How to get Brits to have more babies
by Madeleine Artmstrong, CapX:
The fertility rate in Britain will continue to decline over the next twenty years, according to the latest projections by the Office for National Statistics. In 2022, births in the UK reached their lowest point since 2002. By mid-2045, fertility is expected to drop from 1.61 to 1.59 children per woman.
Meanwhile, the percentage of people over 85 years in the UK is predicted to rise in the next fifteen years from 2.5 to 3.5% of the total population. As the Centre for Policy Studies reports, ‘by the end of 2026, the UK will have more people aged 65+ than under 18 for the first time in its history’.
Very soon we will live in a country where the old outnumber the young. With a shrinking workforce and tax base, care for the elderly will place an increasingly heavy financial burden on young people, while also exerting unsustainable pressure on the healthcare system.
This is why we must ask: why are people in the UK having so few children, and what can be done about it?
The underlying reason is obviously that we now have the choice: birth rates began their longest and steepest decline in history all over the developed world shortly after the introduction of the birth control pill. Yet the puzzle to solve is why so few people are willing or able to make the choice to start a family.
Many governments have tried, without success, to boost their birth rates through pro-natalist policies. In Italy, the fertility rate has reached a record low and continues to drop at an alarming rate despite government pleas for more children. Poland also has a lower fertility rate than the UK, notwithstanding its generous child benefit scheme.
Hungary is often hailed as the exception, having apparently managed to boost its fertility rate through a series of pro-family policies introduced in the past ten years.
In 2015, the Hungarian government introduced a Family Housing Allowance, providing couples with children subsidies to build or buy homes, with maximum benefit awarded to parents of three or more children.
Mothers and fathers in Hungary can also share up to three years of paid parental leave between them. Women who have children before the age of 30 are granted tax exemptions.
Since 2015, the fertility rate in Hungary has increased from 1.44 to 1.59 – a boost often attributed by conservatives to government incentives to have more children.
The elephant in the room is that Hungary also experienced significant economic growth over the same time period in which its pro-family policies were introduced, averaging around 4% since 2015 adjusting for the pandemic years and outperforming many European countries.
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