Fertility rate falls further, now lowest since WW2

The number of babies being born to individual women in England and Wales is at its lowest level since 1938, figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed.

In 2023, the average total fertility rate, which is the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime, was 1.44 children per woman in England and Wales. This is below the population replacement birth rate of 2.08, which the fertility rate in England and Wales has been under since 1973. The ONS offers an interactive feature explaining how the average age of motherhood has changed for women born in England and Wales over the past century. It showed that of women aged 25 today, just 20 percent of them had a child before their 25th birthday, the lowest of any generation.

'The government could implement immediate interventions... such as offering longer paid parental leave, more funding for childcare for working parents and more funding for fertility treatments in the NHS,' Dr Bassel Wattar, associate professor of reproductive medicine and medical director of the Clinical Trials Unit at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge told the BBC.

Last year then-Tory MP Miriam Cates told the National Conservatism Conference: 'Fertility rates decline has not occurred in spite of the economic and social policies of the last thirty years.

'It is a direct result of how those policies have failed to value and reward the behaviours that lead to starting a family,' MailOnline reported.

She added: 'Having children is about as much of a "lifestyle choice" as eating – it is fundamental for survival.'

Policies to encourage people to have more children, are controversial however, as they, 'are not only expensive but have limited evidence they will raise the overall fertility rate', said Professor Melinda Mills, a professor of demography and population health at the University of Oxford told the BBC.

Other countries have failed to reverse declining birth rates, with the South Korean President admitting in 2022 that over $270bn of spending on the issue had failed to make any impact, the Guardian reported. South Korea has the world's lowest fertility rate with women having 0.72 babies each across their lifetime, in 2023, half that of the UK's.

The cost of housing, low wages, the increase in women attending higher education and working, and a lack of commitment from men have all been blamed for falling birth rates. A recent survey suggested that a growing number of young people today don't think they will have children, with a quarter of 18 to 25-year olds saying they would probably or definitely not have a child, the BBC reported.

Professor Brienna Perelli-Harris, professor of demography at the University of Southampton told the BBC: 'Gen Z are more likely to want to stay childless... Before, it might have been more of a taboo – it's now more acceptable.

'And it's down to economic factors like future income, childcare costs and employment.'

Dr Ippokratis Sarris, a consultant in reproductive medicine and the director of King's Fertility in London, told MailOnline: 'A lot of people also don't realise how things change with age, or they think because they're older, fertility treatment can help them.

'Actually, fertility treatment does not overcome ageing per se.'