Falling birth rates are a concern but is it any wonder why we’re becoming a nation too afraid to reproduce? - Jayne Dowle

A global study found that birthrates had “tumbled” in all major western nations since 1950 and forecast that this trend would continue until 2100, leading to “staggering social change”.

The team of international researchers, led by the University of Washington, examined data from 204 countries showing trends in fertility rates — the average number of children had by women in their lives. To maintain the current population without immigration, birth rates must sit at the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children per woman.

The UK’s fertility rate has fallen from 2.19 in 1950 to 1.85 in 1980 and 1.49 in 2021, one of the lowest rates in western Europe.

To maintain public services and economic growth, high-income societies such as our own will have no choice but to rely on an influx of immigration from poorer countries in Africa with higher birth rates, the study concluded.

You can imagine the polarised outrage from some quarters; facing the prospect of not enough British-born people of working age to fund pensions and benefits, but highly reluctant to accept that we might need help from new arrivals who many would make unwelcome.

We’re not alone in this predicament. European leaders – from French President Emmanuel Macron to Pope Francis – have recently added their voices to the alarm. Macron, the country’s first childless President, warns that his country’s previously healthy birth rate has now plummeted to its lowest point since the Second World War.

The Pope’s own warning, issued at a conference in Rome last year, verged on the apocalyptic: “The birth of children is the main indicator for measuring the hope of a people…If few are born it means there is little hope.”

The Catholic church has its own agenda. But you may be forgiven for asking what the birth rate has to do with politicians.

However, the birth rate is now a big issue for the government.

I have heard some Conservative MPs – including mother of three Miriam Cates, who represents Penistone and Stocksbridge here in South Yorkshire – on what amounts to a moral crusade.

In a speech last year, Ms Cates launched quite an astounding attack on her own government, arguing that recent policies actively mitigate against parenthood: “…we have removed child benefit from a fifth of families with children, and imposed a two-child limit on those claiming welfare.

“Our fiscal system has gone from seeing the family as the fundamental unit of the economy and subsidising couples for the cost of raising children, to not even recognising family at all.”

Although I don’t always agree with Ms Cates, on this she absolutely has a point. As the years of Conservative government have lengthened, children seem to have become more and more of a nuisance.

The Tories have made it increasingly difficult to raise a child.

From the shortfall in NHS provision for assisted conception and maternity care – it’s reported that 90 per cent of NHS commissioning bodies are failing to offer the three free cycles of IVF recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and there’s a nationwide shortage of 2,500 midwives – to the punitive pressures put on families to actually raise their children, we’re hardly a child-friendly society.

Just look at the fiasco over the 15 hours of free childcare scheme that’s supposed to start from April. No one knows whether this is actually going to materialise as promised.

The cost of having a child really hits home; for example, punishing mortgage rates make moving house for enough bedrooms out of reach of millions. A quarter of women with one child want to have more but can’t afford to, a survey laying bare the financial pressures facing parents suggests.

When a government either ignores or messes up measures which might encourage people to have more children, then presides over years of austerity followed by a cost of living crisis that could be alleviated by certain interventions, is it any wonder we’re becoming a nation too afraid to reproduce?