by Eir Nolsøe and Ben Butcher, Telegraph
As Britain’s birth rate tumbles, having several children may be the new status symbol
Subtle signs of riches come in many forms: a fancy car, private club memberships and paying someone else to do your cooking and cleaning.
But as Britain’s birth rate keeps tumbling to new lows, the ultimate status symbol may be having several children.
Think of the Prince and Princess of Wales with their three children, the Beckhams with four, or even Baroness Morrissey, a financier, with nine.
In this economy, it is hard enough for many young people to entertain having one child, let alone two or three.
The Telegraph’s analysis of the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey shows that the higher your income, the more children you are likely to have.
A high earner making £110,000 to £120,000 has the most dependant children, averaging 1.8. Meanwhile, someone making £40,000 to £50,000 – a nudge above the UK average – has the fewest, averaging 1.6
[…] The data are not perfect. They capture an individual worker rather than the household as a whole. That means if you’re a struggling low-earner with many mouths to feed or someone choosing to work part-time because of a higher-earning spouse, the data treat you the same.
But the figures chime with other recent findings, as researchers seek to identify the forces that have pushed Britain’s fertility rate to a record low of 1.4 children.
Among 32-year-olds in England, the poorest quarter is twice as likely as the richest to say they will never have children.