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Why Are Birth Rates Falling? The Real Cost of Having Children | Dr Paul Morland | It's All Relative

Eliza Filby

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#birthrate #fertility #populationdecline #demographicshifts #ageing #futureofwork #millennials #genz #parenting #familypolicy #populationgrowth #socialchange #pronatalism

Why Are Birth Rates Falling? The Fertility Crisis, Ageing Populations & The Future of Society

Birth rates are collapsing. Fertility rates are falling. Populations are ageing. And governments around the world are starting to panic.

From the UK and Europe to Japan, South Korea and beyond, fewer people are having children than ever before. But why? Is it the housing crisis? The cost of living? Changing attitudes towards parenthood? Climate anxiety? Feminism? Or are we asking the wrong questions altogether?

In this episode of It's All Relative, I sit down with world-leading demographer Dr Paul Morland, author of No One Left, to explore one of the most important and misunderstood issues shaping our future: demographic decline.

Together we unpack what falling birth rates really mean for economies, welfare systems, pensions, healthcare, housing, work and the future of generations to come.

In this episode, we discuss:
00:00 Intro
03:02 Pronatalism And Politics
03:21 Meet Dr Paul Morland
04:25 Replacement Level Explained
05:11 From Baby Boom To Bust
07:34 Asia’s Rapid Fertility Crash
10:41 Africa’s Uneven Transition
12:53 When Demographics Hits Home
14:43 Do Individuals Owe Society Kids
16:35 Why Fertility Fell Since 1970s
19:50 Fertility Education And Timing
23:21 Who Gets To Lead This Debate
23:58 Family Plans Austria
24:48 Climate Antinatalism Debate
27:42 Friends Fear Future
28:33 Assisted Dying Values
29:48 Retirement Age Limits
33:08 AI Won't Save Labor
34:36 Kids Too Expensive
37:57 Policy Fixes Culture
41:18 Pronatalism Feminism Clash
45:01 Open Dialogue Wrap

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20 Comments

@hydraxisfrimon9785 3 months ago

The talk of children is as future tax payers but if there are no jobs for them to earn wages, how does this figure?

@STEOKEO 3 months ago

Im 41......most of my gang of pals cant afford a house (Ireland). Accountants, Lawyers and Digital marketers. Not a house between us. No weddings, no christenings.

@shiny7301 3 months ago (edited)

"The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor. Voltaire, 18th Century". A newborn baby means a potential slave for the elites, riches and also new source of taxes for the governments managed by greedy politicians.

@RogerMullan 3 months ago

Housing is not affordable
Work is not stable
Salaries are low
The cost of living is very high

Under these conditions it is surprising that we have as many people having children as we do

@Chocolatmisu 2 months ago (edited)

One of the reasons I don't have children is that I don't want to feed the system with more human flesh at the cost of my time, my mental health and my body health. I am not the kind of human that likes talking care of others so I have not other choice than to reject the role of a mother to feed a system that likes mostly psychopaths, sociopaths and generally speaking, neurotypical genetics.

@WrenLeatherfoot 3 months ago

Its financial... but its also cultural... not only can we not afford anything, but we are over worked and over stressed.
Why would I want to bring a child into a social position of grinding for scraps?

@bingbonus9636 3 months ago

43 here, and i would not bestow this work eat sleep repeat life onto anyone. That is what life has become: work, get more money because even the basics are expensive, pay more taxes, work more hours, get more money, pay more taxes and yet... you need to work more because a persons value is measured by a companies KPI.
So would i, in my right mind, put another life on this planet, knowing in advance that it's sole education/function it will receive in his life will be the same horrifying cumbersome overtaxed, overworked sh!tshow as ours is? NO. Feed someone else's soul to this horrifying machine called society, not my offspring.

@dread14 3 months ago

This is a wealth inequality problem as well as states selling their assests

@heronimousbrapson863 3 months ago

It appears that modern technology-based industrial society is not conducive to child bearing and rearing.

@heyou1 3 months ago

If a system requires cruelty and doesn’t support its growth, then it should cease.

@dread14 3 months ago

Income is not the same as affordability

@ozzycortes 3 months ago

Having Children is not for everyone.

@ZXRR8 3 months ago (edited)

The human animal doesn't recognise the environmental conditions as being conducive to reproduce. I feel it, many others feel it, everybody is feeling it on a deep instinctive level - the environment is not good enough and worsening so our offspring cannot survive and reproduce.

@jackdraper7812 3 months ago

Mate, you don’t need to educate people on having kids earlier. Who in their right mind would want to have children when they can’t even afford their own house. Children need stability and security which can’t be provided if young people are told their jobs aren’t secure, child care is extortionate and the support systems are being stripped away. Young people don’t exist to pay for old people’s pensions.

@kristianlavigne8270 3 months ago

This neoliberal capitalist world is anti-human. It’s works for the 1% with lots of capital while the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves fighting over the scraps from the table… 😢

@fredblogs6704 3 months ago

What sane person would want to bring a child into this dystopian world

@MorbidGroove 3 months ago

Its more of a competition on how to make your nations suffer the most and get away with it.

@gaimansdaughter 3 months ago

If you work full time in a job that’s considered to be “higher level” and “qualified”, and yet struggle to be able to get life basics like a home of your own, bills covered without stress, and the food on the table without being extremely frugal every month - you are unlikely to consciously get yourself into a pit of a financial disaster by adding a never ending variable expense to the table, such as a baby.

If you rent that’s even worse - if you don’t know if you will be able to afford to stay in your current place next year, let alone 10 or 15, deep inside you understand it would be irresponsible to subject a baby and a child to similar never ending stress and uncertainty - at least if things go south, you will be the only once that suffers the consequences.

And at the moment, you can be doing everything right and it’s still not enough to buy basic security.

Children are already not being born to middle classes and people who don’t have rich parents - most being born now is born either to the richer or family money-backed couples, or to the lowest classes as a mistake or deliberate benefit optimisation strategy.

That will only keep enforcing existing inequality, as baby B is never going to be able to have a comfort of life and sense security of baby A.

@bradnorton9659 3 months ago

The powers to be are just worried they will run out of slave labour for corporate profits,consumers ,tax slaves for gov ,

@ipperz12 2 months ago

The only argument they seem to have against not having children is "But what will happen to our Ponzi-scheme pension system?!?!!!!!!!"
Just slowly transition pension systems from unfunded to funded, and we'll be absolutely fine.