The whole of the West has a childbirth problem. We're not having enough children to replace ourselves. Why is that? And what needs to change if the birthrate is to increase?
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We have a problem with children in the UK.
More precisely, we have a problem with a shortage in the number of children in the UK. The plain, straightforward fact is that young people in the UK, those who are of childbearing age, can no longer afford to have the number of children that they once did.
The number of children now born to women of childbearing age is only 1.4 each on average, and we need 2.1 each on average to simply replace ourselves. So, as a consequence, we are not doing that. The native population of people resident in the UK, by which I mean across the entire population of the UK, is declining to the point where we can't replace ourselves, and the only way we can do so is by having inward migration and politicians have a problem with inward migration.
We have, therefore, got a massive unfolding crisis with regard to population in this country, which needs resolution. And part of that resolution must be created by providing younger people with more support so that they can have more children if that is what politicians want. We, therefore, need to look at this issue in more detail.
In 1964, the average woman of childbearing age in the UK had 2.93 children each. I was one of a family of three boys. We were totally typical.
By 1980, that ratio had already fallen to 1.9 per woman of childbearing age. In 2021, it was 1.56 and now it's just 1.44. We are quite simply not replacing ourselves.
The rate of child birth to each woman of childbearing age is declining rapidly, and we need to look at the reasons, and we need to look at the consequences.
The consequences are actually something that we need to bear in mind all the time. It wouldn't matter if the number of children born was declining if there was not a consequence. But the consequence is that in practice, what is called the dependency ratio in the UK is rising. In other words, for every person of working age, there are now more people in old age, and as childbirth rates fall, that ratio will of course rise because there will be fewer still people of working age.
In 1973, there were 21.8 people of retirement age for every 100 people in work.
Now it's 30.4 people of retirement age for every 100 people in work.
By 2045, it is forecast that this figure will rise to 35. And if we are not producing enough people to join the workforce, clearly this problem might get worse.
At the same time, there has been another significant trend over the period that I've been talking about already with regard to data, and that trend has been the number of children who are brought up in poverty in the UK.
In 1975, 14% of children were considered to be being brought up in poverty. That was one in seven.
By 1996, that figure had risen to 34%, one in three.
By 2005, it had fallen to 22%, just a little over one in five, and now we're back to 31%; nearly one in three, again.
The politics of parties in power has had a massive impact on this ratio. Let's be clear about that. During the course of the Thatcher years, the full employment that had been a characteristic up until 1975, disappeared. There were millions of people capable of work, out of work in the UK, and that, of course, had an immediate knock-on effect on their children, because they had insufficient resources to provide for them. Therefore, those children were brought up in poverty. Nothing that the Thatcher government ever did solved that. They did not make children their priority. They made the accumulation of wealth by a few their priority, and child poverty went by the wayside.
In fairness to Tony Blair, he did make this an issue. He did things like Sure Start.
He increased the funding for schools.
He improved child health provision.
There was that investment that he made in public services, and the consequence is seen in the data.
Only 22% of children were in poverty in 2005. It's still disastrous that one in five children were being brought up in poverty then, but much better than one in three.
Now we're back to one in three, and the situation became worse during the Tory government from 2010 onwards, and the reason why was, of course, the aftermath of the global financial crisis. And during the decade or so after that crisis, George Osborne delivered austerity, and child poverty grew steadily. Covid didn't help, and nor did the austerity programmes of Rishi Sunak.
We now have child poverty back to levels of nearly one in three. 31% of children in the UK at present are living in poverty. That is extraordinary.
Unsurprisingly, young people in this country look at the risk of living in poverty, and of bringing up their children in poverty, and say that risk is unacceptable, or they will only have one child to mitigate that risk.
Unsurprisingly, and tangentially, but nonetheless appropriately, they also look at the risks of having children in the context of the policies of governments around climate change and ask if they want to expose their children to that risk, which governments are deliberately creating for them? And that too is reducing the number of children who are born, I am quite sure.
But, perhaps the biggest factor of all is the sheer pressure on the finances of young people that is making it simply impossible for them to either afford to have any children, in some cases, or one, at most, in a great many cases now.
Let's just consider the burdens that young people have to face: student debt, for a start. Around 40% of young people face having to repay student debt and, therefore, have an effective increase of 10% in their tax rate, which other people do not have; particularly older generations who moan about the fact that younger people are not producing enough grandchildren. Cut the student deb,t and you'd increase the number of children.
Cut, too, the compulsory payments into pension policies, probably of worthless value, that are now taking place because young people realise that there is a con going on where one day they will not get a state old edge pension because they've been forced to pay into a private pension of inadequate value during the course of their lives.
Provide decent maternity and paternity provision in the UK, and we might have more young people willing to have children, but at the moment, the provision is pathetic and far too poor in value to cover the economic costs that so many young people face during the course of that first critical 12 months when a child is utterly dependent on its parents.
Look at other countries and you'll see they do this so much better. We are not basically providing the help that new parents need.
And we're certainly not helping them with regard to housing. Housing is unaffordable. As a basic statement of fact that is indisputable. It doesn't matter whether people are renting or whether they're trying to buy, where high interest rate policies are having the same effect of increasing the price that young people have to pay, the combined economic policy of the government, by forcing up the price of housing, is making it nigh on impossible for young people to consider having many children because they simply can't afford the accommodation to put them in. Simple, straightforward statement of fact.
And then there is the state's provision of childcare. I do know that this has improved marginally over recent years, but there are still massive gaps in the childcare provision that the government makes available to those people who have children.
In particular, how are people meant to manage school holidays when there is no government support for provision during that period? Don't they realise that not everybody is a teacher? And in that situation, trying to cover for childcare during the holiday periods is absolutely desperately difficult. And I recall doing this myself. It was problematic.
And then there's poor employment law for those who run into problems whilst trying to reconcile that problem. Parents are not supported by employment law.
And they most certainly aren't supported by the NHS either, because access to medical services - and children are amongst the highest users of the NHS - is so poor that parental stress as a result of having sick children is high, and those children are at risk as a consequence. The government, again, is not supporting parents to think that having children is a good idea.
We are simply making life difficult for parents, but we also make life difficult for children. The reality is that our education system is not good enough. It is underfunded. Every teacher will tell you that. I know that from my experience of interaction with that system, whether it be at primary, secondary, or post-school levels, which I've had in every case.
But, it's also the fact that our education system, with its rigid requirements on what children should now learn, simply is not suited to the needs of vast numbers of children.
Boys are made to sit down for long periods of time when, as a matter of fact, they need to run around. Children with neurodiversity, whether that be ADHD, autism, or dyslexia, or dyspraxia, or whatever else it might be, are under-resourced inside that system, which does, again, require them to sit and basically listen to chalk and talk lessons too often, still. All of that, again, puts parents, who can remember their own experiences in this situation, off the idea of exposing too many children to it.
We have a system which is, in other words, basically hostile to children; hostile to the actual fact of having children; hostile to the support of children; hostile to the parents who want to support children financially and who can't because the system makes that nigh on impossible for them to do so. Hostile to the whole idea that we should be able to reproduce in the way that we need to. And now hostile to migrants who might be able to help solve this problem by becoming the teachers and everything else that we need to fill the gaps in the system, or to simply provide the cover to ensure that sufficient nursery care is, for example, available. Everything is hostile to having children.
If the government really cared, really cared about us, really cared about our future, really cared about people, really cared about the children to come, and not just those who are in the system already, it would change all this. It would invest in children, but it doesn't, and that is a long-term political disaster in the making.
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It’s not just the West — Africa is the only place with a TFR above the replacement rate and it’s falling even there.
I think microplastics and other pollutants are a major factor, along with the obvious social issues.
You’re right to say we’ve got a problem with children in the UK — or more precisely, a problem with how few are being born. But it’s not just a crisis of birth rates. It’s a crisis of confidence, security, and belief in a future worth building. And the bedroom — that most private space — reflects the state of the public realm far more than we care to admit.
Here’s the truth: people aren’t having babies because they don’t feel safe enough to. Not physically — but financially, emotionally, environmentally. The decision to have a child, to bring new life into the world, is one of the biggest acts of faith a person can make. Right now, many can’t afford that leap.
A record number of people are trapped in insecure housing — private renters in England now spend on average 34% of their income just on keeping a roof over their heads. For the poorest, it’s worse — more than 60% of income just to rent somewhere to live (gov.uk, 2024). That’s not the foundation on which people plan families. That’s survival mode.
And it’s not just housing. Graduates in England leave university with an average debt of over £45,000, and most know they’ll never pay it off in full (House of Commons Library, 2024). Add to that the reality that nursery costs for a single child can match or exceed a second rent — often over £1,000 per month in parts of the UK — and it starts to feel like only the wealthy can afford more than one child.
Meanwhile, a growing number of people say they want children, just not now — or not in this economy. In 2023, a major international study found the UK had one of the biggest “fertility gaps” in Europe: people plan to have two or more children, but end up with one or none (Oxford University, 2023).
That’s not a failure of personal responsibility. That’s a failure of national imagination.
The economic system isn’t just hostile to families — it’s actively built on the assumption that people will have fewer of them. Everything from childcare infrastructure to employment protections is structured around “make do with less.” But in doing so, we’ve throttled future generations before they even arrive.
And yes, the economy is driven by what happens — or doesn’t happen — in the bedroom. If people don’t believe they can provide for a child, they’re less likely to start families. And when birth rates drop, the working-age population shrinks, while the number of retirees grows. That’s not abstract: it means fewer people to pay taxes, provide care, keep public services going. It’s a slow-moving train crash — visible in plain sight.
We talk about productivity, pensions, GDP — but without new people, none of those numbers matter. No future workforce, no future economy.
We’re living in a society where the idea of family life — stable, joyful, hopeful — has become a luxury. Until we reverse that, until we make space again for the basics of human flourishing, the birth rate will keep falling. And the silence in the nursery will echo across the economy for decades to come.
Sources:
1 – https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-housing-survey-2023-to-2024-experiences-of-the-housing-crisis
2 – https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01079/
3 – https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-12-10-expert-comment-why-are-people-uk-leaving-it-so-late-have-children
An excellent summary “We’re living in a society where the idea of family life — stable, joyful, hopeful — has become a luxury. Until we reverse that, until we make space again for the basics of human flourishing, the birth rate will keep falling. And the silence in the nursery will echo across the economy for decades to come.”
Yet our politican class and the right wing think tanks would not like to see things improve – for them this would be like Turkeys voting for an early Christmas.
Whilst I accept the points that you make, Earth cannot support an ever growing population. I definitely want something done about the number of children growing up in poverty, but perhaps we should also consider that there are positives in a falling population overall and address the issues that this raises in imaginative ways. On today’s news driverless cars are imminent, so perhaps technological changes (I hesitate to say progress), means that the old / young ratio will become less important. Clearly the pension issue is a major problem, exacerbated by the growing ill health of many due to obesity/ appalling diets/ microplastic pollution. But these are issues that could be addressed and having more children does not solve these problems.
I dot share your position – but I respect your right to hold it
It’s clearly right that Government needs to invest more in children, and remove the financial blocks. There’s another factor, too, though that we need to face up to. Probably largely as a consequence of the financial issues, social attitudes have changed. Many young people want to make lifestyle choices that don’t involve children, at least not yet. And if they delay, fertility falls.
So alongside the financial measures there also needs to be a kind of social investment in changing attitudes, for example by celebrating children and parenting and diverse parenting models; encouraging fathers to play a full role; changing attitudes in the workplace to put greater emphasis on support for caregiving, and including parenting in school curricula.
Might I offer an alternative view here that population replacement by increasing birth rate may not be environmentally sustainable – given our ever-increasing consumer demands and expectations of lifestyle. I make two points:
Some services/labour might be provided by transnational movement of labour – permitted immigration for certain jobs, whether seasonal agricultural labourers, specialist-skilled labour, or otherwise.
Also, while it is true that there are not enough people to join the workforce to sustain pensions if paid for by National Insurance contributions, we might also note that robotics in manufacture and AI in other areas are replacing human labour.
While I agree with the MMT premise that taxes (or NI) are not actually paying for state pensions, taxing companies that make profits from technology that replaces labour would allow distribution to those not in well-remunerated work, whether before or beyond a ‘retirement’ age.
I feel perhaps a little defensive. Also one of three sons (with the opportunity of fully-funded tertiary education in the early 1980s), my wife and I have not chosen to bring children into this ecologically-precarious world.
I admire your optimism on AI and robots.
They will kill the planet first
I agree with your prescriptions on parenting and schooling – they are very much in line with the Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Report last year, which rated the UK below every other European country, and improving this position as dependent on ending child poverty, reducing pressures at school, and letting children play. (Notably not ‘grit’.)
However, I don’t really believe such measures will have a significant impact on falling birthrates. A recent Guardian article (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/17/rethink-what-we-expect-from-parents-norway-grapple-with-falling-birthrate) noted what is happening in Norway, which has among the highest levels of support in the world – and still has a falling birthrate.
This makes sense, because high birthrates are generally associated not with wealth, but with poverty: if you live in a society without good education, healthcare, a welfare safety net or pensions, it will tend to have high infant mortality, and your only insurance for accident, illness or old age stopping you working – and eating – is to have a large family while you still can work. The more educated and financially secure people are, the more choices they have – including not to have children, or have only one or two.
The ‘natalist’ ‘solutions’ will therefore not work – unless they want to immiserate almost the whole population. The only short-term answer to the ‘boomer bulge’ seems to me immigration – while long-term adaptions to a different demography are developed – and they lie in increased productivity and degrowth (focusing the productive capacity of those that can work on what really matters). All this sits well with environmental crisis, which means some people have to move away from land rendered marginal by drought, flood, etc – and fewer people globally would be a bonus for nature.
Thanks
Not much I could disagree with.
I might add of course that if the Dependancy Rate is an issue we need to be looking at the health of the whole population as part of this process so that there is less physical dependency.
Given that the UK has a major issue with productivity I also think that this is something that needs looking at as part of this process
One final issue of course is men, I suggest that there are a significant number that any woman in her right mind would not touch with a barge pole for obvious reasons. Perhaps we need to think about how we bring up our boys as well as handing out barge poles to the girls.
Agree. The problems kicked off in …. 1979. Myself and two of my best friends (we went to school together) had no children. We came of age i.e. were in our twenties & working in 1980. But. The money was not good & two of us ended up abroad (me quasi permanently). The stats suggest this was reflective of many others. The other problem with having children is – as I have observed – a young people’s game – we are erzat-gran & grandad to one family (three kids). Parents in their 40s are exhausted for much of the time. Society since the 1960s has chosen the atomised (would that be nuclear?) route which means that often there is littel support for familes (exception: moslems who seem to be closer knit in familt terms). Absent meaningful state support, people vote with their wombs. Then there is cost. Costs lots of money to raise children – bolt in creeping penury in UK society and you have a result you have. Italy is reducing in terms of its native population by 1 million per year. That is a function of woman wanting a career, no state support (kindergartens?) and poor pay. Of course ultimately, it comes down to inequality – politicos asleep at the wheel, unable/unwilling to tax the rich (the rich breed like rabbits btw – e.g. Musk – there is even competition amongst the parasites – who can have the most kids – I joke not). Politics is the cause, politics the solution.
Some years ago, the answer to overpopulation in poorer countries was to educate girls/women, when the birthrate would fall. In western Europe, the birthrate has fallen further than replacement. It seems likely that highly-educated women often don’t want to have children. And that’s even if all the factors Richard identifies were to be sorted.
The position is worse in England — maybe the rest of the UK too, but I’ve only had children in England. And, socially, babies and their mothers are viewed as a nuisance. If you want to breastfeed a tiny baby while out, you are told to do so in a loo. People grumble at the space you, and a child in a pushchair, take up on the streets — obviously you should stay at home. Public transport is mildly hostile, and users are sometimes more so. You really shouldn’t take your baby or child into a restaurant, a cinema, a coffee shop — any public space, really, as your child may “be a nuisance” to the other, important adults using the space. Indeed, only an anti-child culture would put up with the deliberate impoverishment of poor families, and the probable anti-social results of so many children brought up deprived.
Much to agree with – as a one time parent of young children and observer of the way they are treated now
“The position is worse in England — maybe the rest of the UK too”
It’s worse yet in Scotland where, according to figures from the link below, the fertility rate is the lowest in Europe at around 1.3 babies per woman.
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/scotlands-population-2023-the-registrar-generals-annual-review-of-demographic-trends/
This is my view too so, immodestly, I rate this a great post.
It shows how things are interconnected and too much political thinking views things in isolation. Possibly due to a perceived need to appeal to distinct lobby groups or opinion polls.
And into this undeniable demographic catastrophe, our politicians come up with a 2 child benefit cap, and a 1 in 3 avoidable child poverty catastrophe.
It’s the political equivalent of handing someone a loaded pistol, a glass of whisky, a seat in the library and telling them to “go ahead and do the decent thing old chap”.
Morgan McSweeney really is a destructive cruel man isn’t he?
Thank you, Robert, Richard and the rest of the community.
May I add that, for the past fifty years, an increasingly large group of people, men and women, lacking in any empathy and often straying close to eugenics have come into politics. They are the sort who think non-PMC women should not be allowed children, women having children in their 20s (like mum and my aunts) should not be allowed etc. The likes of the benefit cap was as much from that prejudice as any austerity.
Something else that made me angry during my pastoral career, was the number of times “society” (ie county social workers) would decide that young, working class women were “not fit” to rear children, for reasons that wete not at all apparent to me. Yet those children could be taken into “care” with all the horrific consequences, and at huge expense, rather than giving their birth families some basic support and compassion. Of course different standards applied with middle and upper class families where completely different risk criteria were applied.
I know that to be true.
Dusting off my PHd in the Bleeding Obvious what about the children with the worst outcomes of all – the ones who are or have been in care.
Apart from it being the right thing to do morally how about a massive investment to give them the best possible start in life and support through their lives for those who can benefit from it
For well over a century, population growth was a bubble caused by scientific advances, notably (but not exclusively) in health care.
Four decades of neoliberalism have popped the bubble. Now we have to face the consequences. Even stabilising populations requires policies that are “off the table”. Get rid of the debt burden that weighs so many down? Open up society to immigration? Get house prices down? Caring policies instead of endless petty bureaucracies?
Is mankind capable of such a change?
We decided to have kids in 2003 and 2005 (two).
I look back then and cannot believe how different things are now (well, OK I can, but it was a whole different world). Had I known what was to happen – what I feared might happen – I would not have bothered at all.
I remember the letter I got from the DWP in 2011 after the Tories had got in asking for their tax credit back because at the time we qualified for a very small amount.
As for my kids, I feel that they have been simply put through a sausage machine by society and its sink or swim and now that is getting worse. Their Mum and I have supported ours through a lot, but that is because we have been lucky enough to be able to do it. God knows what it is like for kids and parents who cannot.
A great post that resonates with me.
Those 2010 Tories have a got a lot to answer for. You’d think we’d been having a party the way they came in and ruined everything and took it away. It was no party, but it worked of a fashion.
Thanks
Go well, and them too
Here is a relevant perspective: people who are now 90 years old are the only generation in history, since the mythical Adam and Eve, to witness two duplications of world-wide population in their lifetime. If the population of the planet halved once every 25 years from now, this century would end with as many people as there were barely a hundred years ago.
All of which is to bring the key question: what is so bad about fewer children? What is so bad about fewer people in the world? Where does this angst about not being “replaced”, as if our existence was a plug intended to fill some socket? Are people moved by some biblical “grow and multiply and make your progeny as numerous as the stars in the sky” or similar divine command? Surely quality of life and quality of lives should be more important than quantity. The slums of New Delhi surely have more people than the Scottish highlands. Does that make that society better?
The argument about “dependence ratio”: if there is so much dependence is because people are living longer, median age of death of 80 years. That means that more than half of old people are healthy enough to live fifteen years out of public and private pensions. Since they are and we will likely be healthy enough to live that long, then surely they should be healthy enough to work a few more years, until say 75 years old? Specially since most people work in the “service economy” for which arthritis and muscle weakness are not huge handicaps?
THAT would really start cutting the weight of older people on the state and pension funds, which is what is really eating away the investment on the young. (see Scott Galloway videos for more details on this).
Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/articles/mortalityinenglandandwales/pastandprojectedtrendsinaveragelifespan#:~:text=The%20median%20age%20at%20death%20was%2081.8%20years%20for%20males,die%20in%20a%20given%20year.=
I want to take you up on people’s ability to work “several more years”. Consider the people we relied on during the pandemic, and since; builders, plumbers, nurses, shop workers, dustmen . . all doing very physical jobs, and wearing their bodies out early. My son the builder is on his 3rd hip replacement, at 52; my other son, the gardener, has skeletal problems at 43. These are people who work on in increasing pain and incapacity up to the current retirement age. They are also poorly paid, on the whole, so are unlikely to have any sort of pension when they do retire. But post-pandemic we have stopped seeing these people as of particular value, and returned to thinking that the paper-pusher, the bureaucrat is better paid and thus deserves better.
I am not sure where does my previous comment emit any judgements about class or the value of different occupations. If anything, it is the other way around: blue-collar manual workers should be allowed to retire earlier; whereas those on white-collar jobs should stay at work until later in life. The lawyer, the judge, accountant, the architect, the broker, the GP… barring dementia or such illnesses, many of them could still be productive in their 70s.
The key point is that reducing the dependency ratio will require moving more people from the dividend (dependents) to the divisor (workers) for longer. It is also going to require raising taxes on the money people receive from private pensions. For instance, by making private pension pay National Insurance (an income tax with a different name).
Hi DP. Around 10% of people over the pension age are already in paid work, and this is predicted to increase a bit. Health issues would limit the scope for increasing the proportion dramatically. In addition, any significant increase risks damaging the voluntary sector. Around half of pensioners do at least some volunteering, and around a quarter do quite a lot. The answer probably lies in a balance between some more pensioners doing paid work, quite a lot of migrant workers, and, longer term, a bit of a baby boom. But for any of this to make sense, we have to fix the climate, and I’m far from clear that we will. Because currently we aren’t.
I suspect that the pandemic will have had some effect too, though I can’t find the article I read only last week on the numbers of pregnant women who are adversely affected in pregnancy after having had Covid 19 and then returned to “health”.
I have managed to find an article on pregnancy in Long Covid women, “Post-COVID-19 condition: recommendations for pregnant individuals”.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(24)00083-8/fulltext
I find this interesting in that they are looking at pre-conception counselling. This might well be frightening for some women who could go on to decide against pregnancy. And women are more likely to get Long Covid than men.
OK, not as common as other factors, but still could have some effect?
Great post once again Richard. As a parent to three young children (2 of which are twins) this is my experience. 30 hours free combined with Tax Free Childcare helps but it is still very expensive. The funded 15/30 hours per week is term time only meaning that only 38 weeks of the 52 are funded. Providers insist on charging top up fees for the funded days or split the funded hours in such a way that you still pay a large sum to them. For example, you’d think that for a term time only contract (which very few providers offer), you could ask for your 30 hours to be used as follows: 10 hours on Monday, 10 hours on Tuesday and 10 hours on Wednesday leaving you to pay the full fee for Thursday and Friday as well as the “top up” payments for the Monday to Wednesday funded days. Well, no. Many providers will force you to split the 30 hours over 5 days, so funded care from 8am to 2pm every day (plus the “top up fee”), and if you need care from 2pm to 6pm you are paying around £50 a day. Then there is the Tax Free childcare, which is limited to £500 per quarter. Once your child is out of nursery, then breakfast clubs and after school clubs add up very quickly – then there are the school dinners (which thankfully Sadiq Khan has taken care of in London at least) but surely if you are legislating that children must be in school, you should be providing their food? Then there are the school trips which are needed due to the Curriculum but are often very expensive but as the school system is so poorly funded, schools have no choice but to come to parents.
I know nowadays there is a sentiment that parents shouldn’t have children if they expect the state to pick up the costs – but then I say, its the children who will be contributing to the economy when others retire or cannot work.
Many thanks
Indefinite growth within a finite environment is manifestly impossible. That doesn’t deny the demographic problems that arise from an ageing population, but it does mean that responding by cranking up the birth rate is no solution to them. It just pushes the possibility of a soft landing a bit further away, and draws catastrophic failure a bit nearer and more likely. Time for some lateral thinking.
Try thinking about the world as a whole, and enforced migration.
Thinking about the world as a (finite) whole is exactly why an increase in birthrate is no solution to any problem.
But migration is
“But migration is ” Yes, of course. But “enforced” ? Without qualification, that troubles me.
That feels dangerously like racism to me.
You have one chance to put it right.
There are two separate issues here. How we treat our population and especially children and the general levels of population. There are of course elements of each that interactive but it would be a mistake to assume that they are one and the same.
The first is a no brainer and your comments on the failure to treat families well who are not gifted more than enough money and opportunities are to my mind entirely correct.
The second is a trickier question which is also linked to the question of how we limit the consumption of goods that require the extraction of so many materials and the continued pollution of the planet to provide. It is no coincidence that in the age of coal, oil and gas global populations have quadrupled in the last century.
If we want to retain at least the basic improvements to our lives in that time and be able to see at least as good as future for the generations to come then we will need to tackle a number of these issues which will include a managed decrease in population, less consumerism and an equitable distribution of wealth and goods.
Excellent analysis.
It’s simply not safe to have children.
Would add the comdification of people as products in competition includes children, parents are expected to put in time and money so their child can keep up and compete in the market place of commodified people.
And the commodification of people includes relationships, making finding a partner impossible for many.
Neoliberalism really is a joyless sh1tshow.
Agreed
Fantastic point, most of my friends are spending hundreds a month on tuition or helping with entrance exams to the so called “top” schools as well as saving up for university. I feel I should do the same but then I want my children to actually have a childhood instead of me training them to become obedient workers/consumers.
Some thoughts.
It is not a higher global population that is causing climate catastrophe, it is greater levels of consumption.
The wealthiest 1% (80 million) of the world population is responsible for greater carbon emissions than the poorest 66% (5 billion).
It seems clear that without continuing significant levels of immigration, the UK population will begin to fall.
1/3rd of children growing up in poverty is a national disgrace.
What we are missing is a vision of a world/country worth living in – which would be absent neoliberal economics – along with a strategic analysis of the challenges posed and pragmatic policy options to bring about the desired future state.
Today’s politicians seemingly might understand one word in three of this…
Some thoughts.
It is not a higher global population that is causing climate catastrophe, it is greater levels of consumption.
The wealthiest 1% (80 million) of the world population is responsible for greater carbon emissions than the poorest 66% (5 billion).
It seems clear that without continuing significant levels of immigration, the UK population will begin to fall.
1/3rd of children growing up in poverty is a national disgrace.
What we are missing is a vision of a world/country worth living in – which would be absent neoliberal economics – along with a strategic analysis of the challenges posed and pragmatic policy options to bring about the desired future state.
Today’s politicians seemingly might understand one word in three of this…
Great post, and one that really resonates with me as someone who has just bucked the trend and had my fourth child.
A minor point, but where you say “Boys are made to sit down” I think it would be more appropriate to just say children. Certainly at least one of my girls would not have managed to sit still if I had sent her to school.
I stand corrected
I admit, I lived in boy world
There’s also other aspects which sort of relate to financial reasons – aside from the fact that anything kid related is grossly expensive (take a look a centerparcs prices for the school holidays), there’s elements like hotels usually only accommodate for 2 adults and 2 children, many force you to book 2 rooms if you have three children. Many cars can’t support three car seats – when I was a child we had no car seats, sometimes when families got together they would sit 4 or 5 of the kids at the back – or even in the back of the estate car waving at the cars behind 🙂
Richard, a great topic and great contributions by all.
I agree with or just liked most of the comments made.
We must irrespective of climate change pressures protect the right to have a family and decent shelter at affordable cost. These things are for me a basic human right and in society’s interest.
Politicians often so preoccupied with day to day issues miss these fundamentals.
I was reading recently the Conservative & Labour manifestoes of 1945. Both were simple to read, short and focused on building a better future for all.
Perhaps our modern day politicians and commentators should do likewise.
Once again great post Richard.
The Labour manifesto was so good – I have a copy as a PDF somewhere.
It said what they would do, and why.
They did it.
An excellent post that captures many of the reasons why I felt unable to have more than one child
Thanks