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.

Oh yeah it’s definitely jealousy! I often see absolute vitriole online under the posts of single and/or childfree women who are enjoying themselves out for brunch or visiting another country.

They especially get angry if the woman is young, slim and conventionally pretty.

There’s one influencer who used to be a BBC radio host, I think her name is something like Claira Hermet.

She makes hilarious reels about the horrific but absurd things random men have said to her as a woman enjoying her life as a single child free 40+ woman.

She’s not even necessarily against having children but she just hasn’t met the right man and accepts she may never, doesn’t want to solo parent, and so is enjoying her life as it is.

Men get irrationally angry at this attractive successful, fit, 40 year old woman who hasn’t settled for a mediocre man like them and hurl foolish insults like “expired” at her.

And yes we are always wrong, if we don’t “choose better” we are to blame for ending up as single mothers! If we wait beyond our 20s to try and find someone we trust to be a life partner and a good father we are wrong too. If we opt out of it altogether again we’re wrong uns that need to be fixed 😆

OP, I disagree that family size is the same as 20-30 years ago. In my world, far more women are one and done.

It's down to a mix of finances, career and a wish to avoid any further pregnancy/birth injuries

......aaaaaand there it is. OP youre couching all your stats and quotes, ultimately this is just another way of saying lets give the chaps what they want and fuck the consequences, if you'll excuse the pun.

The consequences for the woman and child. If thats not clear..

I think you’ve completely misunderstood the research.

I’d have a dozen children if I could afford it.

It’s such a paradox isn’t it. The people who should be having kids aren’t.

Not just sex
brain melting sex for him we can all assume not her

can we not find an island to put these defective males on with a heap of sex robot dolls and leave them to it?

The rate of women having children is declining for white women and East Asian women. The only places where they’re having loads of children are Africa and other parts of Asia. The world isn’t really overpopulated but may seem it due to how densely populated cities are. I know women in the UK who wanted children but left it too late.

‘Childbearing and childrearing is a huge commitment and money, and far too few societies adequately support women and compensate them for the overall risk to their long term financial security. So once we have a choice about it, a lot of us think Sod that for a game of solders and don't.
If you want that to change, get voting for things that protect mothers and incentivise motherhood. Either socialise childcare and the costs of childraising, or make men legally bound to support their children with both time and money before they get any time or money to spend on themselves.’

cant find the poster name who said this but THIS X357876532578!!!!

Just something to debate… what do you think would happen to the population if men were able to take a contraceptive pill or have an iud device fitted? Do you think they would treat it as they do currently with condoms being available and not bother and have the resulting fatherless child? I believe that the only men who would use it would be those who should be having kids and make the problem worse.

Many women wouldn’t. Aside from the impact on their bodies there are other considerations that unfortunately many parents don’t think about.

I have high earning friends that could financially afford a lot more but chose to stop at a certain number so they could give quality time to each child.

In a lot of 9+ children families you see older siblings basically having to be mini parents when they don’t want to be.

And the real parents have lost sight of what’s actually going on with their children beyond their basic needs - education, food, clothing etc.

I am not saying very large families can’t be done well but I haven’t seen it.

Things cost money though. As someone who is childless and will probably remain so, I'm not going to vote for higher taxes to support someone else's family.

In answer to your original question, OP, thinking about my family, I have 4 sisters. None of us had children by 28, all of us are now mothers. My SIL was 34. And looking around my office, only one of my female colleagues was a young mum.

Isn't the average age to have a first baby, in the uk, 31?

I had one, at 45. I was busy enjoying myself and building a career, buying a home, travelling before that.

Then I chose to only have one because I had to be able to return to my career. I wasn't prepared to risk relying on a man long-term. History shows that to be a bad mistake..

YABU. It’ll be hard for the bulge generation of boomers as there won’t be enough workers to pay NICs to cover their state pensions. The triple lock and a lot of benefits will need to go.

But in the long term fewer people is better for the planet, housing etc. We can’t keep expanding and using up finite natural resources.

Also, what do you want women to do? Most women want to be responsible and have children in a committed relationship. If you don’t mean the right man you can’t just magic up a husband. I’ve got single friends who’d love to be mothers, but never met the right man, or indeed even dated widely. And many other women don’t want to be mothers - hardly surprising given how hard and expensive it is.

Aside from that I honestly don’t think it’s the answer. If you look at the Scandi countries from what I understand there’s a lot of support for parents. Women are still having fewer or no kids there too.

Parenting isn’t just about financial resources although that helps a lot of course and men should be penalised far more for not taking care of their kids.

But many if not most women also want a kind, committed responsible partner and co-parent (whether they’re together or not) to raise their children together and give their kids a decent father . There is a shortage of men like that.

The ammount of threads I see on here that the OP states; my husband earns 6 figures but I had to use all of my savings to get through maternity leave whilst still contributing 50% mortgage and bills and now I'm back at work part time, childcare comes out of my salary, I earn a fifth of DHs salary and can barely afford a haircut and he spends £15k a year on hobbies and lads holidays and puts any disposable income in his own ISAs that I have no access to. AIBU to ask for financial help from him? He says its my fault for "choosing" to go part time. I also do 90% of the housework.

I think if thats the prospect of alot of women, I don't blame them for saying fuck that life.

Luckily I don't have a shitty husband and we pool resources but quite frankly we waited till our mid 30's to have a kid because thats how long is took to establish our careers, buy our first house and get financially comfortable enough to try for a family. We also stopped at one because thats all we could afford without taking a massive hit to our standard of living. No way we could afford 2 preschoolers.

I think the cost of housing yourself is a massive factor at the moment.

...and you checked this data - how - or you just believe the first thing you read?

From copilot - took 10s...

🇬🇧 UK Fertility Trends and Childlessness

• Average age at first birth: In England and Wales, the average age for a woman to have her first child is now 30.7 years, and rising2.
• Childlessness by age 30: Among women born in 1990 (the most recent cohort to reach age 30), 50% remained childless by their 30th birthday. However, this does not mean they will remain childless forever.
• Final childlessness rate: For women born in 1975 (who completed their childbearing years by 2020), only 18% remained childless by age 45. That’s far lower than the 50% figure suggested in the video.

📊 What This Means

• The 50% figure cited in the video likely refers to childlessness by age 30, not lifetime childlessness.
• In the UK, many women delay childbirth into their 30s due to education, career, housing, or relationship factors.
• The probability of remaining childless if you haven’t had a child by 28 is not 50% in the UK—it’s much lower, based on long-term data.

🧠 Cultural and Policy Differences Japan’s fertility patterns are shaped by different social pressures, work culture, and gender norms. In contrast, UK trends show:

• Greater acceptance of later motherhood
• More access to fertility treatments
• Shifting norms around family formation

So while the video may reflect Japanese demographic concerns, it doesn’t map cleanly onto UK realities.

1. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/conceptionandfertilityrates/bulletins/childbearingforwomenbornindifferentyearsenglandandwales/2020
2. https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/37/11/2611/6751717

Perhaps the "current crop of male specimens" compare less favourably to previous generations, but equally it could be that women have raised their expectations beyond the level that many men are capable of achieving.

Well certainly a lot of people who shouldn’t be having kids are. And they’re often (not always) the ones having lots of them.

Not politically correct to say that, but I got sick and disheartened by what I witnessed in schools and working in social services.

Having had great grandparents who were published ‘positive eugenicists’, this all seems wearily familiar rhetoric. That high value people should have lots of babies. With the corollary that oh no AFRICANS are producing lots of kids. All seems highly suspicious to me. What do you know about the documentary maker?

Women as a group, who can choose, have fewer children. That’s where we are. The extremely thinly veiled propaganda about women only being reeeeealyy fulfilled by having kids and being fucked by men, with a layer of ‘science!!’ icing on it, is unconvincing to me.

We are in a very different place in 2025 compared to say 1925 in terms of human labour hours required to produce food and have a good life. I don’t know if that will continue. If humans find that they need to have more kids to survive, then no doubt we will. It won’t be pretty.

Society needs to shift to get men to take responsibility for their reckless knobbing

if you do not provide and support your child as a parent regardless of if the adult relationship breaks down it should be a default that you are seen as weak, less of a man, pathetic. Because you are you absolutely are - hiding income to not contribute to school uniform FFS grow up

this is why women have had enough - men just don’t take responsibility and society still seems to celebrate that

you find out your child is ND and needs more patience and understanding and run for the hills

your baby mother hasn’t got the energy to suck your cock because she’s been walking round all night calming your child whilst you snore away so you get on the dating apps because that knob won’t suck itself instead of taking the baby for a couple of hours

you come home to chaos sick child, house messy, no dinner and instead of saying “how can I help babe” you kick off

so yeah all you defect men just take a look at yourselves and the other men around you - would you have a baby with you? Would you have a baby with your mate? Do you call out men who treat women like domestic appliances? Do you judge other men by how much of a decent dad and husband they are? Or are they legends because they drive a big car and stay out at the weekend letting the wife get on with it?

women changed, they go to work, take much of the financial load nowadays, men not so much - it’s your turn now, share the load, step up, judge differently

because when you do get older and you will you won’t have the options you think you will you will be left in an empty house with some limp unsucked knob and it will be entirely your own fault

this is not for women to sort out, so let’s face it it will never be done

They’re capable alright. It’s a mixture of weaponised incompetence, arrogance and misogyny that they’re not trying to be better.

One example is the seemingly smart men who hold responsible positions in work then come home and pretend they can’t unload a
dishwasher, see what housework needs to be done or sit down with their child to do homework.

Of my entire cohort, only one had had children by 30. The rest were busy building their careers, buying their first home and meeting partners. By 35 it has half or more, and by 40 most friends had children. This is 20 years ago and if you add a few years, then you see the problem. Fertility wise, we run out of time.

There is also a larger number of women who don’t meet the right person at all. It can be a lonely world. I don’t know how but while I know of many never-married women in their 40s/50s, I don’t know any men.

Yes! I really wanted children but never found the right person. I made a decision to stop trying to find “the person” and my life became so much better. I was free. I’d had no idea that a child free single life would be so good. In fact its only draw back is the way that society tries to exclude you and make you feel like a freak. I would observe the lives of my friends who had children and partners and realise that I had had a lucky escape: many of the women did most of the work of both earning a living.m, keeping house and raising the children while the lifestyle of the men hadn’t changed much. My friends were exhausted and drained mentally and physically. Their ageing seemed to accelerate. Don’t get me wrong: the children were mostly amazing and I realise we need to keep having children but in the end I am so happy that was not my path.

Someone should show Yaxley Lennon this piece of research. We need the immigrants. We are going to need all the help we can get.