Vanessa, a project manager in Brighton, 35, says that having children is an expensive luxury.
My friends who started a family received large sums from their parents in order to get onto the property ladder. For those who are not lucky enough, they are stuck in the rental market with largely insecure and poorly paid jobs.
Vanessa’s future is clouded as well by the climate crisis, the crumbling of public services and “the plummeting mental health” of young people. “Put all of these factors together and you get a perfect storm that leads to declining birthrates.”
Her decision is repeated worldwide. In Europe, South America, Asia and other parts of the world, the number of woman of childbearing age has been declining for a long time. This is made worse by a steep decline in the number women and their partners who want to or can have children.
The number of children per woman has fallen dramatically as a result.
The challenges that governments face due to rapidly ageing populations may be familiar, but a drop in fertility rates once seen only in Japan has now spread around the globe. As average birthrates decline and people live longer, there is a growing dependency on age in almost all continents. If the
The pandemic had the opposite effect. Demographers have been shocked by the recent drop in fertilty. In 2010, the rate had already started to decline. Then came Covid-19 and the Russian invasion in Ukraine, as well as a worsening climate crisis. All of these events appeared to have added to the downward trend, bringing the fertility rate down to its lowest level since the 1930s.
Ann Berrington, professor of demography at Southampton University and social statistics, said: “The Human Fertility Database for England and Wales documents 1960s baby booms, 1970s baby buses, fluctuations in the 1980s and 90s which kept things relatively stable, and increases from 2000 to 2010. Then, a decline through 2010 to the historic low levels we see today.
In Scotland, the trend has been the same for the past 60 years. However, the trajectory of each period was lower. Northern Ireland follows a similar pattern, but on a slightly higher path. ONS statistics tracking live births show the same decline. The ONS figures show that 605,479 live births will be registered in England and Wales by 2022. This is a drop of 3.1% from 2021, and the lowest since 2002.
The UK population has grown since 2003 when it accepted the free movement from newly-admitted EU countries. The UK’s opening its doors to eastern European workers resulted in a rise in births and a similar fertility rate for UK-born women and foreign-born ones.
The effect is clearly diminishing when a record number of women reach the age of 30, childless.
According to the most recent data, half the women born in 1990 are childless at 30 years old – the first time this has happened.
When The Observer questioned readers including Vanessa about the reasons they did not have children or limited the size of their families, the majority replied that financial restrictions were the main cause.
Hannah, 35, is a marketing executive who lives in London. She says that she has not been able to have two children with her partner for 10 years despite moving into a cheaper neighborhood to get a larger home.
She says that childcare costs and other living costs are prohibitively expensive. “The family that we would like to have is not financially possible.” Since our relationship began, we have only been on one holiday. We are cutting back on food costs and searching for extra work in order to have a baby.” She and her boyfriend are thinking about moving abroad.
In the early 2000s, Britain was outlier in Europe. Both countries provided generous family benefits, and their governments had a stated goal of supporting children. Both countries, under the Labour government in the UK, and the Gaullist center-right in France, were generous in their generosity. They provided tax credits to low-income earners, expanded early childhood centres, and increased childcare subsidies.
After the recessions in 2008-09, the UK and France reduced their subsidies. Nicolas Sarkozy was France’s President from 2007-2012 and the UK’s coalition government between 2010-2015. Both stressed the need for austerity in all areas of public service.
A study by Fathom Consulting suggests that those who are interested in starting a family should look beyond the current situation. After the 2008 financial crash, many households saw a bleak future, as incomes were flat and housing costs, in particular, continued to rise. Couples decided to not have children because they lacked the optimism of the previous generation, according to initial findings of a Japanese study that links the decline in fertility to periods of uncertain economic outlook.
The report states that “it turns out there is a strong relationship between the forecasts for 15-year growth in Japan, at any given point in history, and the fertility rates in Japan in the same period.”
People have children when they are optimistic that when their children join the workforce the standard of living will be higher than it is today.
The report measured growth using national income per person, which increased in Japan despite the stagnation of the economy. Japan’s fertility is 1.3. This is just ahead of Italy at 1.2, and South Korea at 0.8.
Erik Britton is the director of the consultancy. He says that the research continues and that the conclusions are only tentative. However, the initial findings show the importance of government support. He says that a nation with a growing economy gives people the confidence they need to start a family.
Recent data from the UK Generations and Gender Survey tell us that ideal family size is still relatively high. The average number of children in a family is two. The ideal family size is still two children.
Berrington said that when her team questioned childless people about their intentions to have children, “there was a lot of indecision”. Berrington says that when her team asked childless people whether they intended to have children, there was “a lot of uncertainty in the answers”.
Fiona Powley is a 49-year-old life coach who knew that she didn’t want children at the age of 12. She knows many other women her own age who are also childless. She runs the Bristol Childfree Women. She says this is a problem for any government trying to increase fertility. When she asks new members of her group what they like most about not having children, they usually mention time and freedom.
She continues: “A common question from others is ‘who will take care of you when you get old?’. Most members may say that they have made adequate financial provisions for pensions and older-age care as they don’t have children to worry about.
Sarah Harper, professor of gerontology, Oxford University, believes that equality is a major issue. She means equal treatment within and by the state.
She says that women will only become mothers when they believe they have the time and energy to continue working. However, the data from the Nordic countries is not very convincing. Fertility rates in the Nordics have been on a downward trend. It could explain the low fertility rate in traditional South Korea.
Harper, who advised David Cameron’s Government on the implications of a aging society, says that women today say they are not obliged to reproduce.
According to the independent Treasury forecaster Office for Budget Responsibility, falling birthrates will have a negative impact on tax receipts. This is a problem that can’t be solved by increasing immigration.
It was stated in a recent report that, while each additional migrant boosts output, the size of the impact on the standard of living per person is uncertain.
The report stated that “the age, education level, skill level and participation rate, along with the response of business to investment, all determine the impact of immigration on per-person production.”
The UK population is growing – an estimated 6.6m to 73.7m over the next 15years – yet the economy will grow at a slower rate, meaning that there is less money to be shared.
Governments will be unable to provide vital services if tax revenues do not increase.
According to Resolution Foundation, schools are at the forefront of funding cuts due to a decline in student numbers. England could lose funding of up to £1bn by 2030. The exceptional fall in student numbers has led to closings, as some establishments no longer are financially viable. The government has begun consulting local residents to determine the best way to maintain the educational system.
According to Education Policy Institute, a think-tank, it is expected that the North-East will see the largest decline in the number of primary pupils, with a projected 13% drop by 2028-2029.
Lindsey Macmillan is an expert in education policy at University College London. She says that primary school teachers may be faced with redundancy due to the dramatic loss of children. She said secondary schools with teacher shortages would see the gap shrink as classes will be cut and schools merged.
The number of pupils had increased due to a surge in fertility in the 2000s. However, this cohort has now moved on from primary school and into secondary schools, leaving vacant seats behind them.
The EPI estimates that, despite real increases in funding per pupil over the next decade, many schools will face funding cuts as fewer students will cause incomes to drop, but costs will remain high.
There are many questions about the fact that birthrates are declining while medical advances help older people to live longer. Will robots take care of the elderly? Could a new contract between the young and the old provide millennials and Gen Z with the security and encouragement to have more kids? Can the UK import the labour it lacks, for example from sub-Saharan Africa where birth rates are expected to increase?
Nik Lomax is a professor at Leeds University who specializes in population geography. He says that the future government will have to deal with how different regions are impacted.
He says that one way to think about this is by assessing the old-age dependence ratio, which is the number of people in retirement age per 1,000 people who are working age. This shows striking differences between regions, and these will increase over time with the increasing number of older people relative to people in working age.
The dependency ratio increases too in the same regions where fertility rates are lowest, such as the north-east of England, Wales, parts of the Midlands and the south-west.
Harper says that a clear trend is showing fewer people joining the workforce, while older people are living longer and not necessarily with good health.
She says that men who live in the areas with the lowest incomes can expect to live into their 80s, but will spend most of their 70s in poor health. Men who live in areas that are affluent will live to their late 80s, and they won’t have any disabilities or illnesses until the age of 80.
Harper claims that the Cameron government incorporated ageing in its industrial strategy, and took into account many of the consequences of declining birthrates and increasing levels of ill-health among an ever-growing number of seniors. The industrial strategy was later discarded, as were the policy initiatives.
Harper says that since we cannot change the dynamic of fertility rates to have women produce three or four children again, we must extend lives in a healthy manner.
Berrington said the implications of this for policymaking were “very significant” – such as the short-term drop in demand for childcare and maternity services, and other areas of the economy which depend on consumers buying goods and services to raise children. She says that policy responses to low fertility tend to be focused on ways to increase the fertility. Cash benefits are not effective, she says. They tend to bring forward births that were going to happen anyway.
Pronatalist policies, which aim to increase the birthrate, can also be problematic because they entrench gender inequality and reduce reproductive freedom.
In 2021, a report from the Social Market Foundation said that the tens and billions of pounds needed to expand family welfare could have been better spent. “We do recommend that the government does not pursue a distinct “population strategy” to increase the birthrate. The government should, however, convene a multi-departmental group to examine the impact of different policies on the birthrate,” the report said.
Berrington says that healthy ageing will help the economy by providing more workers, and filling the coffers of the state.
“And governments will have to look at other policy solutions such as increasing employment rates among groups that for various reasons have high inactivity levels – poor mental health, or having young children.”
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