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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

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YouHaveAnArse · 22/09/2025 12:38

RetiredMan · 21/09/2025 00:09

There was a suggestion in one interview that government needs to step in and tell young women it will have their back if men let them down, in order to persuade them to have children at a younger age.

Though it was also asked, what would you rather be at 50: a divorced childless women, or a divorced woman with children? Maybe the risk of a bad man is worth taking, if you want children enough. Not for me to say.

Most people I know had their children in their mid to late 30s. So being a divorced woman with children in your 50s would be a big financial burden.

OneAmberFinch · 22/09/2025 13:17

FlirtsWithRhinos · 22/09/2025 12:35

Honestly, and I say this as a Feminist, I agree. When I've spoken about getting the incentives right it's not necessarily thinking in terms of individual childcare support or even individual men stepping up, but more along the lines of seeing childcare and childrearing as something done within social groups not private couples and finding ways to support that so individual women aren't carrying the burden and the risk by themselves.

Well, including private couples who have strong support from wider social groups too, presumably?

Iceandfire92 · 22/09/2025 13:35

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 10:01

This is a late stage capitalism issue. We expect women to do the double whammy of contributing through paid work while also producing the next generation.

Women with careers can't afford to do this to a large extent.

I have some distant relatives who do seem to be bucking the trend. They are a large family and have numerous babies, giving birth between the ages of 16 and 30. All the women have 2+ children. The key is that most of the women don't have careers, or if they do it's work that can be flexible as a self employed person, such as hairdresser. The women are the rocks of the family and support their sisters, children and grandchildren with their young families. They don't marry and the men are not the focus of the family (although some do contribute financially and work in factories, building sites). Most of the women have jobs in things like retail and hospitality and arrange childcare with other family members around shifts. They support each other and all live very locally - often walking distance. I'm not privy to their finances, but they probably do claim benefits where they are entitled to.

The latest addition to the family has 18 year old parents who are not in education, something that the middle classes would tut at. This baby has been welcomed with pride and love by all the family, who are supporting the young parents in many practical ways. The grandmother is in her 30s, the great grandmother in her 50s. These young grandparents are key in supporting the young parents and do so. The children of the family are well looked after, attend school regularly and have hobbies and do sports.

This is a way of life that was common when birth rates were higher. The isolated lives many people live now feeding the corporate machine has removed all the support women used to have when having children, hence they have fewer and often none.

A grandmother in her 30's?! Crikey, my friends are all 30-38 and only one has had their first baby!

EuclidianGeometryFan · 22/09/2025 13:42

HelmholtzWatson · 22/09/2025 05:40

Ah the "Which is basically saying ..." defence which is always followed by a straw man!

Anyway, sounds like you are generalising your own experiences to all men, which is of course reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes. Do better.

But why were you generalising that "it could be that women have raised their expectations beyond the level that many men are capable of achieving". Is that not also reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes.
Pot kettle black.

Chiseltip · 22/09/2025 13:59

GiantTeddyIsTired · 22/09/2025 11:36

When we say men need to step up, we don't mean be 6' with a 6 figure salary. We mean pick up their own socks and clean the toilet after themselves.

The whole point is women aren't forced to be with a man to survive now, we're allowed an education/job/to own property, so we get to choose which men we tether ourselves to, and those men, quite often, are a bit rubbish (I myself have 2 kids with an ex who actually is 6' and 6 figures (mind you, i'm 5' and 6 figures myself), but who never ran the hoover round once, and sees his kids a couple of times a month. Where was my motivation to have more children with him?

The very fact that for you (and many other women) having children, or instigating divorce proceedings, is based on something as nonsensical as "running a hoover around" just proves my point.

You would NEVER hear a man say . . .

"yeah, she wasn't hovering, so I refused to have kids with her."

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 14:01

Iceandfire92 · 22/09/2025 13:35

A grandmother in her 30's?! Crikey, my friends are all 30-38 and only one has had their first baby!

It's not uncommon locally. If you have a child at 18 (which isn't excessively young) and they have a child at 18, you'll be a grandmother in your 30s.

KimberleyClark · 22/09/2025 14:13

The latest addition to the family has 18 year old parents who are not in education, something that the middle classes would tut at.

Are they supporting themselves financially? Because I don’t think it’s a good idea to encourage 18 year olds to have children when they’re not able to support themselves.

PinkArt · 22/09/2025 14:27

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 14:01

It's not uncommon locally. If you have a child at 18 (which isn't excessively young) and they have a child at 18, you'll be a grandmother in your 30s.

I think most people do consider 18 excessively young to have a baby. Yes they're an adult but literally in their first year of adulthood, so they've gone straight from their childhood to being responsible for someone else's.

DarkPassenger1 · 22/09/2025 14:49

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 14:01

It's not uncommon locally. If you have a child at 18 (which isn't excessively young) and they have a child at 18, you'll be a grandmother in your 30s.

Wow! I think eighteen is absolutely excessively young. How many 18yr olds have been working long enough to earn a salary high enough to support them and a child, including throughout the child's infancy? Or how many have managed to achieve qualifications that open the door to a career or well-paid job?

The only eighteen year olds I know that have had babies have only been able to do so due to significant practical, financial and emotional support from parents, including remaining living with them.

Eighteen is an adult, but it's a hair's width away from being a child.

Having a baby isn't really something to race into early doors and find yourself unable to properly provide for/support them.

OldOrMaybeNotThatOld · 22/09/2025 14:51

DarkPassenger1 · 22/09/2025 14:49

Wow! I think eighteen is absolutely excessively young. How many 18yr olds have been working long enough to earn a salary high enough to support them and a child, including throughout the child's infancy? Or how many have managed to achieve qualifications that open the door to a career or well-paid job?

The only eighteen year olds I know that have had babies have only been able to do so due to significant practical, financial and emotional support from parents, including remaining living with them.

Eighteen is an adult, but it's a hair's width away from being a child.

Having a baby isn't really something to race into early doors and find yourself unable to properly provide for/support them.

I also wonder how many 18 year old first time mothers stop there? Or wait until a better more secure time in their lives for the next one?

OneAmberFinch · 22/09/2025 15:01

Yeah I think there is a difference between advocating for 18yos to have children supported primarily by either their parents or the state (read: taxpayers paying for someone else's kids)

And advocating for say, normalising 22-25yos (or, say, a 22yo woman and a 26yo man) having children, having got a job either out of school or university to support themselves and their children

Tbh, one of the issues is that it's hard to have a society where peers are doing things at different times. If all your friends out of school had had kids at 22-25, so therefore all of you wanted child-friendly holidays at that age, or child-friendly soft play catch-ups etc - would you feel as constricted/lame as women do now when they have kids "early"?

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 15:43

DarkPassenger1 · 22/09/2025 14:49

Wow! I think eighteen is absolutely excessively young. How many 18yr olds have been working long enough to earn a salary high enough to support them and a child, including throughout the child's infancy? Or how many have managed to achieve qualifications that open the door to a career or well-paid job?

The only eighteen year olds I know that have had babies have only been able to do so due to significant practical, financial and emotional support from parents, including remaining living with them.

Eighteen is an adult, but it's a hair's width away from being a child.

Having a baby isn't really something to race into early doors and find yourself unable to properly provide for/support them.

And you're just demonstrating there why the birth rate is so low. If a person waits to get qualifications, a well paid job and a house before even thinking about children, many people under the current cost of living will be too old for children. Maybe we should rethink this.

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 15:51

OneAmberFinch · 22/09/2025 15:01

Yeah I think there is a difference between advocating for 18yos to have children supported primarily by either their parents or the state (read: taxpayers paying for someone else's kids)

And advocating for say, normalising 22-25yos (or, say, a 22yo woman and a 26yo man) having children, having got a job either out of school or university to support themselves and their children

Tbh, one of the issues is that it's hard to have a society where peers are doing things at different times. If all your friends out of school had had kids at 22-25, so therefore all of you wanted child-friendly holidays at that age, or child-friendly soft play catch-ups etc - would you feel as constricted/lame as women do now when they have kids "early"?

Why shouldn't tax payers pay for people's kids? They are the future. Everyone who accesses state schooling has tax payers paying for their children to a certain extent. Many, many people work full time and get UC top-ups, what is wrong with that from a personal morals point of view?

You can say yes it's wrong that businesses don't pay a living wage, but today's young parents can't do anything about that, they just work within the system that is there.

And not everyone is suited to higher education and getting a "good" job (and those jobs are less available than ever currently). So if you're never going to have that lifestyle, why wait to have kids if you have a supportive family? What are you waiting for?

OneAmberFinch · 22/09/2025 16:49

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 15:51

Why shouldn't tax payers pay for people's kids? They are the future. Everyone who accesses state schooling has tax payers paying for their children to a certain extent. Many, many people work full time and get UC top-ups, what is wrong with that from a personal morals point of view?

You can say yes it's wrong that businesses don't pay a living wage, but today's young parents can't do anything about that, they just work within the system that is there.

And not everyone is suited to higher education and getting a "good" job (and those jobs are less available than ever currently). So if you're never going to have that lifestyle, why wait to have kids if you have a supportive family? What are you waiting for?

If there are 18yos who went into full-time jobs and can support themselves I'm all for it. I don't think they are by definition too young. If they need state support to do it then I have a problem, although tbf it is not really because of their age.

I think more people should go directly into jobs and things like apprenticeships where you learn on the job and get paid slowly more and more. It's not just uni I'm thinking about for those couple of years.

I'm not opposed to state support in principle for children but I think it should be distributed differently - we currently have middle-income earners (both working & middle class) feeling squeezed to the point of not having that 2nd/3rd kid while paying for others to have several more, so obviously the balance is not right.

GetOffMyLan · 22/09/2025 18:06

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 14:01

It's not uncommon locally. If you have a child at 18 (which isn't excessively young) and they have a child at 18, you'll be a grandmother in your 30s.

How depressing

GetOffMyLan · 22/09/2025 18:09

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 15:43

And you're just demonstrating there why the birth rate is so low. If a person waits to get qualifications, a well paid job and a house before even thinking about children, many people under the current cost of living will be too old for children. Maybe we should rethink this.

So you think more people who are nothing but a net drain on the economy is the solution?

GiantTeddyIsTired · 22/09/2025 18:51

Chiseltip · 22/09/2025 13:59

The very fact that for you (and many other women) having children, or instigating divorce proceedings, is based on something as nonsensical as "running a hoover around" just proves my point.

You would NEVER hear a man say . . .

"yeah, she wasn't hovering, so I refused to have kids with her."

ROFL - that was a trivial example of one thing among many.

He didn't run the hoover round, or ever do a school run, rarely cooked, didn't get up with the kids, never put the kids to bed without being asked, didn't organise insurance or bill payments or holidays, didn't buy toilet roll or toothpaste or cat litter, didn't organise dentist appointments (even his own) or car servicing or mow the lawn or decorate or buy school uniform or school books or label them.

Oh, and then he had violent sex with a young woman who sent pictures of her bruises to his work phone where I saw them and finally having some evidence of what I suspected, ended it immediately.

Which I could, because I did everything above and held down a c-level job - which is my point I think. Women don't have to put up even with trivial stuff anymore (although many of us do) because we're able to look after ourselves.

I've heard plenty of men who think they want trad wives complain that a woman isn't cooking/looking after him so he won't commit.

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 18:55

GetOffMyLan · 22/09/2025 18:09

So you think more people who are nothing but a net drain on the economy is the solution?

Are they a net drain? Really? The people I know who live this way do have jobs, mainly in hospitality , retail and factories. They're just not well paid jobs, but they are jobs people are required to do. If you are working, but your job doesn't pay well enough to raise a family without claiming universal credit for the few short years when your children are small, does that mean you and your children are worthless to society?

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 19:15

GetOffMyLan · 22/09/2025 18:06

How depressing

Why is it inherently depressing to see more of your children's lives than if you had them at 35? To be young enough to be active with your grandchildren and support your children properly with their young family. To meet your great-grandchildren and have a relationship with them?

gudetamathelazyegg · 22/09/2025 19:47

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 19:15

Why is it inherently depressing to see more of your children's lives than if you had them at 35? To be young enough to be active with your grandchildren and support your children properly with their young family. To meet your great-grandchildren and have a relationship with them?

I think the depressing bit is focusing on your children's lives and not YOUR life? like what are you modelling with this - so your kids grow up and have kids as soon as they are adults, what life are they having of their own?

I come from a WC background and now cannot say I'm WC but my mum wanted better for me than her and her four siblings had. I don't see aspiration of any kind in what you have set out tbh as a childfree woman. And I'm not talking making loads of money or travelling loads or anything material, but just having something outside of being a parent. What is the point, is it just a pyramid scheme to prop up the pensions system? That doesn't sound very fulfilling to me.

I see women of my mum's generation (1960s) and they are so strong but they put up with a lot of shit and they taught us not to. Now we have high standards for partners and goals and there's all this birth rate panic. Sorry, but maybe the birth rate in western civilisation is going to decline and we will have to adjust. Not put young women back in their box, grandmas at 30 and great grans at 50.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 22/09/2025 20:04

RetiredMan · 21/09/2025 00:09

There was a suggestion in one interview that government needs to step in and tell young women it will have their back if men let them down, in order to persuade them to have children at a younger age.

Though it was also asked, what would you rather be at 50: a divorced childless women, or a divorced woman with children? Maybe the risk of a bad man is worth taking, if you want children enough. Not for me to say.

Maybe Men as a class need to stop being utter shits to women. A significant reduction in rape, femicide, domestic violence, coercive control and a corresponding change in attitudes to the legal system and police opinions of women might make it slightly less unappealing to have a child to add to the situation. Maybe improving housing and not making it hopelessly unaffordable and inherently insecure would help. Maybe not having women - particularly those of other ethnicities - dying due to systemic neglect and racism in healthcare would make it slightly less terrifying or repellent to become pregnant.

After all, it wasn't solely women who pushed for the benefits cap. It wasn't solely women who ran the political parties that push for the shrinking of the welfare state. It's not solely women who seek to restrict the opportunities for employment or refuse to employ women of childbearing age and it's not solely women who make the prospect of being additionally vulnerable - financially, physically and emotionally - through pregnancy, childbirth and parenting quite so unappealing.

OutsideLookingOut · 22/09/2025 20:23

gudetamathelazyegg · 22/09/2025 19:47

I think the depressing bit is focusing on your children's lives and not YOUR life? like what are you modelling with this - so your kids grow up and have kids as soon as they are adults, what life are they having of their own?

I come from a WC background and now cannot say I'm WC but my mum wanted better for me than her and her four siblings had. I don't see aspiration of any kind in what you have set out tbh as a childfree woman. And I'm not talking making loads of money or travelling loads or anything material, but just having something outside of being a parent. What is the point, is it just a pyramid scheme to prop up the pensions system? That doesn't sound very fulfilling to me.

I see women of my mum's generation (1960s) and they are so strong but they put up with a lot of shit and they taught us not to. Now we have high standards for partners and goals and there's all this birth rate panic. Sorry, but maybe the birth rate in western civilisation is going to decline and we will have to adjust. Not put young women back in their box, grandmas at 30 and great grans at 50.

I'm with you. From a WC background and my parents both tried to escape poverty from teenage pregnancy, from more children than they could afford to take care of and nurture to their full potential. They wanted to learn and be the first in their families to go to university and break the mold. And my mum did not want grandchildren in her thirties. She did not and does not want to really raise any more children. She wanted so much for us including being stretched academically and not struggling so much financially. Like children are one aspect of life (if you want them) but not the only aspect.

Saying all that I do think if people find love young it can be a great thing but I think children are/should be a gift. They should be had because people really want them; to love them and raise them (both parents at least), and when you pick a father for your child it should be because you think he would be a good father.

Iceandfire92 · 22/09/2025 20:52

Almostwelsh · 22/09/2025 14:01

It's not uncommon locally. If you have a child at 18 (which isn't excessively young) and they have a child at 18, you'll be a grandmother in your 30s.

Isn't excessively young? Becoming a mother at 18 is a teenage pregnancy and one year out of childhood! You could still be in the upper sixth form at 18.

Kendodd · 22/09/2025 20:59

I think the simple explanation is, as always, all about the money. When money flowed up the generations, women had lots of children. It used to be customary for kids to grow up, get a job young, and give their mum some money each week, regardless of whether they lived with her or not. Now money flows down the generations and every kid you have costs an absolute fortune with no financial return for the parents.
This also explains why birth rates are still high in Sub Saharan Africa. This presure on young people to provide financially for parents drives migration to Europe as well.

anon666 · 23/09/2025 20:51

Why is that necessarily racist? I guess with the current climate it was a bit provocative but it is backed up by the stats.

It was a neutral statement - there was no value attached to it - white British people are less than 10% of the primary school population. At the current rate of change, they are going to be extinct in London within a generation.

Do your own research if you like.