The Lead Untangles: The UK's falling birth rate
An issue adopted early by the far-right – but there is some truth to the concerns posed.
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At a glance facts
The UK’s birth rate is falling, and has been for 15 years. It dropped by 18.8 per cent between 2010-22 to an average of 1.49 children per woman. This number is well below the ‘replacement rate’ of 2.1, the level at which the population replaces itself from one generation to the next.
Our birth rate is falling faster than any other G7 nation, suspected by the Centre for Progressive Policy to be driven by austerity and high housing costs.
Women are also having children older – the UK now has historically low rates of teenage pregnancy – a huge achievement in public policy.
But the low fertility rate isn’t a British phenomenon – not a single European country has a birth rate exceeding the replacement level, with a recent survey revealing that a large percentage of people want children, or more of them, but don’t feel able to have them.
The fact people are having fewer babies is concerning according to researchers, because population decline will impact the future economy and social care system.
While the falling birth rate is a problem for the UK, it has been pounced on as a political issue on the right.
For the most part, the Labour Government has been quiet about the reasons and solutions for the falling birth rate, but Reform’s Nigel Farage has been very vocal in addressing the birth rate and what can be done to address it. He’s said he wants to make is easier for people to have children, offering generous tax breaks for married people and a scrapping of the two-child benefit limit.
In America, a similar push is happening among Republicans, who have been pushing a pronatalist ideology that encourages people to have more babies for the greater good.
There isn’t consensus about what the answer is to fixing both the national and international problem of a falling birth rate.
Context
At the end June, Bridget Phillipson urged more young people to have children amid what she said were “worrying” birth rates in the UK.
The comment marks a rhetoric shift after Keir Starmer has previously said it was not his place to tell people how many children to have.
While the Labour Government might just be waking up to realise that the falling birth rate in the UK is problematic for future generations, far-right political groups, Reform in particular, have put the issue at the forefront of their political campaign.
Farage has diagnosed the problem correctly and started offering incentives to have children, whereas Labour has until now, has largely ignored it.
But as women are more educated, more liberated, and more able to access contraception, they have fewer children. Many feel that pushing them to have more children is taking away their bodily autonomy.
Farage’s engagement with the issue of falling fertility rates are feared to be a way to control women’s lives – first by incentivising them to have birth, and next by prohibiting them from being able to access abortions.
There are also concerns about the climate crisis that inform people’s decisions not to have children, or to have very few, but researchers have said that low fertility is not a solution to climate change. We’ve got to find alternative solutions to the climate crisis.
So what are the options to fix the falling birth rate? Cheaper childcare? Flexible working? Help for dads? Affordable housing?
Experts are split over how to actually address the falling birth rate. Some say countries should make it easier to have children (as Farage is suggesting), but this has been shown to only slow the decline rather than reverse it.
Other suggestions include keeping the population healthier and employed for longer, and allowing for large-scale immigration.
Other data analysts have said that better education on the fertility window and reinventing education to get young people to start careers at a younger age could make a difference too.
What is the importance of a level birth rate?
While the fertility rate plummets, longevity is going up. We are getting older as a society, which means the number of people paying tax versus the number of people receiving pension age support, and NHS and care services is disproportionate.
It’s suspected that by the end of the century, there will unsustainably be 1.7 workers for every retiree. There will be fewer workers, productivity will decline, and there won’t be young people to drive culture forward with innovation. Wider potential implications of birthrate decline may include effects on living standards, the provision of care, and the environment.
While democratic governments have previously stayed away from commenting on the personal, private decision of how many children to have, given the increasing concerns of what a falling birth rate means for society, politicians are starting to talk about the falling birth rate.
What people are saying
“[The UK faces] a big challenge with the very steep decline that we're seeing in the birth rate. We need to address that and that involves thinking about the practical steps that the government can take to support to support people to make the choices that are right for them.” Bridget Phillipson
“Of course, we need higher birthrates, but we’re not going to get higher birthrates in this country until we can get some sense of optimism. And we need a complete 180 shift in attitudes.” Nigel Farage
“If Labour does not step in with progressive policies to support young families and those who would like to have children, other voices will fill the void.” Vicky Spratt, Housing Correspondent.
“I don’t think there is concern on the left about the low birth rate. I don’t think there is any part of the left’s agenda which endorses the notion that the male state should be able to promulgate a view about women’s reproductive activity. I don’t think that there is any way in which population policy can find a place on the left if that population policy is delivered via women’s bodies. That’s just not a credible position for the left.” Baroness Harman, Labour MP
“There is the expectation now that people should service our needs tomorrow, when we’re elderly, should keep the economy going, it’s just that we shouldn’t do the work of raising the kids to do that. And that’s an exploitative argument. You’re basically saying, ‘we don’t need to do the work, somebody else can do the work, and then they can look after us’. Racist isn’t the right word, but I don’t think people realise how entitled and privileged that argument is.” Aaron Bastani, Co-founder of Novara Media.
“As the UK’s birth rate continues to fall, and the social and economic consequences of that decline come home to roost, it is imperative that all politicians serious about delivering for the UK get it too. Britain’s parents don’t need fantasy economics, but they do need support.” Phoebe Arslanagic-Little, Director of Boom and Head of the New Deal for Parents campaign at Onward.
"Today Nigel Farage abandoned hardworking families who live within their means. He thinks taxpayers should pick up the bill for people on benefits to have whatever family size they choose. That simply isn't fair or economically credible." Mel Stride, Conservative Shadow Chancellor
“Farage cosplays as a champion of the working class, but was the architect of a policy that pushed hundreds of thousands of children into poverty. Make no mistake – Farage is not on the side of working people, or of families struggling to put food on the table for their children. He’s on the side of billionaires and bad bosses.” Paul Nowak, TUC General Secretary
What happens next?
As of yet, we’ve not seen countries reverse the falling birth rate.
In a survey of 14,000 people by the United Nations Population Fund, spanning 14 countries on five continents, it was found that political interventions did not work to up the birth rate, but only offered short-term fixes (later retirement, increased immigration, and making it easier to have children), or to coerce people to use or not use contraception.
Fertility rates ideally should be taken out of the political realm so that real solutions can be found without using the issue as a campaign tactic.
About The Lead Untangles: In an era where misinformation is actively and deliberately used by elected politicians and where advocates and opposers of beliefs state their point of view as fact, sometimes the most useful tool reporters have is to help readers make sense of the world.
The Lead Untangles is delivered each Friday by The Lead and focuses on a different complex, divisive issue with each edition. Is there something you’d like us to untangle, email ed@thelead.uk
About the author: Lauren Crosby Medlicott is a freelance journalist who focuses on features about social justice and human rights.
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If the declining birth rate doesn't fit the economic model, and the state is unable to reverse the declining birth rate, and the declining birth rate is the aggregate of millions of micro decisions that Starmer correctly identifies is not his place to tell people what to do, then the only solution left within the power of the state is to change the economic model.
Young mothers have been demonised and blamed for all the ills of society for a long time now. Is any real wonder many don't want to subject themselves to that? I certainly didn't. There are far too many people anyway. A diminishing population will benefit other species that call this planet home in this era of diminishing resources and declining habitats. The current economic model of growth growth growth is not sustainable.