2 days Ago By Aimee Meade
The birthrate in England and Wales is at an all-time low. To keep populations steady, each woman needs to give birth to two children. The current UK rate is 1.
44. Some experts say this is a crisis that will have a detrimental impact on our society, with fewer people to contribute to the economy. Others believe a decreased population will benefit the planet by slowing down climate change.
Still others argue that migration will fill the gap. From the rising cost of living to shifting attitudes towards family and parenthood, why are we having fewer babies? Millennial Zing Tsjeng, fertility expert Professor Geeta Nargund, economist Hamish McRae and mother of one Rhiannon Picton-James share their perspectives. if(window.
adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "inread-hb-ros-inews"}); }Imagine a world where the numbers of human beings are not rising, but falling.
All sorts of things change, from not needing more homes for people to live in, to much lower numbers of schoolchildren and university students, to the need for older people to say in work for longer, and for pressure on the planet’s resources to start to dip.If birth rates continue to decline as they have since the pandemic, this could happen within 15 years. There was a projection a year ago by HSBC that the world’s population could start falling by 2040.
It will go on climbing in some countries and regions, and fall quite dramatically in others. So by 2050, the current developed world overall will be in decline. That will be most notable in Japan, much of South East Asia, and most of Europe.
In the US, by contrast, and to a lesser extent the UK, there will be some further growth, driven mostly by immigration rather than births.if(window.adverts) { window.
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adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l1"}); }So, from a British perspective, our population will become an older one – what will it feel like?Let’s start with the economics. The maths are straightforward.
If there are fewer people of working age relative to those who have retired, then those at work have to pay more of their income to support the elderly. Hence the pressure to increase the state retirement age. So to keep the burden on younger people from becoming intolerable, the official retirement age will have to rise to around 70.
There will also likely be schemes to encourage older people to stay in some form of paid work, as well as carrying out voluntary contributions, with the aim of softening the distinction between work and retirement.There will inevitably be state incentives to encourage women to have children. The most radical example so far has recently been announced in Hungary by prime minister Viktor Orban.
Women under 30 with children will pay no income tax, while those with two or more will pay no income tax for the whole of their lives.No one can know how effective this will be, and most tax schemes designed to encourage higher birth rates have not been successful. Japan, the oldest society on earth, has been trying to boost birth rates since the 90s, but results have been discouraging.
But if it works, expect it to be copied in other European countries, especially those with even lower fertility rates, including Spain and Italy.I predict that social attitudes will change more than the practical aspects of life. We will still live in the same homes, do broadly the same sort of jobs, and enjoy ourselves in much the same ways as we do now.
We will have better technology of course, and that on balance will, I hope, brighten our lives. But the greatest shift will be in our values. We will start to recognise that happy families matter, and try harder to create them.
However, my guess is that at some stage in the next 25 years, people across the developed world will start to have larger families, not because governments give them incentives to do so, but simply because that is what they want.if(window.adverts) { window.
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adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l2"}); }There’s some evidence that wealthier people in the US and UK are already making this choice. For the past hundred years, richer families had fewer children than poorer ones.
Now that seems to have reversed. It’s plausible that as the baby-boomers’ wealth is passed down to children and grandchildren, the more fortunate members of the next generations will feel comfortable having more children.So it is possible to paint a picture where by 2050, people right across the developed world will have started to choose to have more children.
The arguments against, such as the pressure of humankind on the environment, will fade as population falls. And for a majority, not all, family wealth will help fund the movement. There will have to be changes in social attitudes though and workplace policies will need to be more accommodating for parents.
If this all sounds too utopian, there will inevitably also be dark clouds. There will be tension between older societies and youthful ones, with the huge challenge to create enough jobs for young people in Africa and the Middle East. Within the developed world some countries will cope better than others at making older societies work, and there will always be people who struggle to adapt to any massive social change.
Even if there is some recovery in birth rates, which I think will happen, most European and East Asian countries will still be ageing fast.That leads to the biggest question of all: how do we make the world a better place to bring up families? None of us can know the answer, but knowing the question is a start.if(window.
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adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l3"}); }Hamish McRae is an award-winning business and economics journalistPerspectives: One topic, multiple viewsRead nextsquareRhiannon Picton-JamesBritish people are more tolerant of dogs than my childRead nextsquareProfessor Geeta NargundI’m a fertility expert, this is why people aren’t having childrenRead nextsquareZing TsjengMillennials are realising children are just not worth it – emotionally or financially.
