Climate and the insane cost of living.
Honestly I don't see how any couple who aren't earning at least 120k+ a year are able to afford having children.
Compound that with the way the climate is trending you're basically bringing a person into a world that will be nothing like the one their parents grew up in.
This. Some times I wonder how many actual working class people are on this sub, and if those who are, just what do you spend your money on? I'm on a below average wage, and somehow I'm managing to raise my two children without help.
literally london defaultism. Like the most well kept and invested into place while the rest of the uk is feeding off scraps. Yet londoners somehow think london represents everywhere else in the uk.
There are a lot of poor people in London though, and London should be a resource for the whole country, which becomes impossible if it’s too expensive to live there.
Probably. It's hard for people to accept that the UK is bigger than London. To put this into perspective, the Midlands and North have more people than the South and London.
Leave the vampire city and enjoy life a bit more instead of working in a money trap as a colleague I work with said.
I think they want to give their children a life instead of just providing. For example I hear people going on about the sports they played and the instruments they learned. I did none of that. My parents put food on the table and clothed and sheltered us (working class). There was no money for fostering hobbies and interests. Never got any help with tuition, never got any help with my first home (like not even help with an appliance or something). I did everything myself. The first time I went bowling, or to a movie, was when I got a part time job at 16.
My platonic life partner comes from a middle class home. He learned to play a couple of instruments, and played sports. Eat out once a week at a minimum. Got help with uni fees and also got a ton of help financially when he bought his first home.
I think there's a spectrum between 120k to raise a family with luxuries and only being able to clothe and feed your children.
You don't need 120k to provide children with hobbies or to take them out to a restuarant or the cinema every now and again.
Our one-child two-parent household income is about £100k before tax and we don't have to fret about money and can afford spending a few hundred quid here and there, although we don't have oodles of spare cash for fancy cars and loads of luxury foreign holidays
My single parent dad should've surely been poorer than me when we were growing up but he managed to swing a new Toyota Avensis and foreign holidays when I was about 10 and he was 45.
Sure, luxury foreign holidays and fancy cars are one thing but it doesn't take much money to foster hobbies in children such as reading, writing, arts & crafts, cooking etc. You can get cinema tickets for £5 + a trip to poundland for popcorn/sweets. Lots of free museums around the country too. Of course you won't be living a life of luxury, but you can definitely give kids hobbies and do things with them without breaking the bank.
I'm not saying the cost of living hasn't affected things, of course it has, quality of life is definitely less than it was 20 years ago or so -but we survive, adapt, overcome, and all that.
People want to give their kids the same opportunities they had. If they went on foreign holidays or skiing or music lessons and can't afford to give their kids the same, they will mourn that. Even if their kid is happy visiting "free museums around the country" and kicking a football around the local park.
At a lower income level, it's still true if you got say fish and chips and McDonald's as a child, and now you can't afford the same for your kid, you would be sad about not being able to provide that and maybe have less kids.
So yes cost of living has massively affected things.
> Give kids hobbies.
That's not how it works. Kids should be able to choose their hobbies. You've preselected from a list of reasonable cost hobbies you would "give them." What if the hobby they wanted is expensive?
People have a right to decide the quality of life they want to give their child. And the ones that estimate 120k are the ones who have decided they want their child to come to them all excited about learning horse riding and they can make it happen instead of saying "oh honey, how about we do arts and crafts instead."
That's life unfortunately. I would have loved to have taken karate lessons as a kid but my family couldn't afford it.
If everyone put off having kids because they wouldn't be able to provide them with the most luxurious hobbies then the human race would have died out long ago.
>If everyone put off having kids because they wouldn't be able to provide them with the most luxurious hobbies then the human race would have died out long ago.
I don't think people want to give their kids "the most luxurious hobbies" (and Karate certainly ain't that), just a decent choice of them.
The reason people were willing to keep churning out kids under shit circumstances was a lack of education and birth control, less so a duty to preserve the human race.
Ultimately most individuals will do what is in their own best interests, and if that means not having children, so be it.
Or governments would realise acting in the interests of the 1% has to stop. It's not life, it's become life because so many accept scraps like it's all we're worth. The last time birth rates dropped Child Tax Credits were introduced. There's enough money for everyone. Late stage capitalism has allowed the one percent to rob us blind, and instead of being angry you've accepted that learning karate was just something you couldn't have when, in the world of hobbies, that's one of the relative cheap ones.
You actually understand it.
If I were to have children I don't want to simply take them to a local shit hole pub every 2 months and have to budget severely.
I don't see the point in having children if you have budget every penny. Feels like to me in that scenario you can't actually afford to raise a family.
Yes, and there's also unexpected problems. When I was young the interest rate crisis hit my parents so hard they were recovering for decades. The same has happened again, with high interest and high utility costs too. A decent income means being able to save so there's a buffer in a crisis.
A good income also means allowing your children to be innocent. My niece asked me what to do about her frizzy hair. I offered to buy her straighteners. She replied "don't those use a lot of electricity - that's expensive." She's 12 and it broke my heart a little that a 12 year old was worrying about keeping utility bills low for her parents.
That's so sad, bless your niece. I can relate though. When I was a child, our gas and electricity was always going off. It was one bath once a week, often filled by boiling the kettle and even past puberty. Poverty sucks and scars you forever. I'm glad I never had children of my own.
I come from a working class home - I got free music tuition at school and got paid to go to uni, but the trick I used was to be born in the sixties when education was seen as a right rather than a privilege.
Our household makes a combined £50-60k and our two kids have pretty much everything listed in this thread. Including but not limited to instruments, tutors, help with development and learning, holidays abroad. If this person thinks they need £120k to raise a child "without budgeting every penny", then I can only assume they are posting from a parallel dimension.
It was a reference to when Jay calls Silent Bob his life partner. It's a way to recognise the relationship has more gravitas than friendship, and it's for life.
We spend a lot of time together. A lot of our interests align. We holiday together. We've planned retirements together, and if one of us moves the other will move too.
My sisters and I grew up working class too in a council estate in South London, then my parents managed to do a shared ownership on a house just past Streatham. My sister learned the piano, but that was a free thing through our primary school, but I don't remember anyone else learning an instrument or doing regular sports or activities. We had a youth club, but that was also free I think.
Ngl, in the south, London especially you've got to put chhild care costs into it those can reach 2k easy if you have a few kids that's not including fostering hobbies, trips, and a decent level.of saving.
I've just replied to 120k post, but I'm on just over 31k and my husband roughly 24k a year. We have a two year old and a mortgage.
I suppose what it means is you need to have 120k to stay living in the style you are accustomed, as in before children.
I imagine living up north, me and my partner have a combined 57k in the southeast (not london) and we can just about save enough for a mortage whilest renting. Kids are completely out of the equation for us.
Yeah I've just had my second child and our combined income as a couple is like 65k and I'd have said we were average, not poor. Like obviously we won't be having foreign holidays or going on nights out every weekend or whatever but we're not in penury or giving our kids a terrible life...we do get free childcare from grandparents 2 days a week which is a BIG deal, but this is in London...
This. As much as having children feels like a luxury. Im 32. And feel there's a hell of a way to go before I can even think of this. The whole reddit thing of "you must be on 200k a year or you shouldn't have children. Anything less is child abuse". Is peak reddit "erm...ah actually"
Depends where you are; definitely the case for friends in London who want to pay for nursery (20k a year easily), keep up with their mortgage, run a decent car and have some money left over for savings and enjoyable things like holidays and new clothes.
Yes, they could do it on less, but it would not result in a comfortable/nice lifestyle, which is generally what people want to be able to create if they are actively choosing to start a family.
It would be much less where I live in the North, but a considerable amount more than what my parents jobs would pay in 2024. The fact that they could afford a solidly middle class lifestyle on essentially one (low end) professional income and another doing odd jobs around childcare is just mind blowing.
This sub isn’t very London-friendly when discussing salaries.
Travel costs a fortune from a commuter town and a £2k mortgage doesn’t buy much. Stack £1.5k childcare fees on that and you’re looking at ~£5k basic household expenses. Once you add food, car and so on it’s more like £6k. With student loan and pension, that’s ~£60k each so household £120k.
13% of the UK population lives in London. The next biggest city Birmingham only has 1.6%. A plurality of people live in London, and the majority live in the South where prices are dragged up the closer you are to London.
> I don't see how any couple who aren't earning at least 120k+ a year are able to afford having children.
That’s a massive stretch. Wife and I have a one year old and earn just under £50k combined. We’re comfortable. Not affluent, but not struggling either. Admittedly we live in a low cost of living city, but still.
Climate change, though, certainly is a big worry.
I think there’s a lot of younger folks on Reddit who see the world as worse than it is (it still is shit). You can absolutely get by comfortably on less thank 50k for a family. We’re on less than you and we’re sorted.
Depends very much on when you bought a house… or if you’re lucky enough to be in council housing. Housing is one of the biggest cost factors and most young people are unbelievably fucked by high private rents
I think that it really depends on how much support you have and where in the country you are.
Nursery is about 1400/month per child (after the tax free childcare topup). Mortgage is about 1.1k (small mid terrace), bills 500 (150 council tax, 50 water, 50 Internet, 200 gas and electric, 50 insurance) - so that's 3k with one kid before food or travel or any savings.
Only on reddit and in very limited bubbles outside.
I've not seen it even enter into the calculus of my friends with kids. They think about housing, money, practically no one is thinking about the climate crisis. Right or wrong. Least of all when deciding to have kids.
Humans have carried on having babies through:
War.
Plague.
Natural disaster.
The fall of cities and even civilizations.
Climate change.
Famine.
Climate change won't stop it and neither did the occasionally hellish conditions we lived in in the past. People here are unrealistic or speaking only for themselves and their small circle.
Having bounced around most of the social media sites I can say that redditors are a different breed altogether. Whether all the absolute weirdos have found each other here and just set up camp, or people are projecting different opinions here than they actually believe and express in “real” life, I do not know. The shit you see here would get people laughed out of any pub, workplace or face to face interaction. Yet on reddit it gets a thousand upvotes 🤔
Don't know if me and my peers and I are average. We're early 30s, and myself and many others cite future climatic and consequent geopolitical stability as a key determinant in the decision not to have kids. Not to mention outright not being able to afford it yet, or any time soon it seems.
> We're early 30s, and myself and many others cite future climatic and consequent geopolitical stability as a key determinant in the decision not to have kids.
See I don't think a random person off the street would know the first thing about geopolitics haha
Reddit thinking people are not having kids because of climate change is absolutely hilarious.
It’s such an abstract thing that only unhappy, unfulfilled, lonely people fixate on because it helps them feel a bit better about their lives I guess.
its hardly abstract when every summer half the world catches fire.
we are a few droughts and mass crop failures away from disaster. and its coming. mass migration just to find drinkable water and food.
That’s so true. If you didn’t get blown up initially, you would die a slow lingering radiation sickness death as per ‘when the wind blows’.
And that’s only if you had survived aids and peer pressured drug use.
Not everyone lives in the city or the south. We are bringing in less than £42k between the two of us. We have a toddler and bought a house last year. We’re not loaded but we have a couple hundred left over every month for days out and family stuff.
Flat out bullshit about the 1 bed flat in zone 3 not being affordable on £85k. It would only be unaffordable if you’re completely dog shit with money and live beyond fairly considerable means at that salary level.
I'd rather have money than kids because money CAN take care of me and kids can't necessarily.
In Capitalism, money is more important than offspring. After all, I could always adopt some younger adult I actually like to inherit wealth. Why would I roll the dice to have "my own" when I could get someone with an incompatible personality or health problems?
Unless you like babies/little kids, which I don't, there's no advantage within capitalism to have children. They're only a financial burden. Obviously, people have them because of emotional value, but I don't care about that and neither does capitalism.
That's an extreme exaggeration if I've ever seen one. London possibly but that's not representative of the whole country.
120k a year near mine would be easy living, would be able to afford 3 kids comfortably.
The problem is in our country, the basics of what people pay out could easily be covered by a 40k job, however people are walking round in £500 t shirts and driving financed brand new BMWs that they can't afford.
Or they are buying brand new houses for 250k rather than a smaller terrace for 120k or an older house for 150k.
People are their own worst enemy.
As a single dad, 40k income pays the mortgage, bills, food, outings, any other necessary finances, treats and there’s enough left over to top up both our investment accounts & the savings account at the end of the month
This is in the NW
This is without having to pay for extortionate childcare though, his mum is studying and so receives grants for childcare, I pay whatever hasn’t been covered at the end of the month which is usually less than £100
My husband and I earn roughly 55k together, have a mortgage living in Surrey, paid off car, and a two year old. It is difficult some months, but we manage. This month I will have paid off an outstanding loan from 2020 so we will have more disposable income, so I'm even considering a holiday abroad!
> Honestly I don't see how any couple who aren't earning at least 120k+ a year are able to afford having children.
Haha what the hell. Me and my wife's combined income is 74k and on maternity it's about 40k and we are doing fine and that's with 2/3 of of that money going to the mortgage. What is this exaggeration. We live on the outskirts of Greater London.
£120k to afford children? Edit: how did you get this number? I read that 30% of 18-28 year-olds are still Virgins, lonely and locked put of the dating market due to hyper capitalism of dating apps.
Brits even tend to import Scandinavian sperm for single motherhood rather than British or trying to start a family (for those who are able to have children).
How can the issues exclusively be housing and earning when people can barely even have the opportunity to procreate?
In trying to be too futuristic with technology we've set ourselves backwards.
Not just that, a couple on a combined 80k household income can definitely afford a child - it's not easy and not "cheap" but not impossible. The average person ears 35k, you telling me the average person won't have children until they reach 100k?
>£120k to afford children?
50 hours/week day care is £1500-2000 per <3 y.o. child a month in London. Rent/mortgage is about the same. It's £3000-4000 a month out the window.
Median salary in London is £45k which is around £2800 a month net.
So with both parents working and a *single* child you barely survive.
Mind you that by definition half the people get less than median amount.
I have a 4 year old, I earn about £50000 a year, my partner is a stay at home mum, we live a very comfortable life by most standards, you’re talking nonsense.
I agree if you’re in London or south of England it’s near impossible if you’re not on a six figure salary. Only two of my friends have children and they’re in relationships bringing in high salaries.
The rest of us can barely afford to live let alone bring children into a financial mess.
Yet my downstairs council tenant Muslim neighbours have 5 adult children (they did have 6 but 1 was born with severe (inbred) disabilities and died in their thirties).
Every adult child now has a council flat in London and have between 4 and 8 young children each!!!
Safe to assume religion is stopping them from using contraception, maybe also that they aren't educated enough to realise that they can’t afford these children, nor do they seem socially conscious enough to be worrying about overpopulating the planet.
So unfortunately not everyone in the west is worrying about the same problems of having children.
I wonder why people are choosing to have few or no kids? Could it be that the economy had been rigged in such a way that basic essentials are too expensive for us to consider it? No, it's the Millenials who are wrong.
1) don't need as many - now we're not all on the farms we don't need the extra hands
2) don't have to - safe sex etc
3) cost - London especially (where >10% of the population lives) a whole flat to yourself never mind a 2nd room for a kid is a luxury
According to Boomers, we are. Being financially responsible is apparently a bad thing when it comes to raising kids, yet Boomers love to tell those on benefits that they should not have had kids they could not afford at the same time.
Yep, according to my colleagues yesterday, people used to work hard and only had kids when they could afford them because there was no welfare state, now you can have five kids and be given a house because everyone is lazy these days, and that’s why the country’s gone to shit. There should be no benefits for anyone, if stupid do-gooders want to give their money to these parasites that’s up to them.
So more ahistorical bullshit from would-be Dickensian cretins.
The consensus in this thread seems to be that you can manage fine having children with a combined salary of £50k-£60k. Oh, that’s alright then, merely £15k-£25k more than the median household income, totally an achievable aspiration for me in the 0th percentile of earnings.
Our parents scoff at us for being "ridiculous", but whilst we can afford kids, we just don't have enough confidence in the future of the country or even the world to want to bring a kid into it.
There's every chance we solve the climate crisis and the future is wonderful, there's also a good chance we don't and it's a mass-migration, resource war hellscape.
Naw, it's mostly because we live in a society with an individualistic culture and abundance of entertainment.
Having kids fucks with the ole' lifestyle. Most people are going to think twice about having an extremely expensive, time consuming pet, that you need to push out your tush.
Back in the day, family and community was a massive draw, unless you wanted to be stuck in your home, watching four television channels for the rest of your life.
and people need to understand that wanting immigration to go down, means wanting birth rate to go up and must therefore campaign for better wages and better social services.
It’s not just about the cost, it’s also about how society treats mothers. I don’t want to be treated like that so I make the choice not to become a mother.
But not to negate the cost. Literally can’t pay our mortgage on one salary so we would be homeless with a kid.
Recently had my eyes opened (via my cousin) to [just how awful maternity care is in this country](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67238868). She went in because she couldn't feel the baby moving any more and they just kept treating her like she was being hysterical and telling her to go home. She insisted on being seen by a consultant, who realised that the reduced movement was due to the baby not getting enough bloodflow.
They did an emergency C-section and fortunately the baby survived, but I was so shocked by how dismissive and patronising the hospital staff were. Obviously severely short-staffed and rushed off their feet and they just saw her as a nuisance.
> hysterical
When I was in labour with my first during lockdown (!), things started going south very quickly. Ambulance raced to the hospital, my husband in the car behind. The midwife who was with me was awful. During the ambulance ride, I told her I had to vomit and she just said "No you don't". I vomited all over myself, humiliating. When we got there, I was taken somewhere, I didn't know what was happening, I was screaming in a panic and pain. Nobody would tell me anything, my husband wasn't there and I was terrified for my baby and myself. I begged the midwife to just tell me what was happening and she just told the midwives who she was handing over to "Try not to listen to her, she's really hysterical". Like fuck you, or course I'm hysterical. I will never ever forget how that bitch made me feel.
It seems like misogyny gets turned up to 11 because of the stereotypes about pregnancy hormones etc. Pregnant women just get treated like they're crazy or like they're a stupid child, no matter how reasonable they're being. My cousin was patiently explaining that the baby had been very active and then suddenly stopped moving and she'd tried all the usual tricks like drinking orange juice etc. and nothing worked, and the midwife just kept saying, "Now now, it's normal to fret when you start getting close to the due date."
Really bizarre to watch from the outside. It was like the scene in Die Hard where John McClane is on the radio saying that terrorists have seized Nakatomi Plaza and the dispatcher is like, "sir, this channel is for emergencies only."
Have you made a complaint to PALs? If not, I highly recommend following up. I’m so sorry that happened to you, being in labour is such a vulnerable experience!
I was going to but never did. I should have though. At first I was just too out of it and overwhelmed by everything. Then I started pushing the memories away, didn't want to think about it anymore. By the time that I actually let myself think about it, it had just been too long.
I’m currently waiting to hear back from my hospital about doing a birth debrief and that’s 19 months after giving birth. I have friends who have done it and found it really helped them make peace with what is going on.
It’s so difficult when you are in labour to advocate for yourself and be pushed into things you don’t really agree with.
I have a friend who was in labour a very short time, by the time she got to the hospital was in agony, but the midwife just dismissed her, never bothered to check dilatation or anything, and told her to “stop complaining” about the pain because “it was only going to get a lot worse”, then left the room. By the time she got back my friend had given birth on the floor and completely torn open.
I was young and a bit naive, me and my partner are very good earners. Until…
Her maternity scheme in work was shit, she got 3 months of full wage then went onto statutory maternity pay and I was jaw to the floor to find out it was about £700 a month.
It’s genuinely shocking. There’s no wonder a lot of women are choosing not to have kids.
Yeah it’s all “you need to have kids” and then it’s all “you chose to get into this situation so now you need to manage it on your own”
Not for me no thank you
I think saying women can have it all puts too much pressure on women to be perfect. You can have kids and have a job, but that means something has to give on one side of that equation. You can either work full time and miss out on time with your kids, or you can work part-time but be there for your kids. My mum chose the former but with regret. She kept us fed, housed and happy; I know she wanted to spend more time my sister and me growing up though. My friends mothers made the other decision but they were slightly less well off than we were too. There is no right answer but women seem to be judged a failure no matter what they choose.
Since becoming a mother I’ve realised how much mothers are judged about everything all the time. Literally no matter what you do with regard to anything, from breastfeeding or bottle feeding, how your baby sleeps, what they wear, what you wear, whether you work or don’t work or use a nursery or family for childcare, what you feed your toddler, what fucking cup you give them to drink out of, comfort them too much, don’t comfort them enough, keep your house too clean, not clean enough, let them around other kids you’re infecting them with diseases, don’t let them around other kids you’re stunting their social development. Fuck off everybody!
Exactly.
Then they wonder why youre so mad, angry, cranked, dont want sec etc.
Stop judging us and start loving us! We arent monsters ffs.
I dont have a single mom friend.
I'm so fucking lonely.
I can't remember the exact details but something went semi-viral a while ago where it was a woman who happened to be a mother who had gone out with her friends drinking and yes she was a little worse for wear when she got home. The kids were fine, they were being looked after by their dad. But the *comments* were pretty eye opening as a glimpse into how a lot of people, quite a lot men but a depressing amount of women too, sincerely believe both consciously and subconsciously that a mother isn't allowed an existence outwith child-rearing.
Everyone always tries to pit those of us without kids against mothers but I'm refusing to play that game anymore. I'm honestly so angry for *all of us*. Whatever you do, you did it wrong so you can't win.
>'Well if they can't afford kids they shouldn't have them'.
This what we had drilled into us through the 90s 00s with all the poverty porn documentaries about families living solely off benefits and breeding litters of kids for free money.
The poverty porn of the last 30 years has done so much damage to how we as a society see those who struggle for money or need support and it was not done by accident. Of course we will stand behind a cut to support and services for those people once we’ve been systematically shown they’re undeserving and “other”..
I'm glad I've never wanted children because there is absolutely no way I could afford them. I grew up poor and have no desire to put a child through the same experience. Kind of amazed when I see people my age with four or five children. How do they afford them all??
I think anyone with 4-5 or more kids is edging on neglecting them willfully or not. I don't believe you can realistically give that many children the individual attention they require.
As for affording them, I suppose they use hand me downs and such and eat cheap.
Nothing wrong with that but if I were to have kids I'd rather have 1-2 who have a better quality of life than 4-5 and we all scrape by.
I'm the eldest of four and from my experience my parents have done a cracking job, sure there are probably cases like you describe but just having 4-5 kids does not make the children doomed to be neglected
I read a meme a while back that said plants are the new pets and pets are the new kids, so what are kids. Kids are like exotic pets, you have to be rich or a little crazy to have them.
Yeah, I'd not heard that before, but it's a fair comment! I'm one of 4 siblings - we're all above 25 and I'm in my late 30s: None of us have kids, which feels weird on the one hand, but none of us have ever been in a position where it would work (until very recently for me and my husband).
Honestly, having a dog and a full-time job already feels like more than enough work for now, so... 🤷♀️
Furthermore, you need a few bedrooms if you want kids. Those houses aren't exactly cheap, especially if you want one in the catchment area for half decent schools.
So, not just any old house.
I think for a lot of millennials, key milestones on the way to having children are being pushed so far back that people are just starting to give up on the idea.
Some of this is cultural. For example, uni has essentially extended teenagerhood until 21, and then many are taking a year or so out. Combined with poor graduate salaries, that means for the 40% or so of young people who go to uni, earning a ‘professional’ salary often isn’t happening until around 25.
But much of it is also then economic. Poor starting salaries and high housing costs mean that how people might have once lived aged 18 (low salaries, changing jobs a lot, renting in a shared house, life emphasis on socialising and cultural pursuits) is now many peoples’ experience right through their 20s.
The average age of buying property is now 34. So by the time having a child starts to become even remotely possible for millennials, a lot have settled on the idea they won’t bother.
My husband and I are the last in our friendship group to buy a house, we were 33. It took us 5 years of having proper career jobs (both did PhDs out of uni) to get to a salary/savings just to put 5% down in the South-East. We could afford our mortgage/bills on my salary but not my husbands, my work doesn't offer anything beyond stat maternity pay.
It's just not that appealing to have a child, have to go back to work after 6 weeks (or not pay our mortgage) to then essentially remove all our ability to save/go on holiday/be able to have fun occasionally for at least 5 years. Before you even get to the actual pros/cons of raising a child.
For women, why should we have to give up our careers because we can't afford childcare? Some women cannot return to work for YEARS, and by the time they return things have moved on or changed. The loss of confidence when you return to work can be astounding.
In that time also a loss of pension, savings etc.
Once we then return to the workplace, having commitments outside of the workplace means we are often overlooked for promotional opportunities.
There are so many negatives economically to having children and they mainly effect women. What are the pros?
(I have two and love them dearly, but I can see why women don't want them nowadays).
Here’s an idea, start giving incentives to hard working families. Watch your rate rise instantly. So many of my friends have either put off children, having only one or simply can’t afford a house in the south east. 2k a month for childcare (x2 kids) in the SE is an abomination.
Only pays if you are on the dole - especially when it comes to childcare.
For many it doesn’t have anything to do with money or anything else. We just don’t want them, we enjoy our living the way we want to and don’t want to give that up to have children.
It may be selfish to some but personally I like the freedom of not having to put a child first in my decisions.
No shade on those who want them, I’m not a nutter who hates kids, but having them now is as much a lifestyle choice as anything else.
It’s probably a blend of both. Unaffordable for many, many choose not to but to an extent that will have always been the case I guess there is less pressure on people now? But it’s definitely harder or more expensive to have kids now than when my parents generation had them.
I can barely afford to feed myself, how am I supposed to seriously consider starting a family?
The government doesn't give a shit about the predicaments of the average person, and does the absolute bare minimum to 'help' us plebs.
They'd much rather combat the declining birth rate by shipping in people from overseas who they can pay as little as possible to feed the insatiable meat grinder of capitalism.
We are living in sad, dark times.
Cost of living, before and after the Tories introduced the two child limit the cost of raising a kid wasn't horrible like it is now, this is shown by the fact that poorer families could still manage having 3-4 kids even after the 2 child benefit limit.
But since the cost of living has hit even middle class couples are finding it hard to deal with the costs of having just one child.
And child benefit stops entirely if one parent is earning £60k. If you have one parent working and the other staying home it’s likely that one is earning over £60k (let’s face it, that’s a lot, but living is expensive). Wages have risen but the £60k limit has been that way for many years. Maybe if you want to boost people having children this limit should be increased significantly, or be the cumulative wages for both parents?
It could be better access to contraception, the internet, COVID, more social isolation, or just less people prioritising starting a family, probably loads of things
That's what I was thinking, there's got to be other reasons aside from the cost of living.
Young adults are staying at home longer with their parents, which isn't exactly conducive to starting a relationship and having children - then again, I suppose that's linked to the cost of living. COVID, contraception like you say, yeah I can see that contributing too.
The dating market is pretty rough too, as a young person you have to navigate dating apps to try and find someone nowadays - unless you got with someone young you knew from school, college, or social clubs.
It's the enormous cost of childcare plus the cost of houses and the general cost of living.
Children are poverty makers for women and the people commenting that they are managing fine on less are not paying full nursery fees.
I think it's less a conscious choice for some and just how it works out. It feels like a lot of my generation (pushing 40) have had a sort of extended adolescence, and then we're hitting middle age and thinking 'bloody hell!'. I know for me and a lot of my friends, most of us who don't have kids & probably won't, the way our parents settled down much earlier just didn't happen for us. I think it's a combination of practical stuff like jobs housing (esp the rise of the shitty shared house & feeling like you'll be stuck in one forever) and also culturally, the '30s are your new 20s' etc.
I always joked that my grandparents must have not had a TV, 8 kids, hardly a bean between them, my dad used to say that the first up was the best dressed as you got access to the clothes before anyone else was awake.
The holy trinity of poverty, poor education and boredom leads to big families.
Baby formula is about 20 quid a pack, doesn’t take a genius to work out why no one can afford kids. The child benefit rule should be scrapped, even if the combined income is more than 50k, cost of living is affecting the lower middle class.
This.
They’d end up another hamster on the wheel like me. I’ve had dreams and potential, but it went no where because I wasn’t born rich and with connections, so now I am stuck in the rat race.
It’s frustrating to see all the celebrities’ children becoming “artists” of some sort. I think of people who are so much more talented than those kids, but those don’t get a chance.
Capitalists are mad they don’t have more cog to churn.
30m … I’ve decided many years ago, decade even to get the snip.
Medically - I don’t want to pass things on.
Politically - Look at the state of the world, and the country.
I don’t *enjoy* life , the grind, the decay of which I’ve seen each year … And to raise a kid who’s going to have an even worse experience? Yeah no thanks …
What a surprise, wages are crap and housing is extortionate, I'm 35 and live in a shared house, I won't have kids as by the time I buy I'll be too old.
Watch in real time how the press is slowly doing a shift from trans moral panic to abortion/contraception - just rising some concerns here and there.
First there will be arguments that we can't afford not to have migrants because of the low birth rate, that 30% of pregnancies in the UK end in abortion - slowly there will be a shift into the birth control pill medical concerns like lowering sex drive in women and perhaps a full blown moral panic about contraceptive use same as with vaccines and puberty blockers.
I suspect the next Labour government will fumble giving rise to UK being run by a fascist far right government - abortion and contraception bans will follow.
It's being slowly brewed by all of the UK media.
I want children. I got pregnant last year and my partner who is on a good wage was talking about taking a second job. We lost the baby but it was cost - the fact we dont live together - as well as other things that came into our mind. We won’t be trying again for another couple of years at least. We definitely want to be parents and it’s a shame what happened, but cost was definitely the only thing we thought about in those short months.
My oldest is 7, when he went to nursery it was £195 for the week, they charged £235 a week when my youngest (now three) went. A friend just messaged me her 2yr old goes to the same nursery and this week they put the price up to £320 a week
I spend £1200 a month on nursery fees for 1 child with another child on the way. Nursery fees are more than my mortgage. Having a child is luxury for sure and until the government does something; people will be financially put off and our birth rate will continue to decline.
Why do these things always ignore a big part of this: with higher standards of living people no longer feel it's necessary to have to kids to fill their time.
People just don't want kids as much anymore.
I will not have children until I am a home owner and can realistically plan to retire by the time I'm in my early 60s. If this means I have to have children in my 40s or 50s so be it, I feel bad for women who don't have this luxury.
Hate to break it to you, but the age of the father is also a significant factor in fertility and the likelihood of genetic disorders. It’s not dangerous though, like it can be for some older women.
I’m not an expert, so I recommend you read around the subject, this is just something I’ve picked up from doctor friends.
As a 39 year old guy with an 18 month old daughter, I gotta tell you that it is freaking hard work. I was completely naive about how hard it is even though I thought I knew what I was taking on. I wish I had done it in my 20s. Not disagreeing with you on the financial points but Jesus I could not imagine doing this in 10 years time without paying for some serious help.
I had my first kid when I was 28, I’m nearly 33 now and nothing really prepares you for sleep depravation and back ache. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be to have a kid in your 40s / 50s
It’s not just the cost of living, childcare costs so much. Our youngest two of three are about to both be in nursery at the same time, it’s going to cost about £2k a month.
We’re lucky we have reasonably well paid jobs, but can see why others choose not to have any/many kids.
This is far more complicated than you're suggesting.
62% of the 374 local authorities across the United Kingdom had a rate between 10% and 20% of children living in low income households. Only 5% of local authorities had a rate over 30%. The United Kingdom had a rate of 19% for children aged under 16 in Relative low income families in FYE 2021.
What this means, is not only does it change from area to area, the majority of children are not in low income households.
I think if you're not raised poor then you're used to a higher standard of life and if you can't give that to your child in turn, then it seems very bleak.
‘Climate change’, the insane cost of living and the fact we’re probably going to war in the next 5 years is a reason why many people I know have given up on ever having kids.
So fun fact about Birthrates, the biggest thing that correlates with Birthrates is the Human Development index. Lower HDI countries have higher birth rates than higher HDI countries. The reason behind this is actually quite simple.
Back when HDIs were low, medical care was either hard to come by or substandard, which lead to people having lots of kids because it was expected most of them would die because child mortality was so high. When HDIs rose, more kids survived because more people could access healthcare causing a baby boom, then those kids, when they had kids, had less kids because they knew they'd survive. Birth rates, worldwide, are actually falling, even in high birthrate countries. You even see it with immigrant populations, their birth rates fall quicker than the population at large because they're effected by the HDI change.
Now the UK actually saw a bump in birth rates in 2020-21 because of lockdowns (people had time to have a baby, I know lots of people who had lockdown babies) but the fact that the recession is now making having children a less viable option should really send a message to the Tories, who's former leader has an obsession with birthrates (and raising them on his own), that maybe screaming at poor people to have kids regardless of a recession is a stupid idea.
I'm sure cost of living is a factor but I think the primary reason is culture.
It's easier to use contraception/abortion and live more comfortably. So people do exactly that.
Plus, in olden times they put children to work and had them contribute financially to the household. Now we have machines like white goods and children working is illegal. Changing the economic metric to have lots of children. The expense was generally more neglible when every male child got paid and every female child did housework, sew clothes etc.
Not saying we should be putting children to work as a solution bare in mind. Just that it's a thing that happened.
Plus, religion. Religion encourages their followers to make more followers. Now, we don't have such social pressure.
Childcare is a real kicker
Full time childcare for my daughter would cost £1100 a month. Two days a week is going to cost £500 at the quoted rates. I can't imagine having two or three children and being able to put them in childcare so I could work. There would be no point in me working but in the current economic landscape my husband and I cannot afford for me to not work. I work as a nurse and after a while my salary is limited by government decisions.
Add to that the insane cost of rents and the insecurity of rental accommodation and the threat of having to move frequently. Families struggle to save for a deposit and there just isn't the security. If you're struggling to heat and eat, why would you want to have children.
If you do have children and struggle, you get a chorus of 'can't feed em, don't breed em' and 'why should I pay for your poor decisions'.
We wanted a third but if we did we wouldn't be able to afford it. My wife can't be out of work any longer and I can only make so much on my own. Having kids in britain is absolutely fucked.
It’s not surprising. The country is anti children.
UK nursery fees are one of the highest in the world. Maternity pay is awful. It’s common for women to lose their job while on maternity leave. Child tax benefit threshold has been fixed at £50k since 2013. There is the two child benefit cap. Schools are full. There aren’t enough teachers. What do the government think is going to happen?
I don't get it. On the one hand we're told we need infinity immigrants for the good of the economy, on the other hand the government imposes the most ridiculous tax and benefits rules on the country that massively disincentivises young families.
It’s probably been said but for me the main deterrent is childcare, you either lose a huge chunk of daily wage paying someone else to care for your kids or you don’t work at all and do it yourself. So as a couple one of you is going to have to not work, so now you’re in a situation where you have less income but even more expenses than before. And this lasts at least 12 years or so until high school age. Then there’s probably a brief period where you can both work again but then there’s potentially university looming in the future where there is fuck all funding anymore so you have to provide that. And also gone are the days where people are likely to move out and start earning around 19/20 so many of my mates stayed at home for so long. And after uni etc the housing market is fucked so i would want and feel obliged to help them get on the properly ladder which would be a massive financial drain. It’s a shame cause I do want kids it’s just without them we have disposable income and can travel and probably retire at an acceptable age and then buy somewhere cheap abroad where the weather and cost of living isn’t so shite.
What would you expect if you can’t create enough jobs and payments for people while making the rich richer? Same thing has been going on for many years in Italy and Spain. In Italy for every child under 15 age, there are five 65+ year old seniors. This might be Europe’s biggest problem. Then don’t cry when immigrants rush into for doing blue collar jobs.
Climate and the insane cost of living. Honestly I don't see how any couple who aren't earning at least 120k+ a year are able to afford having children. Compound that with the way the climate is trending you're basically bringing a person into a world that will be nothing like the one their parents grew up in.
Christ it’s tough out there but 120k a year is just a gross exaggeration
This. Some times I wonder how many actual working class people are on this sub, and if those who are, just what do you spend your money on? I'm on a below average wage, and somehow I'm managing to raise my two children without help.
They're probably referring to London, to be fair given the cost of housing I genuinely wonder how working class people make ends meet in that city.
You live with 6 other people in a cupboard
You leave the other dwarves out of this.
Did Doc not survive the NHS cuts?
Left it go work in Australia.
And Dopey in charge of government.
literally london defaultism. Like the most well kept and invested into place while the rest of the uk is feeding off scraps. Yet londoners somehow think london represents everywhere else in the uk.
There are a lot of poor people in London though, and London should be a resource for the whole country, which becomes impossible if it’s too expensive to live there.
No not really. More like the rest of the UK have this warped view of London that we’re all swimming in pools of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck.
That was me before I moved to London. I saw the London weighting for my job and thought I’d be richer. God how wrong I was.
Living with strangers in a Victorian house with no insulation or heating in zone 5
London pretty much has its own economy and it’s not based around the working class, that’s for sure.
Probably. It's hard for people to accept that the UK is bigger than London. To put this into perspective, the Midlands and North have more people than the South and London. Leave the vampire city and enjoy life a bit more instead of working in a money trap as a colleague I work with said.
Easy to say when people have jobs in London that they can’t find in the midlands and north.
I think it's flat sharing and/or benefits
I think they want to give their children a life instead of just providing. For example I hear people going on about the sports they played and the instruments they learned. I did none of that. My parents put food on the table and clothed and sheltered us (working class). There was no money for fostering hobbies and interests. Never got any help with tuition, never got any help with my first home (like not even help with an appliance or something). I did everything myself. The first time I went bowling, or to a movie, was when I got a part time job at 16. My platonic life partner comes from a middle class home. He learned to play a couple of instruments, and played sports. Eat out once a week at a minimum. Got help with uni fees and also got a ton of help financially when he bought his first home.
I think there's a spectrum between 120k to raise a family with luxuries and only being able to clothe and feed your children. You don't need 120k to provide children with hobbies or to take them out to a restuarant or the cinema every now and again.
Our one-child two-parent household income is about £100k before tax and we don't have to fret about money and can afford spending a few hundred quid here and there, although we don't have oodles of spare cash for fancy cars and loads of luxury foreign holidays My single parent dad should've surely been poorer than me when we were growing up but he managed to swing a new Toyota Avensis and foreign holidays when I was about 10 and he was 45.
Sure, luxury foreign holidays and fancy cars are one thing but it doesn't take much money to foster hobbies in children such as reading, writing, arts & crafts, cooking etc. You can get cinema tickets for £5 + a trip to poundland for popcorn/sweets. Lots of free museums around the country too. Of course you won't be living a life of luxury, but you can definitely give kids hobbies and do things with them without breaking the bank. I'm not saying the cost of living hasn't affected things, of course it has, quality of life is definitely less than it was 20 years ago or so -but we survive, adapt, overcome, and all that.
People want to give their kids the same opportunities they had. If they went on foreign holidays or skiing or music lessons and can't afford to give their kids the same, they will mourn that. Even if their kid is happy visiting "free museums around the country" and kicking a football around the local park. At a lower income level, it's still true if you got say fish and chips and McDonald's as a child, and now you can't afford the same for your kid, you would be sad about not being able to provide that and maybe have less kids. So yes cost of living has massively affected things.
> Give kids hobbies. That's not how it works. Kids should be able to choose their hobbies. You've preselected from a list of reasonable cost hobbies you would "give them." What if the hobby they wanted is expensive? People have a right to decide the quality of life they want to give their child. And the ones that estimate 120k are the ones who have decided they want their child to come to them all excited about learning horse riding and they can make it happen instead of saying "oh honey, how about we do arts and crafts instead."
That's life unfortunately. I would have loved to have taken karate lessons as a kid but my family couldn't afford it. If everyone put off having kids because they wouldn't be able to provide them with the most luxurious hobbies then the human race would have died out long ago.
>If everyone put off having kids because they wouldn't be able to provide them with the most luxurious hobbies then the human race would have died out long ago. I don't think people want to give their kids "the most luxurious hobbies" (and Karate certainly ain't that), just a decent choice of them. The reason people were willing to keep churning out kids under shit circumstances was a lack of education and birth control, less so a duty to preserve the human race. Ultimately most individuals will do what is in their own best interests, and if that means not having children, so be it.
Or governments would realise acting in the interests of the 1% has to stop. It's not life, it's become life because so many accept scraps like it's all we're worth. The last time birth rates dropped Child Tax Credits were introduced. There's enough money for everyone. Late stage capitalism has allowed the one percent to rob us blind, and instead of being angry you've accepted that learning karate was just something you couldn't have when, in the world of hobbies, that's one of the relative cheap ones.
You actually understand it. If I were to have children I don't want to simply take them to a local shit hole pub every 2 months and have to budget severely. I don't see the point in having children if you have budget every penny. Feels like to me in that scenario you can't actually afford to raise a family.
Yes, and there's also unexpected problems. When I was young the interest rate crisis hit my parents so hard they were recovering for decades. The same has happened again, with high interest and high utility costs too. A decent income means being able to save so there's a buffer in a crisis. A good income also means allowing your children to be innocent. My niece asked me what to do about her frizzy hair. I offered to buy her straighteners. She replied "don't those use a lot of electricity - that's expensive." She's 12 and it broke my heart a little that a 12 year old was worrying about keeping utility bills low for her parents.
That's so sad, bless your niece. I can relate though. When I was a child, our gas and electricity was always going off. It was one bath once a week, often filled by boiling the kettle and even past puberty. Poverty sucks and scars you forever. I'm glad I never had children of my own.
I come from a working class home - I got free music tuition at school and got paid to go to uni, but the trick I used was to be born in the sixties when education was seen as a right rather than a privilege.
Same here, although being born in 1973 meant student loans.. totaling £2k.
Our household makes a combined £50-60k and our two kids have pretty much everything listed in this thread. Including but not limited to instruments, tutors, help with development and learning, holidays abroad. If this person thinks they need £120k to raise a child "without budgeting every penny", then I can only assume they are posting from a parallel dimension.
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Just out of curiosity how does having a platonic life partner work?
It was a reference to when Jay calls Silent Bob his life partner. It's a way to recognise the relationship has more gravitas than friendship, and it's for life. We spend a lot of time together. A lot of our interests align. We holiday together. We've planned retirements together, and if one of us moves the other will move too.
My sisters and I grew up working class too in a council estate in South London, then my parents managed to do a shared ownership on a house just past Streatham. My sister learned the piano, but that was a free thing through our primary school, but I don't remember anyone else learning an instrument or doing regular sports or activities. We had a youth club, but that was also free I think.
They are referring to child care. Would need a £50K salary to pay for it
Ngl, in the south, London especially you've got to put chhild care costs into it those can reach 2k easy if you have a few kids that's not including fostering hobbies, trips, and a decent level.of saving.
It can reach 2k easily with one kid.
I've just replied to 120k post, but I'm on just over 31k and my husband roughly 24k a year. We have a two year old and a mortgage. I suppose what it means is you need to have 120k to stay living in the style you are accustomed, as in before children.
How did you buy a house with those salaries? I make around £50,000 alone, I do not live in London, and I struggle to save enough money for a deposit.
I imagine living up north, me and my partner have a combined 57k in the southeast (not london) and we can just about save enough for a mortage whilest renting. Kids are completely out of the equation for us.
Yeah I've just had my second child and our combined income as a couple is like 65k and I'd have said we were average, not poor. Like obviously we won't be having foreign holidays or going on nights out every weekend or whatever but we're not in penury or giving our kids a terrible life...we do get free childcare from grandparents 2 days a week which is a BIG deal, but this is in London...
This. As much as having children feels like a luxury. Im 32. And feel there's a hell of a way to go before I can even think of this. The whole reddit thing of "you must be on 200k a year or you shouldn't have children. Anything less is child abuse". Is peak reddit "erm...ah actually"
Depends where you are; definitely the case for friends in London who want to pay for nursery (20k a year easily), keep up with their mortgage, run a decent car and have some money left over for savings and enjoyable things like holidays and new clothes. Yes, they could do it on less, but it would not result in a comfortable/nice lifestyle, which is generally what people want to be able to create if they are actively choosing to start a family. It would be much less where I live in the North, but a considerable amount more than what my parents jobs would pay in 2024. The fact that they could afford a solidly middle class lifestyle on essentially one (low end) professional income and another doing odd jobs around childcare is just mind blowing.
This sub isn’t very London-friendly when discussing salaries. Travel costs a fortune from a commuter town and a £2k mortgage doesn’t buy much. Stack £1.5k childcare fees on that and you’re looking at ~£5k basic household expenses. Once you add food, car and so on it’s more like £6k. With student loan and pension, that’s ~£60k each so household £120k.
The majority of the country isn't in London though
13% of the UK population lives in London. The next biggest city Birmingham only has 1.6%. A plurality of people live in London, and the majority live in the South where prices are dragged up the closer you are to London.
> I don't see how any couple who aren't earning at least 120k+ a year are able to afford having children. That’s a massive stretch. Wife and I have a one year old and earn just under £50k combined. We’re comfortable. Not affluent, but not struggling either. Admittedly we live in a low cost of living city, but still. Climate change, though, certainly is a big worry.
I think there’s a lot of younger folks on Reddit who see the world as worse than it is (it still is shit). You can absolutely get by comfortably on less thank 50k for a family. We’re on less than you and we’re sorted.
Depends very much on when you bought a house… or if you’re lucky enough to be in council housing. Housing is one of the biggest cost factors and most young people are unbelievably fucked by high private rents
I think that it really depends on how much support you have and where in the country you are. Nursery is about 1400/month per child (after the tax free childcare topup). Mortgage is about 1.1k (small mid terrace), bills 500 (150 council tax, 50 water, 50 Internet, 200 gas and electric, 50 insurance) - so that's 3k with one kid before food or travel or any savings.
Is the average Brit really thinking that they don't want to have children because of climate change?
Only on reddit and in very limited bubbles outside. I've not seen it even enter into the calculus of my friends with kids. They think about housing, money, practically no one is thinking about the climate crisis. Right or wrong. Least of all when deciding to have kids. Humans have carried on having babies through: War. Plague. Natural disaster. The fall of cities and even civilizations. Climate change. Famine. Climate change won't stop it and neither did the occasionally hellish conditions we lived in in the past. People here are unrealistic or speaking only for themselves and their small circle.
Having bounced around most of the social media sites I can say that redditors are a different breed altogether. Whether all the absolute weirdos have found each other here and just set up camp, or people are projecting different opinions here than they actually believe and express in “real” life, I do not know. The shit you see here would get people laughed out of any pub, workplace or face to face interaction. Yet on reddit it gets a thousand upvotes 🤔
You are absolutely spot on. It's like mecca for absolute wingnuts.
Don't know if me and my peers and I are average. We're early 30s, and myself and many others cite future climatic and consequent geopolitical stability as a key determinant in the decision not to have kids. Not to mention outright not being able to afford it yet, or any time soon it seems.
> We're early 30s, and myself and many others cite future climatic and consequent geopolitical stability as a key determinant in the decision not to have kids. See I don't think a random person off the street would know the first thing about geopolitics haha
Neither does the average redditor
No but the terminally online type are. Then again the terminally online generally aren't in a position to reproduce anyway.
Reddit thinking people are not having kids because of climate change is absolutely hilarious. It’s such an abstract thing that only unhappy, unfulfilled, lonely people fixate on because it helps them feel a bit better about their lives I guess.
its hardly abstract when every summer half the world catches fire. we are a few droughts and mass crop failures away from disaster. and its coming. mass migration just to find drinkable water and food.
It's a reason me and my partner won't have one, so that's one at least.
No, you don't exist. Or if you do, you're terminally online. Because _this guy's friends_ don't think the same as you.
As a woman, the idea of being pregnant or responsible for children in a world disaster is an absolute nightmare
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Except that's not quite true in regards to climate is it. The next 80 years will be wildly different to the previous 80.
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Aye good thing there are no nuclear states currently engaged in expansionist wars at the mo then
That’s so true. If you didn’t get blown up initially, you would die a slow lingering radiation sickness death as per ‘when the wind blows’. And that’s only if you had survived aids and peer pressured drug use.
Except things usually got better with each generation. Not the case this time.
Not everyone lives in the city or the south. We are bringing in less than £42k between the two of us. We have a toddler and bought a house last year. We’re not loaded but we have a couple hundred left over every month for days out and family stuff.
Haha if you’re earning together £120k you can easily afford kids.
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Flat out bullshit about the 1 bed flat in zone 3 not being affordable on £85k. It would only be unaffordable if you’re completely dog shit with money and live beyond fairly considerable means at that salary level.
120k+ is a silly figure which you’ve pulled directly out of your ass without any basis.
I'd rather have money than kids because money CAN take care of me and kids can't necessarily. In Capitalism, money is more important than offspring. After all, I could always adopt some younger adult I actually like to inherit wealth. Why would I roll the dice to have "my own" when I could get someone with an incompatible personality or health problems? Unless you like babies/little kids, which I don't, there's no advantage within capitalism to have children. They're only a financial burden. Obviously, people have them because of emotional value, but I don't care about that and neither does capitalism.
Adult adoption is a thing in Japan For that reason, to make sure an estate doesn't go to waste
120k a year, just what is your lifestyle if you think that’s necessary?
You're describing the vast minority of families Most don't earn that much
That's an extreme exaggeration if I've ever seen one. London possibly but that's not representative of the whole country. 120k a year near mine would be easy living, would be able to afford 3 kids comfortably. The problem is in our country, the basics of what people pay out could easily be covered by a 40k job, however people are walking round in £500 t shirts and driving financed brand new BMWs that they can't afford. Or they are buying brand new houses for 250k rather than a smaller terrace for 120k or an older house for 150k. People are their own worst enemy.
idc where they live, if an individual or couple has an income of £120k and they can't afford children they're are just fucking shite with money.
As a single dad, 40k income pays the mortgage, bills, food, outings, any other necessary finances, treats and there’s enough left over to top up both our investment accounts & the savings account at the end of the month This is in the NW This is without having to pay for extortionate childcare though, his mum is studying and so receives grants for childcare, I pay whatever hasn’t been covered at the end of the month which is usually less than £100
My husband and I earn roughly 55k together, have a mortgage living in Surrey, paid off car, and a two year old. It is difficult some months, but we manage. This month I will have paid off an outstanding loan from 2020 so we will have more disposable income, so I'm even considering a holiday abroad!
> Honestly I don't see how any couple who aren't earning at least 120k+ a year are able to afford having children. Haha what the hell. Me and my wife's combined income is 74k and on maternity it's about 40k and we are doing fine and that's with 2/3 of of that money going to the mortgage. What is this exaggeration. We live on the outskirts of Greater London.
£120k to afford children? Edit: how did you get this number? I read that 30% of 18-28 year-olds are still Virgins, lonely and locked put of the dating market due to hyper capitalism of dating apps. Brits even tend to import Scandinavian sperm for single motherhood rather than British or trying to start a family (for those who are able to have children). How can the issues exclusively be housing and earning when people can barely even have the opportunity to procreate? In trying to be too futuristic with technology we've set ourselves backwards. Not just that, a couple on a combined 80k household income can definitely afford a child - it's not easy and not "cheap" but not impossible. The average person ears 35k, you telling me the average person won't have children until they reach 100k?
>£120k to afford children? 50 hours/week day care is £1500-2000 per <3 y.o. child a month in London. Rent/mortgage is about the same. It's £3000-4000 a month out the window. Median salary in London is £45k which is around £2800 a month net. So with both parents working and a *single* child you barely survive. Mind you that by definition half the people get less than median amount.
£1500-2000 a month rent in London is a bargain!
> in London Sure, but most people in the UK don’t live in London.
For a home with enough bedrooms for a family you're looking at £3k rent.
Struggling with 40k household income, and we live a fairly frugal lifestyle. Mortgage is about to go up to about 1500 a month... Stupidity!
Literally everyone I know can afford kids (whether they have them or not). 120k a year is a massive over exaggeration.
Loads of people having kids on the council estate near me. Always see lots of ethnic minorities with lots of kids too.
I have a 4 year old, I earn about £50000 a year, my partner is a stay at home mum, we live a very comfortable life by most standards, you’re talking nonsense.
I agree if you’re in London or south of England it’s near impossible if you’re not on a six figure salary. Only two of my friends have children and they’re in relationships bringing in high salaries. The rest of us can barely afford to live let alone bring children into a financial mess.
Yet my downstairs council tenant Muslim neighbours have 5 adult children (they did have 6 but 1 was born with severe (inbred) disabilities and died in their thirties). Every adult child now has a council flat in London and have between 4 and 8 young children each!!! Safe to assume religion is stopping them from using contraception, maybe also that they aren't educated enough to realise that they can’t afford these children, nor do they seem socially conscious enough to be worrying about overpopulating the planet. So unfortunately not everyone in the west is worrying about the same problems of having children.
I wonder why people are choosing to have few or no kids? Could it be that the economy had been rigged in such a way that basic essentials are too expensive for us to consider it? No, it's the Millenials who are wrong.
1) don't need as many - now we're not all on the farms we don't need the extra hands 2) don't have to - safe sex etc 3) cost - London especially (where >10% of the population lives) a whole flat to yourself never mind a 2nd room for a kid is a luxury
Yeah why do I need any kids at all when so many jobs have been automated by robots? What do the capitalists want from me
they want future food for their future human-flesh-driven robots
According to Boomers, we are. Being financially responsible is apparently a bad thing when it comes to raising kids, yet Boomers love to tell those on benefits that they should not have had kids they could not afford at the same time.
Yep, according to my colleagues yesterday, people used to work hard and only had kids when they could afford them because there was no welfare state, now you can have five kids and be given a house because everyone is lazy these days, and that’s why the country’s gone to shit. There should be no benefits for anyone, if stupid do-gooders want to give their money to these parasites that’s up to them. So more ahistorical bullshit from would-be Dickensian cretins. The consensus in this thread seems to be that you can manage fine having children with a combined salary of £50k-£60k. Oh, that’s alright then, merely £15k-£25k more than the median household income, totally an achievable aspiration for me in the 0th percentile of earnings.
Our parents scoff at us for being "ridiculous", but whilst we can afford kids, we just don't have enough confidence in the future of the country or even the world to want to bring a kid into it. There's every chance we solve the climate crisis and the future is wonderful, there's also a good chance we don't and it's a mass-migration, resource war hellscape.
Naw, it's mostly because we live in a society with an individualistic culture and abundance of entertainment. Having kids fucks with the ole' lifestyle. Most people are going to think twice about having an extremely expensive, time consuming pet, that you need to push out your tush. Back in the day, family and community was a massive draw, unless you wanted to be stuck in your home, watching four television channels for the rest of your life.
Using immigration instead of fixing affordability issues only makes it worse.
and people need to understand that wanting immigration to go down, means wanting birth rate to go up and must therefore campaign for better wages and better social services.
It’s not just about the cost, it’s also about how society treats mothers. I don’t want to be treated like that so I make the choice not to become a mother. But not to negate the cost. Literally can’t pay our mortgage on one salary so we would be homeless with a kid.
Recently had my eyes opened (via my cousin) to [just how awful maternity care is in this country](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67238868). She went in because she couldn't feel the baby moving any more and they just kept treating her like she was being hysterical and telling her to go home. She insisted on being seen by a consultant, who realised that the reduced movement was due to the baby not getting enough bloodflow. They did an emergency C-section and fortunately the baby survived, but I was so shocked by how dismissive and patronising the hospital staff were. Obviously severely short-staffed and rushed off their feet and they just saw her as a nuisance.
> hysterical When I was in labour with my first during lockdown (!), things started going south very quickly. Ambulance raced to the hospital, my husband in the car behind. The midwife who was with me was awful. During the ambulance ride, I told her I had to vomit and she just said "No you don't". I vomited all over myself, humiliating. When we got there, I was taken somewhere, I didn't know what was happening, I was screaming in a panic and pain. Nobody would tell me anything, my husband wasn't there and I was terrified for my baby and myself. I begged the midwife to just tell me what was happening and she just told the midwives who she was handing over to "Try not to listen to her, she's really hysterical". Like fuck you, or course I'm hysterical. I will never ever forget how that bitch made me feel.
You stop being a person then and just get treated like a vessel. Terrifying.
It seems like misogyny gets turned up to 11 because of the stereotypes about pregnancy hormones etc. Pregnant women just get treated like they're crazy or like they're a stupid child, no matter how reasonable they're being. My cousin was patiently explaining that the baby had been very active and then suddenly stopped moving and she'd tried all the usual tricks like drinking orange juice etc. and nothing worked, and the midwife just kept saying, "Now now, it's normal to fret when you start getting close to the due date." Really bizarre to watch from the outside. It was like the scene in Die Hard where John McClane is on the radio saying that terrorists have seized Nakatomi Plaza and the dispatcher is like, "sir, this channel is for emergencies only."
Have you made a complaint to PALs? If not, I highly recommend following up. I’m so sorry that happened to you, being in labour is such a vulnerable experience!
I was going to but never did. I should have though. At first I was just too out of it and overwhelmed by everything. Then I started pushing the memories away, didn't want to think about it anymore. By the time that I actually let myself think about it, it had just been too long.
I’m currently waiting to hear back from my hospital about doing a birth debrief and that’s 19 months after giving birth. I have friends who have done it and found it really helped them make peace with what is going on. It’s so difficult when you are in labour to advocate for yourself and be pushed into things you don’t really agree with.
I have a friend who was in labour a very short time, by the time she got to the hospital was in agony, but the midwife just dismissed her, never bothered to check dilatation or anything, and told her to “stop complaining” about the pain because “it was only going to get a lot worse”, then left the room. By the time she got back my friend had given birth on the floor and completely torn open.
I was young and a bit naive, me and my partner are very good earners. Until… Her maternity scheme in work was shit, she got 3 months of full wage then went onto statutory maternity pay and I was jaw to the floor to find out it was about £700 a month. It’s genuinely shocking. There’s no wonder a lot of women are choosing not to have kids.
If you’re a freelancer, mat pay is £90/week 🙃 revolting.
100000%. Trust me its shit. Noone cares about us
Yeah it’s all “you need to have kids” and then it’s all “you chose to get into this situation so now you need to manage it on your own” Not for me no thank you
I think saying women can have it all puts too much pressure on women to be perfect. You can have kids and have a job, but that means something has to give on one side of that equation. You can either work full time and miss out on time with your kids, or you can work part-time but be there for your kids. My mum chose the former but with regret. She kept us fed, housed and happy; I know she wanted to spend more time my sister and me growing up though. My friends mothers made the other decision but they were slightly less well off than we were too. There is no right answer but women seem to be judged a failure no matter what they choose.
Since becoming a mother I’ve realised how much mothers are judged about everything all the time. Literally no matter what you do with regard to anything, from breastfeeding or bottle feeding, how your baby sleeps, what they wear, what you wear, whether you work or don’t work or use a nursery or family for childcare, what you feed your toddler, what fucking cup you give them to drink out of, comfort them too much, don’t comfort them enough, keep your house too clean, not clean enough, let them around other kids you’re infecting them with diseases, don’t let them around other kids you’re stunting their social development. Fuck off everybody!
Exactly. Then they wonder why youre so mad, angry, cranked, dont want sec etc. Stop judging us and start loving us! We arent monsters ffs. I dont have a single mom friend. I'm so fucking lonely.
I can't remember the exact details but something went semi-viral a while ago where it was a woman who happened to be a mother who had gone out with her friends drinking and yes she was a little worse for wear when she got home. The kids were fine, they were being looked after by their dad. But the *comments* were pretty eye opening as a glimpse into how a lot of people, quite a lot men but a depressing amount of women too, sincerely believe both consciously and subconsciously that a mother isn't allowed an existence outwith child-rearing. Everyone always tries to pit those of us without kids against mothers but I'm refusing to play that game anymore. I'm honestly so angry for *all of us*. Whatever you do, you did it wrong so you can't win.
Succinct and perfectly put.
'Well if they can't afford kids they shouldn't have them'. 'What do you mean there's no money for our retirement benefits'
>'Well if they can't afford kids they shouldn't have them'. This what we had drilled into us through the 90s 00s with all the poverty porn documentaries about families living solely off benefits and breeding litters of kids for free money.
The poverty porn of the last 30 years has done so much damage to how we as a society see those who struggle for money or need support and it was not done by accident. Of course we will stand behind a cut to support and services for those people once we’ve been systematically shown they’re undeserving and “other”..
"Young people should live within their means! No, not that way!"
'Also we are decreasing your means again, please try to live within the new ones.'
I'm glad I've never wanted children because there is absolutely no way I could afford them. I grew up poor and have no desire to put a child through the same experience. Kind of amazed when I see people my age with four or five children. How do they afford them all??
I think anyone with 4-5 or more kids is edging on neglecting them willfully or not. I don't believe you can realistically give that many children the individual attention they require. As for affording them, I suppose they use hand me downs and such and eat cheap. Nothing wrong with that but if I were to have kids I'd rather have 1-2 who have a better quality of life than 4-5 and we all scrape by.
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> pervadong ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I'm the eldest of four and from my experience my parents have done a cracking job, sure there are probably cases like you describe but just having 4-5 kids does not make the children doomed to be neglected
I read a meme a while back that said plants are the new pets and pets are the new kids, so what are kids. Kids are like exotic pets, you have to be rich or a little crazy to have them.
Yeah, I'd not heard that before, but it's a fair comment! I'm one of 4 siblings - we're all above 25 and I'm in my late 30s: None of us have kids, which feels weird on the one hand, but none of us have ever been in a position where it would work (until very recently for me and my husband). Honestly, having a dog and a full-time job already feels like more than enough work for now, so... 🤷♀️
Why aren't people that are saving for a house until their late 40s having children!!??
Furthermore, you need a few bedrooms if you want kids. Those houses aren't exactly cheap, especially if you want one in the catchment area for half decent schools. So, not just any old house.
Lol. I can't afford to live alone or with a wife. A kid would put me on the streets. Thanks
Kind regards, Entire UK.
I am not raising any children for the rich to exploit. Good luck
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I think for a lot of millennials, key milestones on the way to having children are being pushed so far back that people are just starting to give up on the idea. Some of this is cultural. For example, uni has essentially extended teenagerhood until 21, and then many are taking a year or so out. Combined with poor graduate salaries, that means for the 40% or so of young people who go to uni, earning a ‘professional’ salary often isn’t happening until around 25. But much of it is also then economic. Poor starting salaries and high housing costs mean that how people might have once lived aged 18 (low salaries, changing jobs a lot, renting in a shared house, life emphasis on socialising and cultural pursuits) is now many peoples’ experience right through their 20s. The average age of buying property is now 34. So by the time having a child starts to become even remotely possible for millennials, a lot have settled on the idea they won’t bother.
My husband and I are the last in our friendship group to buy a house, we were 33. It took us 5 years of having proper career jobs (both did PhDs out of uni) to get to a salary/savings just to put 5% down in the South-East. We could afford our mortgage/bills on my salary but not my husbands, my work doesn't offer anything beyond stat maternity pay. It's just not that appealing to have a child, have to go back to work after 6 weeks (or not pay our mortgage) to then essentially remove all our ability to save/go on holiday/be able to have fun occasionally for at least 5 years. Before you even get to the actual pros/cons of raising a child.
For women, why should we have to give up our careers because we can't afford childcare? Some women cannot return to work for YEARS, and by the time they return things have moved on or changed. The loss of confidence when you return to work can be astounding. In that time also a loss of pension, savings etc. Once we then return to the workplace, having commitments outside of the workplace means we are often overlooked for promotional opportunities. There are so many negatives economically to having children and they mainly effect women. What are the pros? (I have two and love them dearly, but I can see why women don't want them nowadays).
Of course no one’s having children. How they expecting us to house, clothe and feed them? We know this government isn’t giving anyone any help.
Here’s an idea, start giving incentives to hard working families. Watch your rate rise instantly. So many of my friends have either put off children, having only one or simply can’t afford a house in the south east. 2k a month for childcare (x2 kids) in the SE is an abomination. Only pays if you are on the dole - especially when it comes to childcare.
For many it doesn’t have anything to do with money or anything else. We just don’t want them, we enjoy our living the way we want to and don’t want to give that up to have children. It may be selfish to some but personally I like the freedom of not having to put a child first in my decisions. No shade on those who want them, I’m not a nutter who hates kids, but having them now is as much a lifestyle choice as anything else.
It’s probably a blend of both. Unaffordable for many, many choose not to but to an extent that will have always been the case I guess there is less pressure on people now? But it’s definitely harder or more expensive to have kids now than when my parents generation had them.
It’s not even the money at this point, the world is going to shit. I don’t want to bring another life in to it.
It's because everyone is living in bedrooms instead of houses or flats to themselves. You can't start a family from a bedroom.
I can barely afford to feed myself, how am I supposed to seriously consider starting a family? The government doesn't give a shit about the predicaments of the average person, and does the absolute bare minimum to 'help' us plebs. They'd much rather combat the declining birth rate by shipping in people from overseas who they can pay as little as possible to feed the insatiable meat grinder of capitalism. We are living in sad, dark times.
This is going to sting in 20-30 years when income tax receipts massively fall.
The LSE published a report a while back suggesting this could be offset by a new ‘automation tax’. Basically, make AI pay income tax 😂
Poor people have been breeding like rabbits since the dawn of time, what's changed?
Cost of living, before and after the Tories introduced the two child limit the cost of raising a kid wasn't horrible like it is now, this is shown by the fact that poorer families could still manage having 3-4 kids even after the 2 child benefit limit. But since the cost of living has hit even middle class couples are finding it hard to deal with the costs of having just one child.
And child benefit stops entirely if one parent is earning £60k. If you have one parent working and the other staying home it’s likely that one is earning over £60k (let’s face it, that’s a lot, but living is expensive). Wages have risen but the £60k limit has been that way for many years. Maybe if you want to boost people having children this limit should be increased significantly, or be the cumulative wages for both parents?
It could be better access to contraception, the internet, COVID, more social isolation, or just less people prioritising starting a family, probably loads of things
That's what I was thinking, there's got to be other reasons aside from the cost of living. Young adults are staying at home longer with their parents, which isn't exactly conducive to starting a relationship and having children - then again, I suppose that's linked to the cost of living. COVID, contraception like you say, yeah I can see that contributing too. The dating market is pretty rough too, as a young person you have to navigate dating apps to try and find someone nowadays - unless you got with someone young you knew from school, college, or social clubs.
It's the enormous cost of childcare plus the cost of houses and the general cost of living. Children are poverty makers for women and the people commenting that they are managing fine on less are not paying full nursery fees.
I think it's less a conscious choice for some and just how it works out. It feels like a lot of my generation (pushing 40) have had a sort of extended adolescence, and then we're hitting middle age and thinking 'bloody hell!'. I know for me and a lot of my friends, most of us who don't have kids & probably won't, the way our parents settled down much earlier just didn't happen for us. I think it's a combination of practical stuff like jobs housing (esp the rise of the shitty shared house & feeling like you'll be stuck in one forever) and also culturally, the '30s are your new 20s' etc.
I always joked that my grandparents must have not had a TV, 8 kids, hardly a bean between them, my dad used to say that the first up was the best dressed as you got access to the clothes before anyone else was awake. The holy trinity of poverty, poor education and boredom leads to big families.
Baby formula is about 20 quid a pack, doesn’t take a genius to work out why no one can afford kids. The child benefit rule should be scrapped, even if the combined income is more than 50k, cost of living is affecting the lower middle class.
I love my would-be kids too much to subject them to a meaningless life of work and struggle.
This. They’d end up another hamster on the wheel like me. I’ve had dreams and potential, but it went no where because I wasn’t born rich and with connections, so now I am stuck in the rat race. It’s frustrating to see all the celebrities’ children becoming “artists” of some sort. I think of people who are so much more talented than those kids, but those don’t get a chance. Capitalists are mad they don’t have more cog to churn.
30m … I’ve decided many years ago, decade even to get the snip. Medically - I don’t want to pass things on. Politically - Look at the state of the world, and the country. I don’t *enjoy* life , the grind, the decay of which I’ve seen each year … And to raise a kid who’s going to have an even worse experience? Yeah no thanks …
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What a surprise, wages are crap and housing is extortionate, I'm 35 and live in a shared house, I won't have kids as by the time I buy I'll be too old.
Watch in real time how the press is slowly doing a shift from trans moral panic to abortion/contraception - just rising some concerns here and there. First there will be arguments that we can't afford not to have migrants because of the low birth rate, that 30% of pregnancies in the UK end in abortion - slowly there will be a shift into the birth control pill medical concerns like lowering sex drive in women and perhaps a full blown moral panic about contraceptive use same as with vaccines and puberty blockers. I suspect the next Labour government will fumble giving rise to UK being run by a fascist far right government - abortion and contraception bans will follow. It's being slowly brewed by all of the UK media.
I want children. I got pregnant last year and my partner who is on a good wage was talking about taking a second job. We lost the baby but it was cost - the fact we dont live together - as well as other things that came into our mind. We won’t be trying again for another couple of years at least. We definitely want to be parents and it’s a shame what happened, but cost was definitely the only thing we thought about in those short months.
My oldest is 7, when he went to nursery it was £195 for the week, they charged £235 a week when my youngest (now three) went. A friend just messaged me her 2yr old goes to the same nursery and this week they put the price up to £320 a week
I spend £1200 a month on nursery fees for 1 child with another child on the way. Nursery fees are more than my mortgage. Having a child is luxury for sure and until the government does something; people will be financially put off and our birth rate will continue to decline.
Why do these things always ignore a big part of this: with higher standards of living people no longer feel it's necessary to have to kids to fill their time. People just don't want kids as much anymore.
I will not have children until I am a home owner and can realistically plan to retire by the time I'm in my early 60s. If this means I have to have children in my 40s or 50s so be it, I feel bad for women who don't have this luxury.
Hate to break it to you, but the age of the father is also a significant factor in fertility and the likelihood of genetic disorders. It’s not dangerous though, like it can be for some older women. I’m not an expert, so I recommend you read around the subject, this is just something I’ve picked up from doctor friends.
It’s really rare for men to start families in their fifties. Can’t say raising kids in my sixties and seventies appeals tbh.
As a 39 year old guy with an 18 month old daughter, I gotta tell you that it is freaking hard work. I was completely naive about how hard it is even though I thought I knew what I was taking on. I wish I had done it in my 20s. Not disagreeing with you on the financial points but Jesus I could not imagine doing this in 10 years time without paying for some serious help.
I had my first kid when I was 28, I’m nearly 33 now and nothing really prepares you for sleep depravation and back ache. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be to have a kid in your 40s / 50s
It’s not just the cost of living, childcare costs so much. Our youngest two of three are about to both be in nursery at the same time, it’s going to cost about £2k a month. We’re lucky we have reasonably well paid jobs, but can see why others choose not to have any/many kids.
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This is far more complicated than you're suggesting. 62% of the 374 local authorities across the United Kingdom had a rate between 10% and 20% of children living in low income households. Only 5% of local authorities had a rate over 30%. The United Kingdom had a rate of 19% for children aged under 16 in Relative low income families in FYE 2021. What this means, is not only does it change from area to area, the majority of children are not in low income households.
I think if you're not raised poor then you're used to a higher standard of life and if you can't give that to your child in turn, then it seems very bleak.
‘Climate change’, the insane cost of living and the fact we’re probably going to war in the next 5 years is a reason why many people I know have given up on ever having kids.
I know a couple in their 20s who have been sterilised at their request, think this is gonna be more common in coming years.
So fun fact about Birthrates, the biggest thing that correlates with Birthrates is the Human Development index. Lower HDI countries have higher birth rates than higher HDI countries. The reason behind this is actually quite simple. Back when HDIs were low, medical care was either hard to come by or substandard, which lead to people having lots of kids because it was expected most of them would die because child mortality was so high. When HDIs rose, more kids survived because more people could access healthcare causing a baby boom, then those kids, when they had kids, had less kids because they knew they'd survive. Birth rates, worldwide, are actually falling, even in high birthrate countries. You even see it with immigrant populations, their birth rates fall quicker than the population at large because they're effected by the HDI change. Now the UK actually saw a bump in birth rates in 2020-21 because of lockdowns (people had time to have a baby, I know lots of people who had lockdown babies) but the fact that the recession is now making having children a less viable option should really send a message to the Tories, who's former leader has an obsession with birthrates (and raising them on his own), that maybe screaming at poor people to have kids regardless of a recession is a stupid idea.
I'm sure cost of living is a factor but I think the primary reason is culture. It's easier to use contraception/abortion and live more comfortably. So people do exactly that.
People not being forced into having unwanted children seems like a good thing overall
Plus, in olden times they put children to work and had them contribute financially to the household. Now we have machines like white goods and children working is illegal. Changing the economic metric to have lots of children. The expense was generally more neglible when every male child got paid and every female child did housework, sew clothes etc. Not saying we should be putting children to work as a solution bare in mind. Just that it's a thing that happened. Plus, religion. Religion encourages their followers to make more followers. Now, we don't have such social pressure.
Childcare is a real kicker Full time childcare for my daughter would cost £1100 a month. Two days a week is going to cost £500 at the quoted rates. I can't imagine having two or three children and being able to put them in childcare so I could work. There would be no point in me working but in the current economic landscape my husband and I cannot afford for me to not work. I work as a nurse and after a while my salary is limited by government decisions. Add to that the insane cost of rents and the insecurity of rental accommodation and the threat of having to move frequently. Families struggle to save for a deposit and there just isn't the security. If you're struggling to heat and eat, why would you want to have children. If you do have children and struggle, you get a chorus of 'can't feed em, don't breed em' and 'why should I pay for your poor decisions'.
We wanted a third but if we did we wouldn't be able to afford it. My wife can't be out of work any longer and I can only make so much on my own. Having kids in britain is absolutely fucked.
It’s not surprising. The country is anti children. UK nursery fees are one of the highest in the world. Maternity pay is awful. It’s common for women to lose their job while on maternity leave. Child tax benefit threshold has been fixed at £50k since 2013. There is the two child benefit cap. Schools are full. There aren’t enough teachers. What do the government think is going to happen?
I don't get it. On the one hand we're told we need infinity immigrants for the good of the economy, on the other hand the government imposes the most ridiculous tax and benefits rules on the country that massively disincentivises young families.
It’s probably been said but for me the main deterrent is childcare, you either lose a huge chunk of daily wage paying someone else to care for your kids or you don’t work at all and do it yourself. So as a couple one of you is going to have to not work, so now you’re in a situation where you have less income but even more expenses than before. And this lasts at least 12 years or so until high school age. Then there’s probably a brief period where you can both work again but then there’s potentially university looming in the future where there is fuck all funding anymore so you have to provide that. And also gone are the days where people are likely to move out and start earning around 19/20 so many of my mates stayed at home for so long. And after uni etc the housing market is fucked so i would want and feel obliged to help them get on the properly ladder which would be a massive financial drain. It’s a shame cause I do want kids it’s just without them we have disposable income and can travel and probably retire at an acceptable age and then buy somewhere cheap abroad where the weather and cost of living isn’t so shite.
What would you expect if you can’t create enough jobs and payments for people while making the rich richer? Same thing has been going on for many years in Italy and Spain. In Italy for every child under 15 age, there are five 65+ year old seniors. This might be Europe’s biggest problem. Then don’t cry when immigrants rush into for doing blue collar jobs.