Women are not having more children because of competition from “new fun technology” academic on R4 Today programme

[Tootingbec]

Not because of the cost of childcare, or the impact on our careers, pensions, financial independence, or because of women not accepting sub- standard relationships anymore etc etc - I could go on!

No, according to Dr Alice Evans (interviewed at about 6.50am) it is because improved technology and leisure gives women more options around “fun things” they can do instead of have children. And we need to make parenting more exciting and enjoyable and easier to compete with (I quote) “this new fun technology and other fun stuff”

🤨

Without any irony she then goes on to say in a “this is really fascinating!” tone that another reason is lower marriage rates and that “marriage rates are falling in countries like Iran, Turkey and Egypt!” Ya think Dr Evans?! Women in countries with horrific violence against women and girls and where women’s rights are going backwards, are weirdly not wanting to get married and have children?!?

Honestly it was the most facile examination of falling birth rates and why women might be opting out of marriage, relationships and child bearing I have heard

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_fourfm?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

I think it’s partly true. It’s so expensive having children, no one stays at home when they have kids, it’s all two working parents. The holidays suck, the judging is immense, the social media pressure and time pressure is crushing. Most mums I know have been on citalopram.

And you see people without kids having a whale of a time going off to festivals and term time holidays looking about 10 years younger than you!
It’s not very rewarding being a parent, and it’s not like your kids are happy either, they're all riddled with anxiety too.

Our society is set up to work hard and spend money on yourself in order to be happy, and children are a big hindrance to that. As much as you would like to step outside of society and be more Buddhist and spiritual about it all, it’s very tough, and your kids just want cool trainers and a PlayStation. No one thanks you or respects you for the sacrifices you make.

I completely understand people not having children, or stopping at just one.

Its not just childcare, or housing prices, it’s the complete devaluation of mothers and fathers. In our society it’s more important to look good, have good holidays, have a nice house etc, than to have a happy family.

How pathetic. Firstly to make such sweeping statements and generalisations concerning 50 percent of the population and secondly to have so little awareness of real life situations for women in the UK and abroad.

Falling birth rates and increased life expectancy isn't a bad thing if the economic model supports it. Otherwise we will have a serous decrease in our collective standard of living into the future.

Its easy to get into a spiral of taxing working people to fund government, meaning even those who want to can't afford children and fund their retirement. Eventually leading to more older people needing benefits and fewer working people to fund it.

We could tax the very wealthy and have a smaller number of people funding the government, but its a risky strategy.

Collectively as a planet we may be, or headingto, overpopulation. But pretending that lower birth rates in this country is nothing to be concerned about is bonkers, we aren't funded on a global bases but on a national one.

We need a stable-ish population and one that is invested in the country to support our current system.

That doesn't mean we force wonen to have children, but perhaps look at the reasons women who want children arent having them.

Perhaps if the UK had better antenatal care, better maternity hospitals, better and more affordable childcare - and women didn't know full well they're more likely than not to end up doing the lion's share of housework and mental load as well as nuking their career in the process - well then perhaps reproduction might seem more fun than doom scrolling insta reels.

I thought it was straightforwardly because as we develop more, increasingly women spend their most fertile years doing other things (not necessarily fun ones). My mum had her first baby at 27 in the early 60s and it’s quite clear from what she used to say that there was all sorts of family gossip and comments behind her back about why she was so OLD and not pregnant. And in fact there was a non-volitional reason, she’d wanted babies since marrying at 24 and struggled with unexplained infertility. She was surrounded in her social life by women with anything up to 4 kids by that age.

Jessica Mitford wrote about having a ?third baby around the age of 30 in the late 1940s. Her friends all asked why on earth she wanted another baby when she was SO OLD, as she would be in her late 40s by the time it could start work.

A good friend my age from school had her first baby at 27 around the year 2000 and was almost the first of us to do so, certainly the first who wasn’t an evangelical Christian. I went to a school reunion for ‘10 years since leaving school’ and only 2 of us had a kid by then.

Just to say that although I was very broody in my 20s I nonetheless think it would have been appalling to have multiple babies by then and much prefer to delay.

My irritation with the interview and the academic was how simplistic and yes, facile, Dr Evans was making the issue. There is more nuanced examination of the issue on the replies to this post than I heard at 6.50 this morning! I wonder if her research is specifically on technology and “gender” and thus when you are a hammer everything looks like a nail etc. Must be the only reason she kept going on about “technology” and “fun stuff” in relation to falling birth rates.

Just infuriating to my ears. It’s that sort of shit that gets picked up by the media and trotted out. See also “young people could afford to buy property if they didn’t drink so many lattes” and “young women are anorexic because of thin models in magazines”

Otherwise we will have a serous decrease in our collective standard of living into the future.

We have a serious decrease in our collective standard of living NOW. For most people at least, and certainly younger generations. Rents are sky high and bear no relation to wages.

And we already have at least 50% immigrants caring for the older generation in care homes in my recent experience (those I've spoken to say it's higher in the 'care in the home' companies). Which isn't that great always either for the immigrants or those being cared for. These are poorly paid, low value, yet extremely hard jobs with little to no proper training or qualifications offered or support with English speaking skills - essential to communicate with English-speaking patients. They are not supported (in my experience) just expected to get on with it - it's a hard job and not everyone is suited to it. In fact I'd say very good carers need a quite exceptional skill set.

Of course a lot could be solved by the 1% redistributing their wealth (not necessarily via taxes - requiring for example that high care fees are put into better training, pay and conditions for carers rather than shareholder profits as an example in that sector), curbing excessively high salaries in the public sector, but since they're the ones making the decisions, seems unlikely.

Yep, most of the people (not just women) I know who don't have kids, have either always known they didn't want them, and just aren't kid people, or can't afford them. A few are also concerned about climate change, etc. It's ridiculous to suggest that fun new tech is a major reason for falling birth rates IMO.

I agree, @Tootingbec, it comes across a bit "Flibbertigibbet women aren't having children because they've been distracted by shiny things".

It completely ignores all the issues like women no longer wanting to pick up all the slack while their "D"H plays football 5 evenings a week, not wanting their career to be shunted into the sidings, not wanting to be the default parent, not wanting to risk their health with shocking maternity care, not wanting to get trapped in a crap relationship or "settling" in order to have a child in a stable relationship...

And maybe just wanting to do something else with their lives. Not to mention the cost, I nearly fell over when a friend told me that childcare tops £1k a month. For EACH CHILD.

Interesting that Bridget Philipson has been in the press encouraging women to have more babies as well as this woman being on. They are obviously desperate for women to produce more workers and tax payers. I wonder if this is an attempt to shame women who don't have kids as somehow silly and shallow, more interested in scrolling social media or streaming Netflix than doing their duty.

What about men spending hours gaming or streaming porn? Are they not at least part of the problem, or is it just us silly women?

I don't think they will solve the issue of lower fertility rates unless they put some serious work into dealing with the inequalities women face when they have children in the workforce and domestically as well as the lack of affordable housing and the stagnation of wages vs cost of living.

I have two children AND a truly obnoxious YouTube habit!
Just to prove that women really can have it all!

If there are less babies born to UK citizens then we will have a bit more room to let a few more migrants in. I honestly see no issue with this.

It’s not as though there aren’t enough people in the world, someone has just decided that there aren’t enough rightwing white babies

Women might be more inclined to have children if absent fathers actually had their earnings taken by HMRC / their employer and sent directly to the primary caregiver of their children rather than just being able to get away with not paying their way.

There's a lot of things that could be changed before we get to worrying about youtube.

Do we think Alice actually spoke to any older women who've had children for a while (as well as those who haven't) or it's just what she reckons?

Firstly, I think that’s incorrect. There are very few countries that are having children at replacement rate. And even if it were true, surely you don’t view the children of others as a resource to be redirected to serve those who failed to reproduce? And if countries that failed to produce their own future, in the form of new humans, become old and unproductive, what are the pull factors exactly? The wonderful paediatric nurse that took care of my very sick DD was only here to earn money for her own DD, left at home with her own DM, in her home country, thousands of miles away. Would I expect her to make this (frankly heartbreaking) sacrifice out of the goodness of her heart to prop up our workforce? Of course not.

My Dd is 34 and has one child. Out of 9 NCT members in her group only one has had another baby, main reason being horrific birth experiences.
I really don’t blame these women, including my own Dd for not wanting to put themselves through it all again.

A prime example of confusing correlation with causation. Dr Alice Evans needs to do a statistics course.

Now you know another middle aged mum who games. And enjoying games doesn't mean you forgo children. It can, as in my case, just mean that you play with your children.

What seems to have slipped her notice is that women in Sub-Saharan Africa have less access to contraception than women in other countries with lower birth rates.

You would think someone interested in researching this area would know that pretty much every single time women have been able to control their fertility via contraception, the birth rate has plummeted.

It's nowt to do with having a shiny phone, Dr Alice, it's to do with women having a choice and choosing not to have endless (or any) children.

I heard her on R4 Today this morning, and thought what a load of un-nuanced crap, for the same reasons people have mentioned on here. It’s too hot to write anymore.

I'm so sorry for what your dd went through.
A previous poster mentioned poor maternity care as a barrier to women having more than one child. It's a absolutely reasonable choice of course. It's just really sad that systemic failures might be a factor in causing some women to have to make that choice.

Women might be more inclined to have children if absent fathers actually had their earnings taken by HMRC / their employer and sent directly to the primary caregiver of their children rather than just being able to get away with not paying their way.
@thenoisiesttermagant totally agree with this.

It's all systemic stuff. I'll be interested to see whether Bridget shows any acknowledgement of this. I mean, there'll be research out there she can seek out.

As it was the BBC, all research will probably have been done using transwomen anyway.

The population of the UK is pretty stable.

U.K. Population (1950-2025)

We don't need an ever-increasing population in a world (or country) which doesn't have infinite resources.

I don’t have children.
Mainly because I don’t like them.

Also in regard to pregnancy and birth - no way was I going through that and being treated like a piece of meat.

Nor was I going to be the one picking up the slack at home and sacrificing my career.

IMO women have woken up and are choosing not to do something that penalises them and prevents them having the life they want.

There seems to be no shortage of people trying to get into the UK. You'd have to ask them if they view themselves as a 'resource to be redirected to serve those who failed to reproduce'. My impression is that they are generally people of working age who think they will have a better life in the UK than in their country of origin. This includes your nurse. There was some benefit for her in coming to the UK to work, and she would have been worse off financially if she couldn't do that.