks (which I disagree with). Look at men's anger than women have a height preference and women will tell you that you should not have preferences too lol. Whereas men are not going to sit around berating themselves for only wanting a pretty, hot or young woman. And if you want kids, then his health can impact you and them too so it is worth considering. And to all this he has to be a good father and husband, so it is very hard to find for many women.