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Higher taxes, smaller pensions, weaker public services, an older retirement age and more potholes – it sounds like the manifesto of a party without a chance of making it to office.
But as Britons have fewer and fewer children, these are economic policies they’re unwittingly voting for, according to experts.
“If we’re not procreating, then there’s nobody to pay taxes, so it’s a ticking timebomb,” Joeli Brearley, founder of mums’ advocacy group Pregnant Then Screwed, told the Money blog.
The latest figures show the average number of children born to a woman in England and Wales over her lifetime dropped to 1.44 in 2023, the lowest level since records began in 1938, according to the Office for National Statistics.
This measurement is known as the fertility rate. To put it in perspective, a rate of 2.1 is needed to sustain the population level without immigration.
There appear to be two trends driving the decline: a growing minority of young people who don’t want children and an economy punishing the majority who do.
Here we investigate the causes and consequences of Britain’s shrinking families.
British fertility peaked at 2.93 in 1964 and has declined ever since.
Now we’re feeling the effects, said Matthias Doepke, professor of economics at LSE.
The proportion of Britons who work and pay taxes is shrinking while the proportion of retired people taking out of the public purse is growing, putting a strain on public finances, he said.
“Expenses for pensions are rising, expenses for healthcare are rising,” he said, adding it was no coincidence that after decades of declining fertility, taxation is at an all-time high.
Less and less money is available for other public services, like fixing potholes, reducing NHS waiting lists or building infrastructure, he said.
Younger people are losing more and more power over how the government spends their taxes, added Mary-Ann Stephenson, director of the economics thinktank UK Women’s Budget…
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