For believing the drop in birth rate IS mostly because people who don't want children no longer have to have them

[CurdinHenry]

"Fertility experts" like Geeta Nargund in the news again insisting that "people still want to have children". Obviously some people wish they could have more children than they get to have. But it's never been a better world for people who are just not into it at all (or try one then realise it's not that much fun).

I don't think a survey asking people in vague terms if they'd like kids one day counts as proof of anything.

I was thinking recently about the (successful) campaigns to lessen the number of teen pregnancies (in school, by media shaming, promotion of free contraception, and making it very difficult to get council housing), fewer council and HA properties available generally, plus the ‘women can have it all’ agenda that went on for decades, so that women put off having babies, until sometimes it was too late, and the way so many people can’t afford to have children or even live independently compared to when I was younger. On the other hand, some people are having lots of children, and also finding it easier to get suitable housing.

Nope. DH and I are 1984 babies and both our dads were born in 1954. Mums in 1956.

In the 80s if a kid said they didn't want kids adults would all say just you WAIT etc and not wanting kids was seen as weird

Now the answer would be ok fair enough

It's fully normalised to not

I stopped at one. Not because of housing or a crap partner, simply because we're a lovely unit of three and having kids is hard. We could stop, so we did.

Life is good.

The house is peaceful, adults each get a break and quality time with DC and there are no worries about one having to look after the other once we're gone and no fights. As someone who had to manage a parents death with a crap sibling but wonderful friends, I can hand on heart say I have no worries about DC "coping" alone.

@Anarchy99 The Boomer generation ended in 1964 so I'm assuming that some of the later ones had children in the 1980's and 1990's.

I'm Gen X born mid-1970's and our children tend to be the Gen Z that @TheNinkyNonkyIsATardis is referring to, i.e., born between 1997 and 2012.

That was why I was surprised that she said that Gen Z would inherit from Boomers as most of their parents will be of my generation.

Eh? I’m early 80s and my parents were born in the late ‘40s- they were 30 & 34 when I was born so hardly an unusual age?

Around me I am hearing a lot of one and done, driven by women in their 30's that have careers they enjoy.
One child is just about doable but the second will absolutely compromise their career.
I agree.
Children totally mess with women's independence,... financially and otherwise.
I have two daughters, no way would I recommend Children to them.
They are both privately educated and at university.
We have sacrificed for their privileged education.
I 100% do not believe that children will add to their lives.
Nope.
Not at all.

Yes, my mistake, I was distracted by my own generation (Millennial). My boomer parents (born 1946 and 56) have Gen X and Millennial children and Gen Z and Gen Alpha grandchildren though.

So Boomers will feasibly be leaving money to gen Z and Alpha grandchildren, who may benefit early enough to put it into family planning.

My BIL (Z) got a sizeable deposit from his dad (Boomer), bought a house at 25 and just had a child at 26. My husband (Millennial) is expected to inherit from his own dad's sister (Boomer) - but we didn't have a child until 34, and we bought our house on our own at 28.

How many of those women (and in fact any others that are used for examples) actually bothered with the whole pregnancy business though? Plenty go straight to surrogacy so their careers aren’t affected

It’s not that simple. Social attitudes were very different then. Having children was just what you did after getting married. It wasn’t really thought of as a choice.

DM born in 49 had DB in '87 aged 38. The last boomers were born in '63.

I think you may be right, but I also think that probably applies more to men than to women. 20 years ago when I was in my 30s, it was very much the case that women were ready to settle down and wanted children, men didn’t so often relationships broke up, leaving women then without enough time to meet someone else and have children. In my generation I’ve yet to meet anyone who is voluntarily childless (or child-free as we say now.)
However that was before people started sharing frank views of parenthood on social media, so no one knew how hard it was!
That has probably changed things.

Infertility is common in part due to hormonal contraception - I read that it messes up the signals and stops attraction to a person you’re chemically compatible with as used to happen.

So people are ending up with partners they can’t have kids with. It’s fascinating stuff.

I’m surprised by this comment. Hardly any women were childless in the 1970s and 80s compared with today. The figures are something like 2% of women under 45 not having children in the 80s and 20-30%?now - don’t quote me but the difference is a large order of magnitude.

I said it was unusual as people usually had kids younger.

But women choose their careers, do they not? And they choose whether to continue in those careers. Nothing stops an actress or model who has made millions in her 20s from retiring or taking an extended break in her 30s to have 5 children. How is the choice to only have 1 or 2 in this case not a choice?

Taylor Swift is literally a billionaire. She’s married and she’s only 36. She could retire today and pop out 5 kids back to back (or pay surrogates to do it for her as so many celebrities do).

My guess is she won’t. Because she is choosing to (presumably) preserve her lifestyle as much as possible.

It’s really not that difficult to imagine that 5 children will curtail freedom a lot more than 1 child, no matter how rich you are.

This is very interesting. This group though was underweight for a sustained amount of time, that also affects fertility, I wonder if that was a factor? Personal relationships are always a factor of course, and as a supermodel it’s probably harder to find a decent guy, not easier. Your average, decent man is not going to fancy his chances with a supermodel, only a very confident man will go anywhere near her!

Bit birth rates were unusally high in the post war period and average age of 1st time motherhood was at an all time low. There were lots of childless women born around the turn of the 20th century as following the great war there was a shortage of men. The 2nd half of the 20th century was an historically exceptionally peaceful and prosperous time at least in the West.

What exactly does this actively planning and preparing the population in Japan involve? The problem there is worse than ever - fertility was at 1.14 last year.

source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/06/03/japan/society/birth-numbers/

Nobody in Japan has the slightest clue how to solve the problem, and the government are toothless and will do nothing to impede company performance. Here's an article about overtime limits - suggesting a cap of 45 hours a month (already startlingly high).

www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16821669

But 70% of companies signed up to this limit have a "special clause" allowing them to set overtime at up to 100 hours a month (so 5 hours a day if there are 20 working days in a month). And that's just recorded overtime - companies here are notorious for just not recording actual hours worked.

No wonder people in Japan are too knackered, depressed and fed up to do parenting, and have little time to meet a partner.

Quite a while ago now, very late at night someone rang my doorbell. It was a women with a clipboard, who was taken aback to see a foreigner. She explained that she was from city hall, and trying to find single people. The idea was to take their details and pass them on to other single people in the area. But, as a foreigner, she didn't need mine, not that I would have handed them over anyway. Hopefully that was just one misguided local area and now a widespread policy in what is already a stalkers' paradise.

People here are prepared for a huge population drop and the problems that will come with it in one way - they have given up expecting anything to be done about it.

@Treehorns Happiness is achieved in different ways though.

I’m guessing from your comments that being a parent perhaps hasn’t brought you the happiness that you thought it would and that you wish that you’d concentrated more on your career?

Your daughters may feel differently, however, so I wouldn’t advise them either way. Luckily the societal pressure on women to have children is gone so they’ll do what makes them happiest.

@BadLad So thingsJapan have done would be

LTCI system
Focus on community based care
A high % of older people still in work
Older people are healthy

You are right that it’s not enough but compare that to the UK where we have boomers who are in worse health than previous pensioners and we don’t even have enough housing suitable for the changing demographics. Oh and no one wants to pay for their own care. As I said we can’t compare.

It’s a good thing. Was musing recently that my parents had five by the time they were 30. So if that was typical they would have 25 grandchildren and 125 great grandchildren! In fact they have 10 grandchildren and will maybe get 8-12 great grandchildren.
Places like Afghanistan and Palestine are still on the exponential growth path and it’s not good for their people. I just see it as a system that is self correcting. Complicated by inward migration.

I think that must be area dependent. I live in an affluent rural community and 3 children is very common.

I suppose you are seeing a half full glass, where I am seeing a half empty one.

The LTCI system doesn't really seem very different from the usual national insurance here to me, except that a further tax on everyone 40 and over is imposed to pay for it. And if you use its care, you still have to pay some of it yourself. Again, like medical treatment under social insurance.

A high % of older people are in work, and it is a positive step that the government have made the age at which companies can force their employees to leave at 65 instead of 60. I don't really see it as a good thing that people now feel they have to stay in employment longer because of financial worries.

Older people are healthier in Japan than most countries. That's not really because of anything the government here has done. In fact, the government could do much more, such as tighten smoking laws, but they don't because they are such a huge stakeholder in Japan Tobacco.

I am not sure what you meant by focus on community based care so I didn't comment on that.

None of these is likely to have the slightest effect on the dropping birthrate. I get that once it goes into precipitous decline, it is almost impossible to turn around, but some legally mandated improvement in the work life balance might at least slow the drop, and lead to a better quality of life for everyone. But the government are far too in thrall to the corporate sector to do that.

@BadLad I think you are confused by my post. I was just highlighting that Japan has put in some steps to mitigate the economical impact of an ageing population. The UK hasn’t done anything. Hence why one can’t compare them…

There is loads on the internet about why the Japanese are healthier, it is cultural but government plays a part.

As I said upthread once birth rates are below replacement rate no country has managed to reverse it & bring it back up to replacement rate.