Is financial insecurity killing the family dream?

The idea of the nuclear family is often engrained in us from a young age. If not from our families, we see it throughout popular culture, history lessons, and even nursery rhymes. In junior school, I can recall hearing: “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage,” which, beyond sounding presumptuous, was just a silly song at the time. Now, it is more than a playground melody – it is something that many of us may one day aspire to. But, as many young adults are discovering, a family may not be something we can even have at all.

The UK’s birth rate is declining. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found that the UK’s birth rate, also called the ‘total fertility rate’, is the lowest since records started in 1938. Since the 1970s, in England and Wales, women have consistently had fewer than two children on average – below the ‘replacement rate’ of 2.1 children per woman that is generally needed to prevent a population from declining. The birth rate has steadily declined in recent years, falling from 1.55 children per woman in 2021 to 1.44 in 2023. Naturally, this has sparked angst, with The Observer’s Sonia Sodha calling the subject “a disaster so costly no politician dares think about it”.

But, given the stark implications for public services, they must.

The OBR suggests that falling birth rates will reduce tax receipts that allow governments to pay for vital services. In an unhappy irony, children will be adversely impacted by an unhealthy decline in tax receipts. As schools will be unable to meet typical classroom numbers, many can be expected to close as they may no longer be “financially viable”. This will impact many students who will no longer be able to go to school in their local area. It will also affect educators, with a smaller pool of job opportunities, particularly in primary schools. It is anticipated that primary school teachers could face redundancy because of such a drastic depletion of young pupils.

With fewer births, the proportion of older adults in the population increases, placing pressure on social services, healthcare, and pensions

David Fothergill, Somerset Councillor

Somerset Councillor David Fothergill suggests that other sectors will be hit hard. In a Local Government Association report, he commented: “With fewer births, the proportion of older adults in the population increases, placing pressure on social services, healthcare, and pensions, as there are fewer working-age individuals.”

But it’s not just public services that may be impacted: we may be losing traditional aspects of our culture to the declining birth rate too.

Not only are we veering away from having children, but marriage is also becoming less popular across the UK. In England and Wales, the percentage of people aged 16 and above who were in a civil partnership or marriage recently fell below 50% for the first time. Like the birth rate, there is a trend of gradual decline, with the figure dropping from 49.7% in 2021 to 49.4% in 2022. Though the reduction is less steep and economically damning than that of birth rates, it is another signal of the UK population’s anxieties surrounding financial insecurity.

Figures reveal that despite fewer legal marriages taking place, the number of couples living together but not in a marriage or civil partnership has increased to more than a 1/5. Couples have cited financial struggles as a key factor.

An article in The Independent jokes that we’re “Going to the Chapel and we’re … not gonna get married.” But in serious terms, couples are having to make sacrifices to actualise a future they had envisaged for themselves. Partners who are choosing to get married have had to challenge the ideal of elaborate weddings in recent years to cope with the cost-of-living crisis.

Research conducted by the wedding industry reveals that high inflation and “economic uncertainty” have impacted wedding budgets, with these effects extending across the globe. Although the impact of the cost-of-living crisis is unlikely to eradicate the UK’s multi-billion-pound wedding industry, the statistics reflect a caution brought on by economic doubt.

Unlike wedding planning, couples can’t pay deposits on having children. Research shows that when couples feel they can’t anticipate a future where they can adequately provide for prospective children, the birth rate declines. This could be seen during the 1970s ‘stagflation’ and the Great Recession.

Following downturns, it’s difficult to predict when people will feel the economy has improved enough to have more children. Many are concerned that younger generations may never experience conventional family life. Older generations are watching on with a sense of “grief ” at the death of their family legacies.

Lydia Birk, interviewed by the New York Times this November, has no grandchildren, as her children do not wish to have children of their own. She talks of dreaming of the generations she would get to witness grow, being “surrounded by grandchildren as she ages, passing on to them her family recipes and love of rock ‘n’ roll.” She admits that whilst grandparents aren’t “owe[d]” grandchildren, not having them causes “a real kind of grief, that our culture tends not to recognize, and that people don’t know how to talk about.” Older generations may suffer knowing that their family tree may snag, but the root of their suffering is not without cause – their children aren’t oblivious to this issue.

When asked why UK birth rates are falling, students overwhelmingly cited financial factors and the cost-of-living crisis

With the views of younger people in mind, The Boar has taken to our student readers to gauge their opinions on having children, focusing on the financial and social limitations they may face. We polled around 60 Warwick students. Though this is a small sample, many of the responses reflect trends in larger datasets.

We began our survey by asking how many people were aware of the declining birth rate in the UK, to which 67.8% confirmed they were. It has been largely publicised that birth rates in countries like South Korea and Japan are dropping, but students may not even be aware that outside of campus’s ivory tower, the West Midlands houses some of the most deprived areas in the country. Understandably, birth rates have declined here too.

When asked why UK birth rates are falling, students overwhelmingly cited financial factors and the cost-of-living crisis – 89.8% believed the latter has impacted young people’s willingness to have children. Other proposed explanations included climate change, reduced religiosity amongst young people, and women being more career focused.

Delving deeper, we asked if students thought they would be financially capable of having children within the next decade. Amongst those who wished to have children, only 43.1% believed they ‘certainly’ or ‘probably’ would be financially capable. Roughly 1/3 were unsure – this is reflective of findings from the UK Generations and Gender Survey, which highlighted that when childless people were asked about their intentions on having children, the results showed “a lot of uncertainty in the answers.”

In response to young people’s changing attitudes, figures, particularly on the political right, have advocated for ‘pronatalism’: a term used to describe policies and people that “[encourage] an increased birthrate”. When asked whether “UK politicians and policymakers should advocate for pronatalism”, our survey respondents were broadly opposed: 23.7% responded in the affirmative, 42.3% were opposed, and 33.9% were unsure.

We cannot know if the economic landscape will improve sufficiently for birth rates to increase, nor if a recovered economy will be enough for those who wish to have children. Only the coming years will show how costly today’s financial climate has been for younger generations – both economically and personally.