Thank you for watching, you can see more of our work at: ifs.org.uk/ Timecodes: 00:00 - Shrinking countries 0:25 - Introduction 2:28 - What’s happening with birthrates? 7:50 - Inward migration 9:18 - Policy responses 12:58 - Public finance implications 15:58 - Is immigration sustainable? 20:40 - Why are birthrates falling? 25:28 - Costs of an ageing population 32:12 - Working age immigration 37:40 - Bringing people into labour force 39:37 - Retirement age 42:50 - Choice vs constraints 46:38 - Conclusion
It's really not that difficult! What was the situation when today's old people were young? 1. One income could support a whole family. 2. Housing was readily available for young adults in their 20s. 3. Pensioners were poorer and less numerous than today. 4. When people got old, they died and were allowed to die. 5. Young adults and children were the priority of government. Sorry if it's confusing. In sufficiently large numbers, the old crowd out the young.
@@BAmalakas but they were breeding. And now we modern world don't, we are dying letting our culture to disappear. Modern women has got nothing to offer now. Not a single man is impressed by women salary or position. And yeah birth control. Fuck like rabbits with no responsibilities or killing unwanted child... What a valuable women we have nowadays xD
@@bartz4439 women didn't work in Medevil times. A large proportion of women in Africa don't work. A lot of this comes down to the cost, availability and possibility of childcare. Don't forget lots of people work shifts, weekends, bank holidays - for a couple doing this it can be impossible to have childcare as nursery's are only open mon-fri and not bank holidays from 7.30am til around 6pm. Even those times don't work for some parents. If you are able to put children into childcare it'll cost you £600-900 a month for 5 days a week with low limits on free hours and tax relief. Having a second child is financially unviable for a lot of parents. It was for us. We decided to wait 5 years between our children, purely for money reasons - we'd have loved them closer together. We'd have loved more. Couldn't afford it - and both of us in work.
He is bang on, reason people had more children in past times and developing countries is they were largely subsistence farming. Children in subsistence farming families are an economic win because it’s more labour. Now it’s an economic loss. We need to deal with this drastically, revoke the state pension use the money to build housing and infrastructure. If you are against this you want UK enter terminal decline so you can claim free money from the state. Greed doesn’t cover it.
Tired of listening to these people beat around the bush. The core issue at the heart of all of this is wealth distribution. Native Brits are not having children because in their prime reproductive years they cannot afford food and shelter. This is because over the past 50 years the wealth of the nation has been confiscated and concentrated into the hands of the few. Instead of addressing this problem and redistributing it, successive governments have simply chosen to stave off the issue for 1 generation by importing immigrants. They do this because they are controlled by the rich who see people as economic units and countries as economic areas rather than places whose people have a history and heritage. These immigrants will then have the exact same social mobility issues because they themselves will be subject tonthe harsh economic environment they were brought in to prop up. The single best thing people can do is to hasten the necessary wealth redistribution by not working and allowing the whole sham to collapse in on itself. They rely on you working to manage the spending potential of the government via its bond issuance scam. Taxation is for show - they use it to convince bond holders not to sell. If you remove taxation, the bonds will sell off and the economy will collapse because they cannot shake the magic money tree. To solve the problem, simply do not go to work.
I think it would take lots of people to not go to work. But I agree with your assessment of the problem. They will always be able to sell housing to single mothers though: homelessness for single mothers is really an application process that results in a parental furlough scheme. They get a lifetime tenancy and get to use there ex partner as a passive income stream if they take the kids off him. It's brutal for children and fathers. They should call it Public Sector Parenting...
@stevenmackay3342 completely, it is a feature of a 'leech economy' where a safety net is not administered properly, resulting in, well, leeches. The gross earnings they would have to make to pay for the handouts is something we should all stop to consider when evaluating the entire point of working.
Wealth is concentrated among those who own things, and disproportionately that is elderly people. For the first (and likely last) time in human history people who don’t work have more resources than people who can work. Think about the reversal this is from the agricultural society we came from. Japan is our likely future. Even stocks and bonds are losing their value and within a few decades labor will be worth more than assets once more. But it will be strange getting there.
I agree 90 percent but if I don't go to work I'll end up on the streets, so sorry I'm not about to do that. Organised labour going on strike is a better option
Why on earth do we still have a 2 child benefit cap when women are not having enough babies and the population is aging? We should be paying women to have more and make housing and childcare a lot cheaper.
@@SGIQ7 We need those in stable relationships, who are emotionally and financially stable, with skills and qualifications having children not the long term unemployed having children by multiple partners.
Did you not listen to the lady? She said Hungary offers lots of financial incentives for having multiple children, it doesn't work. We also don't want financially unstable parents on benefits, having more children. Children growing up in that environment are likely to be reliant on the state even as adults.
I've just come back from 7 1/2 months in Nigeria. This was my 9th trip there for work and I've spent more than 2 years there in the past 5 years. I don't think people in the UK (or other developed countries) really understand just how bad things are in places like Nigeria. No one alive in the UK was around when people were being kicked off farms and went and lived in slums hoping to get a job in the nascent factories. There was somewhere between 2 and 3 generations from the late 18th to the middle of the 19th centuries where many people went hungry and we were "lucky" that so many children died or there would have been even more adults without jobs. Added to that the UK and much of Europe was involved in wars every decade or so. China alone has more manufacturing capacity than the world needs so countries such as Nigeria cannot hope to compete. This means that people leaving farms (often with very low levels of education) have little chance of finding meaningful work. And Nigeria cannot feed itself with a very inefficient agricultural sector (essentially you would need to modernise the agricultural sector by mechanisation and vast reductions in inefficient labour). Every wealthy country has largely mechanised agriculture which allows people to do more productive things - except there aren't more productive things to do. If women have 6 children then that is 4 more mouths to feed and educate with the same money as having 2 children. On a positive note in the country with the worst child mortality in the world (which is in sub-Saharan Africa) the rate is about the same as the England in the early 1920's. This means that far more children become adults. The median age in Nigeria is 18, in Niger it is 14. There are no jobs. Essentially, much of sub-Saharan Africa is on a fast track to collapse. And that collapse will result in 10s of millions of refugees heading to Europe.The future is bleak.
If you always totally discount all work that isn't remunerated then this is where you end up. You've optimised for "monetised" GDP.. and ignored and unvalued unpaid work. Like parents caring for children, caring for elderly parents etc. If you want to sort this out, you need to begin including the value of unpaid caring into GDP, otherwise the laser focus on "growth" will render having children to the dustbin of history. Right now government values child rearing at best as £25/week.. for a 24/7 activity that's less than 15pence per hour. You get what you pay for and our Governments simply don't value children.
Indeed. GDP figures impute rent on owner occupier houses but not on unpaid labour. If I fix my neighbours leaking tap and charge him £50 for labour and if my neighbour fixes my leaking and charges me £50 for labour those financial transactions count towards GDP. If I fix my own tap and my neighbour fixes his tap then there is no labour charge and no increase in GDP but exactly the same amount of labour has been expended and the net result in terms of fixed taps is the same. Exactly the same nonsense goes on with paid child minding being deemed economically beneficial while unpaid child minding is not. In reality even the government tacitly admits that looking after infants is real work by granting NIC credits to those who do it.
These deaths of despair are linked to our neo liberal/selfish capitalist financial system for the most part. It is the economic system that needs to change with fairer wealth distribution, higher wages, secure permanent jobs for all etc. This is the answer I believe.
Yes definately, I think the essentials of life have been made too expensive, and along with economic insecurity, this has created a situation where it is too risky and/or undesirable for people to have children. Even animals in the zoo won't procreate if they're held captive, as many people are nowadays by the way the economy is setup.
❤ it, another ill in our society is our media’s veneration of billionaires who seem to judge respect on how much money someone has made, now go and watch veritasium and everyone will see life’s success is largely based on luck, irrespective of family wealth or education level.
100%. No need for endless hour long podcasts on demographic collapse. It's simple. MONEY. The majority don't have enough. The minority have too much. I wouldn't bring new life into this BS.
Immigration does not work to solve the issue of an ageing population. Canada has had a mindbogoling level of immigration over the past 5 years yet the population has still continued to age to an all time average age age of 41.6 years. Far from solving the issue of ageing, canadas immigration policy has likley exacerbaited it, as it is plausible that this massive boost in immigration has contributed to the further decline of canadas total fertility rate (which is now at an all time low of 1.26!!!) due to its pressure on the housing market and general infrastructure, along with the fact that immigrants who move to canada do not have replacement level birth rates. Besides its direct affect on ageing Canada's immigration policy has had massive social, political and economic ramifications such as the afformentioned steep increase in housing price, lower nation wide average productivity due to libralizing immigration visas to low productivity workers, suppresion of lower skilled wages, and incredibly fast change of the character of many neihgborhoods, towns, and cities against its' inhabitants wills. Western governments NEED to realise that immigration is NOT the solution to ageing populations. If anything, substantial increases in immigration exacerbaites the ageing problem in the long run due to housing and infrastrucutre pressures, creates second order nation wide economic problems, and above anything else is a deeply undemocratic way to address the problem as it is near unniveraly vastly unpopular. the ageging population of western societies will be a critical issue of the next half century, especially hear in the UK; maximizing effort into increasing the birth rate, and adapting our economies to the new reality of older populations is the only way we can have a prosperous future.
The problem is that right-wing people like you oppose all the potential solutions to low birth rates - progressive taxation, more social housing, rent controls, increased parental leave, subsidised child care and fertility treatment, regulation of food and chemical industries, getting people out of their cars etc etc.
Yes agreed HOWEVER, immigration is needed to support the current social welfare model for the ageing population. Longer term would need adjustment for ageing persons to contribute more for their retirement aswell as for healthcare costs.
@@Pirake123 the degree to which immigration helps our current welfare model HEAVILY depends on what kind of immigration we are getting. If we are getting low productivity workers than I would argue that it is a net negative. Low productivity workers in non-essential higher demand sectors are very likely net-negatives for the health of our current social welfare system as they contribute less then they take. (the reason I say most likely is because this conclusion comes from data out of Denmark which analyzed net contribution to public finances. The data showed that workers from low productivity countries (on average) were total net extractors to the state's finances throughout the entirety of their lives. The UK does not have published data on worker produvitiy/place however I believe it is very probable (although not certain) that the same trend would appear.) This only type of low productivity workers that could be positive for the social welfare model are low productivity workers who work in essential sectors with lots of vacancies. However, this is still a net total drain on the state throughout an (average low productivity) workers lifetime because they are still net extractors. This is an immigration strategy the UK has relied on, and I think it has contributed to the worsening of our welfare model as successive governments have continuously had to rely on higher and higher levels of low productivity workers in essential fields resulting in worse national average productivity and thus a worse revenue/spending ratio. If anything, this strategy is a death spiral as the size of the state/social welfare system expands (which it has continually done and is expected to do so) because it will contribute to lower average productivity AND ageing, the true worst of worst doom loop! The Only type of immigration that is positive for our social welfare model is high productivity immigrants, as they will be net positive contributors in their working years. Incidentally, we (sort of had) much more positive immigration outcomes before Brexit as a much higher proportion of immigrants came from higher productivity countries; since we left this cohort of immigrants has been replaced and expanded upon by immigrants from low-prod countries. Therefore, as I expect British immigration patterns to continually come from low-prod countries I argue that our current immigration policy is a net negative on our current social welfare model.
Please could you do an episode discussion Land Value Tax? Every time I hear an economist talk about it they seem to go all moon eyed, wax lyrical about how amazing that would be and what a shame it will never happen, and then move on to something else. Is it really that great and, if so, why haven’t we got one?
It does have a lot of benefits but it definitely would be politically difficult to sell. Not only is home ownership sold as the way for middle class people to escape poverty (when that's at the cost of other people as land is a fixed supply) it's also culturally seen as something you can't mess with. Then there's the richest people who have large property portfolios and land banks who have a lot of political power. I think a good start would be to replace council tax, stamp duty, and business rates with an LVT - it would need to be somewhere around 1% to raise the equivalent amount - Dan Niedle who has featured in some IFS stuff has some good stuff on LVT on his Tax Policy Associates site.
@ thanks, I’ll check that out! I imagine you would actually probably need it higher than 1% since you’d almost certainly want to have exceptions for things like farming and charities like the National Trust. But I would still enjoy a proper discussion on IFS Zooms In :)
@@phueal yeah there's interesting things you could do with exceptions and differing rates, perhaps a higher rate on unused land etc. And if you did it right, you could actually capture the LVT by the increase of neighbouring land values, for example, central park in New York is a big untaxed protected area but it hugely increases the values of the properties around it. Those are all extra details though, the real pure economics of the LVT is just to incentivise efficient land use overall. If you find yourself going down the Georgism rabbit hole fully then Lars Doucet is another person with some good accessible writings on the issue.
It’s harder work looking after children than going to work. This has not been recognised . Whilst you pay presenters exorbitant amount of money and others struggle with time and money why would you have children-it’s an impossible situation
@@kevoreilly6557 UK productivity is second lowest in G8. Reasons are obvious - we spend hundreds of billions on Victorian technology, like HS2, while we have the 56th slowest roll-out of 5G and 26th worst internet speeds.
Live life or buy a house or have kids. You can't have all 3 in a dying Fiat currency system. Where you get incrementally poorer. I grew up in poverty. Its stressful and unpleasant. No thank you.
And does anyone really think that the working people,of the UK will actually meet the state obligations inherent in public sector pensions? No. The productive people and wealthy people will gravitate to those wise nations that do not have such a burden
The wealthy might abandon the country they grew up in, speak the language of and their children are at school in, but the term "productive people" covers an awful lot of income brackets. Also what do you expect the other people will do, who will need public sector pensions later on, but who are presently doing all the grotty little jobs that the wealthy depend on them to do?
Done on purpose. Make houses unaffordable for young adults and they cannot start proper adulthood and consider having their own children. Inward migration is one of the main causes of house price growth.
No our population is not living longer due to austerity/low paid work leading to ill health. Pension age should not be raised in my opinion. Men and women could both retire at age 65 with different choices. A move to taxing wealth rather than work e.g. more tax on those with wealth/assets over £10 million would solve the problems. As mentioned our state pension is much less generous than most of Europe - criminal in my opinion.
When the liberals introduced the state pension in 1908 you had to be 70 yo to claim but people lived much shorter lives coupled with families having more children back then. Things won’t change here. Be happy with what you’ve got or leave. Simple as that.
@@harrydamien6346 and yet buying a house used to be 3 years your yearly salary and now it's 8 or more and if you cant live with ur parents ur extorted in rent
This is an economics focused channel, but the only sustainable solutions to this challenge are cultural. We have to put children back at the centre of adult life, which means accommodating them in their parents' workplaces for a start. Immigration is not any kind of solution because populations are aging in all wealthy countries, and there is a small pool of skilled, trained, potential immigrants. It is a zero-sum competition among rich countries, with negative consequences in the source countries. Those people's home countries need their talents and entrepreneurialism. It is unethical to 'poach' them. And as things stand, the most skilled and talented families have already immigrated, so the quality of immigrants will steadily decline. Diminishing marginal utility again. People are having few children because children decrease your social status (at least until they are grown). Expensive housing, and low wages, the zero-sum child investment race, and people wasting their best years in education are all issues, but the fundamental problem is low social status. If having children was prestigious, housing and labour policies would magically be fixed. Gender relations would also improve as men would want to be seen to be involved with a high status activity. Changing the status of child-raising starts with making children more visible in the lives of non-parents.
Why do we have to encourage childbirth at all? We could just accept that we will, eventually, have a smaller population. This is a good thing. Yes, the transition could be painful, but perhaps we should start planning for that transition instead of asking for the clearly impossible.
Pro natalist policies increasing the birth rate by 0.2 or 0.3 children per woman could make all the difference to the financial viability of a society. Dismissing spending 5% of gdp on this as unaffordable seems stunningly short-sighted and complacent.
In the long run falling fertility rates are a good thing … the world’s major problem is too many people. The transition will be hugely painful (economically, socially etc.) but perhaps we should all embrace it as a good thing for humanity in th long run. Whatever the causes (better education, cost of housing, cost of raising children etc. etc.) we should work out how to make things work with fewer people and a falling population than trying to incentivise a higher fertility rate. I’m no ecomentalist, just someone old enough to see how we are ruining the world around us and can’t think of any solution that doesn’t require far fewer people.
The demographics crisis is far worse than most in public policy will admit. The rate of decline will continue to accelerate and countries like South Korea, Japan & Italy will see their populations age and shrink much faster than they will admit to. South Korea's replacement rate is at 37% of what is needed - if that continues for another 2 generations you will have 7 grandparents for every grandchild.
250k excess deaths compared to other European nations due to austerity. We just lived through 15 years of zero real interest rates without fixing the roof. Well done IFS egg heads, you've done a great job, the young are really looking forward to what's coming next.
Whereas the young in the 1970s put up with 18% interest rates and sky-high income tax, with power-cuts and three-day weeks, an economy impoverished by war debt and rising oul prices. There was an awful lot less existential moaning though. Times have been hard since 1929.
@@davidmorgan6896 Honestly economically things were way better in the 70s than now. It wasn't paradise, but there was a level of economic stability for working people thanks to strong unions and functioning social democracy, with major room for improvement which is fine. No time period is ever perfect but we have to be honest and confront how much living standards have collapsed in England since Thatcherism
Is it really any surprise given how difficult having a family has been made in most developed countries. Edit ps no im not happy to keep working a second longer than I have to.
I’m scared to give birth in underfunded understaffed maternity wards, if women’s health research was also more invested in , plus maternity pay met minimum wage then maybe I would consider having a child as a 28 year old women getting married next year xx
At 28 years have you tried to seek a basic level of training and career development to get you past the minimum wage? into a job that will pay your salary for 6-9months during a potential 12 month mat leave? I'm guessing you're just watching the benefits rather than doing anything productive. Also, mat wards are pretty well run and get the funding they need over other departments. We're expecting our first and they been great so far. What do you even mean by 'women's health research'?
Parents in 80s /90s, 3 kids, 1 public sector good wage, 1 public sector basic wage. 2 cars, 2-3 holidays a year. Retired in their 50s. No fecking way is that possible today with the same jobs paying their 2024 wage.
What fantasy have you been reading? You are describing my cohort. Most of them had well-paying private sector jobs. We're now in our sixties and the only person I know who has retired is single and childless. The 80s was a depression. The 90s was a depression. 2008 so an economic collapse.
Not true. The main killers include heart disease and cancer. All those older relatives aren't taking those prescriptions for fun. In so many ways people are kept living longer. Hip operations are a modern thing because people are living long enough to need them.
@@stephengreen8986 When was the last time you looked on the government websites about this subject. Go and look. The reduction in life expectancy has been discussed in the House of Lords and in Parliament. Google reduction in life expectancy in the UK. You will get lots of results. You could have done that before you replied.
@@richardcook1987 Not any more and for those that did manage final salary pensions had to put up with lower pay and poor promotion opportunities to pay for them.
The planets over populated. Politicians want growth in total GDP to excuse borrowing past and future. But its real GDP per person that matters to the population. Less crowded roads, less crowded countryside, reduced demand for services, less need for power and water, less pollution, less need for imports, the benefits of a reduced population are endless. Humans are not exactly on tbe endangered species list.
4:29 ...dang...from the statistician herself. Will the government heed this? "...fertility crisis when it's not really a fertility crisis, it's a worker crisis. Governments aren't trying to create self-actualized happy positive individuals, instead they're trying to create meat for the economic grinder"
Irent wise it actually goes to hmrc first as (double) tax on rent, then expenses, then mortgage interest that had 2-3x, then what little is left goes on maintenance. As a landlord the rent is added to my income and it pushes me up to the stealth 62% rate and I see none of the benefit. Landlords with a mortgage are the worker bees for the government and banks now. Labour's tinkering will only increase rents.
The Hungry Income polices are weird. Let’s be real - if a Women has 4 children - it is unlikely that she is career minded and will pay any meaningful amount of income tax. That’s a minimum of 6 years in her prime career building years at home with children. Even past the initial phase pregnancy and maternity leave, juggling 4 children and career is unlikely. It sounds more like a cynical policy to try coax mothers back into the workforce. If hungry was serious about improving fertility they would extend the income tax break the farther.
None of you mentioned net migration and the fact that over 500, 000 people left the UK in 2023. They took their skills & experience with them and presumably lessened the burden on public finances from a health and pensions point of view. Why do they leave? What could be done to change their minds about leaving? Wouldn't this reduce the blind reliance on immigration to fill a gap? You also barely acknowledged the adverse cultural impacts on immigration from societies that don't wish to assimilate with our culture. Australia, Canada & NZ seemed to have this figured in previous years by targeting precisely the cultures they knew would assimilate without friction and quickly become net contributors to their economies ......
1) Urbanisation (smaller housing, particularly apartments compared with suburban and rural homes) 2) High housing costs (lack of social housing, need for both parents to earn) 3) Massive increase in the number of people going to college / university (cost of education, time taken to gain education, time taken to establish a career, especially the huge increase in the number of women going to college, many jobs now require college / university when they were previously learned on the job). 4) Increased life expectancy (less need to have as many children, live longer after retirement) 5) On line dating and social media (whereas in the past for the vast majority of people you married someone you met locally online dating gives people a near unlimited choice and makes it difficult to choose, paradoxically people also have fewer "real" friends) 1) and 4) are reasons for selecting smaller family size. 2) and 3) result in starting families much latter. 5) results in people not meeting real people South Korea, Japan and I would argue countries such as Italy and Greece remain strongly patriarchal at the level of who runs business and the country and women are voting with their feet and refusing to get married.
There are many causes, from "forever chemicals" to micro plastics to a diet of ultra-processed foods. Drink and drugs. Obesity. And, of course, age. As populations age then the average man is going to have a lower sperm count.
The rising cost of living is making it too expensive for individuals or couples to live, the extortionate costs of rent, gas, electricity, transportation, council taxes, people can't afford to bring another life into the world, the previous government and the present government were hoping to kill off the British people by allowing so many migrants into the country, now where it's so expensive to live here, the working class migrants are going to Germany where the cost of renting is around a third or less than here in the UK, so I'm told, overall the cost of living is cheaper in general, Poland is an up and coming country, many people are going there, just speaking for the UK, there's no incentive to come here unless you have turned up illegally because our government will welcome you respect you The government here in the UK don't want working class people having children, it's a privilege for the wealthy, as far as the elderly, the government have taken away their heating allowance, so they're hoping for a freezing winter to kill off the older generations, if not, I'm sure another pandemic can be thought up, a miracle cure quickly discovered and the medication will end older lives, here in the UK, birth is for the wealthy not the working class people The government whether Tories or Labour have always said that a pension is a privilege, with the increasing debt here in the UK, I can see, probably not in my lifetime because I'm approaching pension age, but even those of us who have contributed to a personal pension, we will be told to work longer and eventually the pension/retirement, unless you're a politician or someone extremely well paid, the working class won't be able to afford to retire and, I think that it probably will be Labour who will say that the pension money that we have saved will be sucked up elsewhere and the law will change as such that people won't have a personal pension either, the video discussed the health service, the Tories stopped investing in the NHS, I wouldn't be surprised if Labour scrapped the NHS and we go Americanised and we have to pay for our treatment at the time, if you can't afford treatment (which many working class people won't be able to), you have to suffer, if you save, the government will tax savings so high it won't be worth it
Good discussion, thank you. The question at the end 'How do people feel about this?' wasn't really answered very well, maybe because time was short. It focused on men's health and fitness to parent, which has become the polite way of deflecting criticism from women's choices but is clearly not the whole picture. Women consistently say they want more children than they end up having and women's self reported happiness has declined along with the fertility rate.
Hey paul, hey IFS, its not a mystery if you think about the economic benefit of having children. In the good old days, no state or even private pensions, no welfare, you would be mad to not have children. These days where children are a dead loss, why would you want them? Explain to an alien what the economic benefit is of having a child in the 21st century - to the parents themselves who bear the costs. The costs of housing etc issues all assume that everyone "just wants children" but they don't.
Dont put it all on cost, you dont truely know the cost of kids until you have them. No one looks at how much nursery care is until you give birth 😅 There is also the life styles of current generations who see kids havint a major impact on their quality of life. There is also the idea that we aren't settling down to form nuclear families/relationshops now. Just dating and repeating.
Is it possible that the economic argument is not the right reason behind the decline, what role does cultural norm play in this? Scandinavian countries, e.g. Denmark, have great support for new parents and their birth rate is still shrinking. How does economic argument explain higher birth rate among low income earners both in the developed and developing countries?
Equal shared parenting after seperation would be a good start, as opposed to what we have now which is the effective employment, by the state, of mothers when they become homeless. Homelessness is more of an application process for single mothers. Local Authorities are the countries biggest estate agent...they sell lifetime tenancies that only single female parents can buy...and only with government debt...aka benefits. Fathers are then cruelly blamed for "abandoning" their children...whereas the government are actually selling lifetime tenancies to moms to give up work. Fathers then pay the family court to write some nade up domestic abuse allegations...its insane.
They touched on most of the biggest issues but one big one that they missed was how women who try to find a suitable man to make a family with later in life have often become jaded from hookup culture and the men that they want simply dont want them in return. Men who want families arent looking for emotionally damaged women whos biological clock has almost run out. Fair play though, they managed to mention most of the other reasons. 1. Women in the workforce, not wanting babies until they are older. 2. Cost of living and house/rental prices. 3. Wages not keeping up with inflation. I would also add contraception and abortion. There are probably a lot less unwanted babies now than there were 50 years ago. Also religion and social stigmas. All my aunties and uncles and their friends were all married by the time the were in their mid twenties. Compared to my social circle where hardly any are married and only 1 couple i know got married in their 20s. Divorce rates being sky high is probably another thing that deters men. Not wanting to have children with someone who is highly likely going to leave them in the future. Social media is another reason, highlighting and encouraging the worst side of human nature, promoting hypergamy and mgtow, although this is more prevalent in the US i believe.
Likewise, women who want families aren't looking for old men who are jaded by hook-up culture and failed relationships. My dad was a very capable man in all areas of life. He didn't look sideways at other women. Likewise, my mum. A man can't expect to f around all his 20s then expect to give off hubby vibes in his 30s to the women he desires. Men who have had a 'past' do not give off the good, stable and loving vibes that attract women.
It is a whole load of issues. Cost is a factor , but also women having the ability through contraception not to have children. Children are a major commitment if you are to do it well .
Someone made a comment regarding couples in "stable" relationships should be the ones having children if they are able to afford to keep them, stable relationships are becoming a thing of the past as divorce is more common, as for being able to afford to bring up children, that leaves the responsibility of childbirth to the millionaires rather than the working class people who are being priced out of living in general
The fall in life expectancy in England resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic was unprecedented in recent decades, and life expectancy has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Future improvements in life expectancy depend on many factors. However, the outlook for England is not promising given the deterioration in population health. The poor health of children, the huge and growing backlog of unmet health care needs (pre-dating the pandemic but exacerbated by it), the almost 3 million - and rising - working-age adults unable to work because of long-term sickness, the persistent constraints on NHS capacity and widening health inequalities illustrate the scale of the challenges that need to be addressed. Added to these are the unpredictable risks of, for example, periodic resurgences in Covid-19, flu or other viral infections, and extreme climate change events such as the heatwaves in 2022. Life expectancy in the UK compared poorly with most comparator countries before the Covid-19 pandemic; higher excess mortality during the pandemic has resulted in the UK’s further downward slide in international life expectancy tables, with female life expectancy now the lowest among comparator countries (with the exception of the US). Meaningful long-term gains in reducing health inequalities and improving population health and the UK’s life expectancy relative to comparator countries have never been more urgent and yet also more challenging.
I wonder what are the extreme ideas to fix this issue? Are old people getting too much support? My aunt gets atleast £3000 a month from the state because her husband is in a care home (both pensioners). One 89 year old woman shouldn't be getting and above average income, at what point do we start calling these things out?
Choice vs Constraints - I imagine it's super difficult to find evidence that not/having children 'makes you happier'- a lot of confirmation bias in any data- hell I can't even get a straight answer out of my mates!
I have been educated, but have been amazed and am incensed that I have to watch this video to understand just how little almost any significant economic and governmental bodies know about where our country (and the world) is going, economically from the point of view of population. SURELY the IFS must have considered that its projections on the economy are totally dependent on the issues discussed here today, and the facilitator is sitting rabbit in headlights at the information presented by the two experts that he should have known, quantified and included in any of the work output of his organisation. Failure to be aware of the desperately obvious, and create realistic models of the population and demographics is essential. Is the whole country blindfolding itself to any responsibility for anything? Where are all the hundreds of experts, academics, and others who should be discussing together and modelling our country's' future? I am shell shocked at the ignorance being displayed here. If there is a world forum on Climate Change (albeit fairly toothless), why isn't there a world forum on this issue with discussions and planning happening before that tornado hits our society? Or if there are some discussions, why isn't IFS being onboard with the findings up to now? Why isn't this headline news in every newspaper? As for "health issues", it is very clear, in the UK if nowhere else, that these fugitives from working have a bad case of "Bandwagon Disease". Millions of people have just given up on working since the Pandemic having been paid for doing nothing for a year, they create a fashionable "condition" that they can wave under the nose of the DWP that triggers money and sit back and await the tidal wave of taxpayers money to lift them into a world of idleness. There appears to be little energy being put into why these people appear suddenly to be "ill", and society just pays pay out to avoid any accusations of "discrimination" of whatever sort, health, fitness or mental issues. I am shocked.
Why is giving native Britons of the UK demographic & cultural security so offensive to all these people? & why do they feel so entitled to deny people that when clearly haven't the right? These non proposed, demographic & cultural policies of increasingly marginalising & minoritising Native Britons, that were never openly proposed or voted for, but in fact voted against have been a disaster & need to be stopped & reversed. School student body demographic reporting have the children of English families becoming a minority in the English school system in around 10 years. By the trends of the official voluntarily provided census figures, along with official immigration ones since, the English nation will be a minority in their homeland in a mere few decades & all Britons (in the Isles not just the UK) will be some short years after that, & who knows what the reality on the ground means for how much sooner crossing each of these demographic thresholds will occur. Still no mention of this on tv, or most of the supposedly independent & dissident online media, the omerta remains unbroken & the slow walk ethnic cleansing into dissolution continues. We want, have appealed for & are entitled to demographic & cultural security in our homeland from our institutions who are denying us it. It IS an existential issue & we are rapidly approaching a point when self defence calculus applies. Organisations like the IFS & OBR never criticise bringing in millions of people who haven't paid in but immediately draw from the public purse, are a weight on public services & housing & only a minority of whom ever contribute anything, with an even smaller number meeting the costs their presence imposes, let alone surpass them. Nor do they criticise & attack borrowing billions to pay for unneccesary things the public doesn't want & hasn't called or voted for & aren't good for the families of the nations of this country. But billions for people who've broken into the country or overstayed illegally (the majority) & are costing far more than they could generate in tax contributions, services provided & infrastructure built, let alone what they actually do. A policy of mass remigration would be the foundation of a cure for all sorts of ills: housing (especially social), waiting lists, traffic, rubbish mess, prison overcrowding, child g3n!tal mut!lat!on, acid attacks, stabb!ngs, shame k!llings, bl00d feuds, r*pe, s3xual assaults, modern day slavery, fraud scams & the general degradation of social trust that comes with a high churn, ethnically diverse society. When I checked last year, only 44.5% of the White British population are under 40 acdording to official ONS stats. (Which is to say 44.5% of the 73.5% of the official population on the basis of voluntary census data, giving 32.7% of the official total) Offical ONs stats had the population of just England at 56.5million, of which 41.54million are White British, of whom only 9.14milllion are females under 40 (this demographic is the reproductive generational portal) & we have been below replacement fertility (2.1 children) for half a century & half of women at 30 are now childless & even if all 2.5mil of them try for a single child only half will succeed; that only leaves 6.64mil under 30s to have children with co-ethnics & provide most of the demographic future of the English. Current trends showing fewer than half (3.2mil) will; whilst the inflows of millions of foreign extraction continue (policies of just population stability puts the official figure of foreign extraction to match the gap at circa 60mil) & will likely continue to increase as the easiest level to pull for (headline not per capita) GDP growth - unless you stand on the principle that the native people of the land not being outnumbered & replaced in most of their homeland is more important than line-go-up.
@@GodsOwnPrototype this nonsense always comes from English people,who are as native as Donner kebabs. What do you mean by "cultural security" anyway? Do you want our society to become frozen in time?
Inflated house prices and rents. End of story. Politicians, the media and the public all worship HPI which along with the NHS is the nearest thing that Britain has to a national religion. This has distorted government policy and the structure of the tax system for decades. Imputed rent on owner occupied properties is also used to inflate GDP artificially so Britain can borrow more than it can really afford which increases the public debt burden to levels that are higher than the income from the rest of the economy can pay.
The middle earners need something. If IVF was made more accessible on the NHS, housing more affordable and not having to move 50+ miles away from your support system then the right people will be having children. Children who are more likely to grow up and contribute like their parents. Until these changes are made you’ll have the not working/part time working benefits class and immigrants churning out the future. This won’t happen though because the middle earners are just being pummelled into hell; high housing costs, high taxes, no access to services you are perceived as able to access privately. A £40k salary for a person who completed a degree and pays into a pension is around £29,707.66 after tax. Rent in London can easily gobble up £20k of that, yet you are considered to be some blessed being for earning £40k 🤣
Very frightening to learn that public spending is over 40% of GDP and rising fast and yet dependent on a dwindling number of tax paying adults! Also eye-popping to learn of those statistics about Swedish and Finnish childless men and their likely application to other industrialised economies! Failed states?
My children will be working while I am retired; they are creating the wealth needed to fund my retirement. Having children and bringing them up has been very expensive for me and my wife. Why should someone who has not made the same "investment" benefit as well. I am suggesting that the State Pension continues and to some extent is dependent on how many children one has. This might persuade some of those freeloaders to think again.
I doubt you have paid more into the state pension pot than me. Why should you be rewarded just for choosing to have kids, for choosing to increase pressure on all our environmental systems?
Houses cost a gazillion pounds while wages are essentially at adult pocket money levels. If you start saving now you could maybe have a child when you’re 130. 😂
Everybody is talking about money and housing. How about just women not willing to go through it physically? There is no amount of "love" I'd go through that shit. No epidural right from the beginning, no one's going to pay for your pension.
We dont need handouts , just affordable stable Gov rental housing/flats for working people to balance shortage supply of private development. Gov housing should also not be garenteed for "life" . If you start earning big bucks, you need to move on. If you get a criminal record , you lose your place.
How are we going to incentivise people in their early 60s that can afford to retire to work for longer? Maybe they build up a tax protected inheritance pot?
@@dooley-chyou think people WANT to work at 71? What a weird response you gave to a fact that effects us all eventually. Nobody should have to work at 71. If pensions were better they wouldn’t have to work and it would free up jobs for younger people.
Fix the care system, housing markets, job markets, culture wars, health systems and then maybe young people will be able to muster the energy and interest to care for draining, expensive, thankless children. Stop skirting around the true causes. - Childfree by choice fellow Gerontology PhD.
And now they’re coming for more inheritance tax. They’re removing hope and lifelines from too many people who could have their life boosted through an inheritance.
@ listen, I come from a poor family. I’ll be lucky to get a few thousand passed down to me, but even that would boost my life, yet I heard a figure of 40% on inheritance tax?! This is immoral. It’s immoral whether one will be getting inheritance or not. I’m not selfish, I realise there’s many people out there who would get a much needed boost and I don’t want them to have it taken away. I don’t only care about things being better for myself. I want things to be better for all society. If my dad suddenly won the lottery and had something to pass on I would be very upset if the government tried to take a chunk before it got to me. Why would you ask such a question? That’s like someone saying “cancer treatment should be free” and you replying “what about people who don’t have cancer” 😂
What is this people thing ? Isn’t this the fault of women ? Are you going to blame men for this too ? All the incentives put in place and women do not respond ? Do they not take any responsibility for the disaster ?
@@dooley-ch Import millions so that line still goes up, ignore the demographic realities on the ground & pretend people are just numbers in a spreadsheet.
Nothing stopping most people planning ahead to depart early without involving the cold demonic hand of state bureaucracy as a legal actor in ending the lives of it's increasingly expensive elderly citizens - many societies had honour systems that weighed on the old to not overly burden their children & grandchildren; nonesuch appears to exist at all in our own society.
You can be absolutely certain that if the cause is physiological, ie; couples can’t get pregnant, due to a certain medical product rolled out in 2021, then these people will never, ever tell you about it.
What a nonsense xD love listening to pseudo experts who have either no clue or are so politically correct to avoid real issue :) And claiming it's ok to replace your culture with immigrants who generally don't integrate with local culture is amazing xD aaaa its fine my child died as long two imigrant children will come and replace it xD
As a couple in our 30s we've chosen to be child free. Cost and freedom is a major motivator but another consideration for us and I don't think you mentioned global warming once, why would you want to bring a child into this world. Of course it's only opinion but frankly it would be selfish.
@mrmeldrew693 of course it is matter of opinion... No not right now but by 2100 the world will be a mess. We're about to eclipse the 1.5C . Only time will tell eh.
@@orangesub121it’s not natural though, you realise this is done on purpose? Have you not heard of geo-engineering or cloud seeding? TH-cam tends to delete my comments when I use these terms. That in itself speaks volumes. The globalists push a manufactured lie and implement green taxes.
@@orangesub121 It might be worth noting the last 50 years of climate predictions & pronouncements & tracking how accurate or not those claims were when the dates they cited arrived - surely the minimal due dilligence once should do before making whole of life decisions on the latest in a long line of such pronouncements.
Thank you for watching, you can see more of our work at: ifs.org.uk/
Timecodes:
00:00 - Shrinking countries
0:25 - Introduction
2:28 - What’s happening with birthrates?
7:50 - Inward migration
9:18 - Policy responses
12:58 - Public finance implications
15:58 - Is immigration sustainable?
20:40 - Why are birthrates falling?
25:28 - Costs of an ageing population
32:12 - Working age immigration
37:40 - Bringing people into labour force
39:37 - Retirement age
42:50 - Choice vs constraints
46:38 - Conclusion
It's really not that difficult! What was the situation when today's old people were young? 1. One income could support a whole family. 2. Housing was readily available for young adults in their 20s. 3. Pensioners were poorer and less numerous than today. 4. When people got old, they died and were allowed to die. 5. Young adults and children were the priority of government. Sorry if it's confusing. In sufficiently large numbers, the old crowd out the young.
Nonsense. If that was true we would never reach medieval times. If that was true Nigeria and most of Africa had not a single child
@@bartz4439 birth control, women's rights were not a thing in medieval times and are largely ignored in Africa - so think before you speak
@@BAmalakas but they were breeding. And now we modern world don't, we are dying letting our culture to disappear.
Modern women has got nothing to offer now. Not a single man is impressed by women salary or position.
And yeah birth control. Fuck like rabbits with no responsibilities or killing unwanted child... What a valuable women we have nowadays xD
@@bartz4439 women didn't work in Medevil times. A large proportion of women in Africa don't work. A lot of this comes down to the cost, availability and possibility of childcare. Don't forget lots of people work shifts, weekends, bank holidays - for a couple doing this it can be impossible to have childcare as nursery's are only open mon-fri and not bank holidays from 7.30am til around 6pm. Even those times don't work for some parents. If you are able to put children into childcare it'll cost you £600-900 a month for 5 days a week with low limits on free hours and tax relief. Having a second child is financially unviable for a lot of parents. It was for us. We decided to wait 5 years between our children, purely for money reasons - we'd have loved them closer together. We'd have loved more. Couldn't afford it - and both of us in work.
He is bang on, reason people had more children in past times and developing countries is they were largely subsistence farming. Children in subsistence farming families are an economic win because it’s more labour. Now it’s an economic loss. We need to deal with this drastically, revoke the state pension use the money to build housing and infrastructure. If you are against this you want UK enter terminal decline so you can claim free money from the state. Greed doesn’t cover it.
Its simple really when you require both the man and woman to work dont be surprised that thes not time / room for children
Boomer advice - "Don't spend money on things you can't afford"
Younger generations "Ok understood"
Economist "Why aren't people having children??"
Boomers spent money on things they couldn't afford during the Thatcher years.
Ha ha .... laughter hiding real pain
Ah… good old ageism … the new racism
@@kevoreilly6557more about lack of money than age
@@Alexander-yb1zc child is not a thing
Tired of listening to these people beat around the bush. The core issue at the heart of all of this is wealth distribution. Native Brits are not having children because in their prime reproductive years they cannot afford food and shelter. This is because over the past 50 years the wealth of the nation has been confiscated and concentrated into the hands of the few. Instead of addressing this problem and redistributing it, successive governments have simply chosen to stave off the issue for 1 generation by importing immigrants. They do this because they are controlled by the rich who see people as economic units and countries as economic areas rather than places whose people have a history and heritage. These immigrants will then have the exact same social mobility issues because they themselves will be subject tonthe harsh economic environment they were brought in to prop up. The single best thing people can do is to hasten the necessary wealth redistribution by not working and allowing the whole sham to collapse in on itself. They rely on you working to manage the spending potential of the government via its bond issuance scam. Taxation is for show - they use it to convince bond holders not to sell. If you remove taxation, the bonds will sell off and the economy will collapse because they cannot shake the magic money tree. To solve the problem, simply do not go to work.
I think it would take lots of people to not go to work. But I agree with your assessment of the problem.
They will always be able to sell housing to single mothers though: homelessness for single mothers is really an application process that results in a parental furlough scheme. They get a lifetime tenancy and get to use there ex partner as a passive income stream if they take the kids off him. It's brutal for children and fathers. They should call it Public Sector Parenting...
@stevenmackay3342 completely, it is a feature of a 'leech economy' where a safety net is not administered properly, resulting in, well, leeches. The gross earnings they would have to make to pay for the handouts is something we should all stop to consider when evaluating the entire point of working.
Wealth is concentrated among those who own things, and disproportionately that is elderly people. For the first (and likely last) time in human history people who don’t work have more resources than people who can work. Think about the reversal this is from the agricultural society we came from.
Japan is our likely future. Even stocks and bonds are losing their value and within a few decades labor will be worth more than assets once more. But it will be strange getting there.
TLDR
I agree 90 percent but if I don't go to work I'll end up on the streets, so sorry I'm not about to do that. Organised labour going on strike is a better option
Why on earth do we still have a 2 child benefit cap when women are not having enough babies and the population is aging? We should be paying women to have more and make housing and childcare a lot cheaper.
yes, and versus open borders.
Very good topic.
It's not a cap on child benefit - it's a cap on the child portion of Universal Credit.
We should have no cap on having more children when the population is ageing fast.
@@SGIQ7 We need those in stable relationships, who are emotionally and financially stable, with skills and qualifications having children not the long term unemployed having children by multiple partners.
Did you not listen to the lady? She said Hungary offers lots of financial incentives for having multiple children, it doesn't work. We also don't want financially unstable parents on benefits, having more children. Children growing up in that environment are likely to be reliant on the state even as adults.
I've just come back from 7 1/2 months in Nigeria. This was my 9th trip there for work and I've spent more than 2 years there in the past 5 years.
I don't think people in the UK (or other developed countries) really understand just how bad things are in places like Nigeria. No one alive in the UK was around when people were being kicked off farms and went and lived in slums hoping to get a job in the nascent factories. There was somewhere between 2 and 3 generations from the late 18th to the middle of the 19th centuries where many people went hungry and we were "lucky" that so many children died or there would have been even more adults without jobs. Added to that the UK and much of Europe was involved in wars every decade or so.
China alone has more manufacturing capacity than the world needs so countries such as Nigeria cannot hope to compete. This means that people leaving farms (often with very low levels of education) have little chance of finding meaningful work. And Nigeria cannot feed itself with a very inefficient agricultural sector (essentially you would need to modernise the agricultural sector by mechanisation and vast reductions in inefficient labour). Every wealthy country has largely mechanised agriculture which allows people to do more productive things - except there aren't more productive things to do. If women have 6 children then that is 4 more mouths to feed and educate with the same money as having 2 children.
On a positive note in the country with the worst child mortality in the world (which is in sub-Saharan Africa) the rate is about the same as the England in the early 1920's. This means that far more children become adults.
The median age in Nigeria is 18, in Niger it is 14. There are no jobs. Essentially, much of sub-Saharan Africa is on a fast track to collapse. And that collapse will result in 10s of millions of refugees heading to Europe.The future is bleak.
If you always totally discount all work that isn't remunerated then this is where you end up. You've optimised for "monetised" GDP.. and ignored and unvalued unpaid work. Like parents caring for children, caring for elderly parents etc. If you want to sort this out, you need to begin including the value of unpaid caring into GDP, otherwise the laser focus on "growth" will render having children to the dustbin of history. Right now government values child rearing at best as £25/week.. for a 24/7 activity that's less than 15pence per hour. You get what you pay for and our Governments simply don't value children.
Indeed. GDP figures impute rent on owner occupier houses but not on unpaid labour. If I fix my neighbours leaking tap and charge him £50 for labour and if my neighbour fixes my leaking and charges me £50 for labour those financial transactions count towards GDP. If I fix my own tap and my neighbour fixes his tap then there is no labour charge and no increase in GDP but exactly the same amount of labour has been expended and the net result in terms of fixed taps is the same. Exactly the same nonsense goes on with paid child minding being deemed economically beneficial while unpaid child minding is not. In reality even the government tacitly admits that looking after infants is real work by granting NIC credits to those who do it.
These deaths of despair are linked to our neo liberal/selfish capitalist financial system for the most part. It is the economic system that needs to change with fairer wealth distribution, higher wages, secure permanent jobs for all etc. This is the answer I believe.
Yes definately, I think the essentials of life have been made too expensive, and along with economic insecurity, this has created a situation where it is too risky and/or undesirable for people to have children. Even animals in the zoo won't procreate if they're held captive, as many people are nowadays by the way the economy is setup.
You right that is the answer. There just waiting for the number of people on plant to drop before doing something about it for real.
❤ it, another ill in our society is our media’s veneration of billionaires who seem to judge respect on how much money someone has made, now go and watch veritasium and everyone will see life’s success is largely based on luck, irrespective of family wealth or education level.
It's always how it should be but the greedy filthy rich ensure that it stays as it is
100%. No need for endless hour long podcasts on demographic collapse. It's simple. MONEY. The majority don't have enough. The minority have too much. I wouldn't bring new life into this BS.
Immigration does not work to solve the issue of an ageing population. Canada has had a mindbogoling level of immigration over the past 5 years yet the population has still continued to age to an all time average age age of 41.6 years. Far from solving the issue of ageing, canadas immigration policy has likley exacerbaited it, as it is plausible that this massive boost in immigration has contributed to the further decline of canadas total fertility rate (which is now at an all time low of 1.26!!!) due to its pressure on the housing market and general infrastructure, along with the fact that immigrants who move to canada do not have replacement level birth rates. Besides its direct affect on ageing Canada's immigration policy has had massive social, political and economic ramifications such as the afformentioned steep increase in housing price, lower nation wide average productivity due to libralizing immigration visas to low productivity workers, suppresion of lower skilled wages, and incredibly fast change of the character of many neihgborhoods, towns, and cities against its' inhabitants wills. Western governments NEED to realise that immigration is NOT the solution to ageing populations. If anything, substantial increases in immigration exacerbaites the ageing problem in the long run due to housing and infrastrucutre pressures, creates second order nation wide economic problems, and above anything else is a deeply undemocratic way to address the problem as it is near unniveraly vastly unpopular. the ageging population of western societies will be a critical issue of the next half century, especially hear in the UK; maximizing effort into increasing the birth rate, and adapting our economies to the new reality of older populations is the only way we can have a prosperous future.
The problem is that right-wing people like you oppose all the potential solutions to low birth rates - progressive taxation, more social housing, rent controls, increased parental leave, subsidised child care and fertility treatment, regulation of food and chemical industries, getting people out of their cars etc etc.
Yes agreed HOWEVER, immigration is needed to support the current social welfare model for the ageing population. Longer term would need adjustment for ageing persons to contribute more for their retirement aswell as for healthcare costs.
Agreed. It doesn't work to solve the root of the issue, the short sighted nature of Western politics should be mentioned
@@Pirake123 the degree to which immigration helps our current welfare model HEAVILY depends on what kind of immigration we are getting. If we are getting low productivity workers than I would argue that it is a net negative. Low productivity workers in non-essential higher demand sectors are very likely net-negatives for the health of our current social welfare system as they contribute less then they take. (the reason I say most likely is because this conclusion comes from data out of Denmark which analyzed net contribution to public finances. The data showed that workers from low productivity countries (on average) were total net extractors to the state's finances throughout the entirety of their lives. The UK does not have published data on worker produvitiy/place however I believe it is very probable (although not certain) that the same trend would appear.) This only type of low productivity workers that could be positive for the social welfare model are low productivity workers who work in essential sectors with lots of vacancies. However, this is still a net total drain on the state throughout an (average low productivity) workers lifetime because they are still net extractors. This is an immigration strategy the UK has relied on, and I think it has contributed to the worsening of our welfare model as successive governments have continuously had to rely on higher and higher levels of low productivity workers in essential fields resulting in worse national average productivity and thus a worse revenue/spending ratio. If anything, this strategy is a death spiral as the size of the state/social welfare system expands (which it has continually done and is expected to do so) because it will contribute to lower average productivity AND ageing, the true worst of worst doom loop! The Only type of immigration that is positive for our social welfare model is high productivity immigrants, as they will be net positive contributors in their working years. Incidentally, we (sort of had) much more positive immigration outcomes before Brexit as a much higher proportion of immigrants came from higher productivity countries; since we left this cohort of immigrants has been replaced and expanded upon by immigrants from low-prod countries. Therefore, as I expect British immigration patterns to continually come from low-prod countries I argue that our current immigration policy is a net negative on our current social welfare model.
@@bopndop2347 absolutely.
Please could you do an episode discussion Land Value Tax? Every time I hear an economist talk about it they seem to go all moon eyed, wax lyrical about how amazing that would be and what a shame it will never happen, and then move on to something else. Is it really that great and, if so, why haven’t we got one?
It does have a lot of benefits but it definitely would be politically difficult to sell. Not only is home ownership sold as the way for middle class people to escape poverty (when that's at the cost of other people as land is a fixed supply) it's also culturally seen as something you can't mess with. Then there's the richest people who have large property portfolios and land banks who have a lot of political power. I think a good start would be to replace council tax, stamp duty, and business rates with an LVT - it would need to be somewhere around 1% to raise the equivalent amount - Dan Niedle who has featured in some IFS stuff has some good stuff on LVT on his Tax Policy Associates site.
@ thanks, I’ll check that out! I imagine you would actually probably need it higher than 1% since you’d almost certainly want to have exceptions for things like farming and charities like the National Trust. But I would still enjoy a proper discussion on IFS Zooms In :)
@@phueal yeah there's interesting things you could do with exceptions and differing rates, perhaps a higher rate on unused land etc. And if you did it right, you could actually capture the LVT by the increase of neighbouring land values, for example, central park in New York is a big untaxed protected area but it hugely increases the values of the properties around it. Those are all extra details though, the real pure economics of the LVT is just to incentivise efficient land use overall. If you find yourself going down the Georgism rabbit hole fully then Lars Doucet is another person with some good accessible writings on the issue.
The simple answer is that we don't live in countries, we live in economic zones.
Wow, the closing remarks are a self damning condemnation of the inadequecies & failings of our institutions.
It’s harder work looking after children than going to work. This has not been recognised . Whilst you pay presenters exorbitant amount of money and others struggle with time and money why would you have children-it’s an impossible situation
The problem is adding more workers in an economy with low productivity means it does not make much difference.....
Depends on the level of productivity - or the taxable amount of that productivity
@@kevoreilly6557 UK productivity is second lowest in G8. Reasons are obvious - we spend hundreds of billions on Victorian technology, like HS2, while we have the 56th slowest roll-out of 5G and 26th worst internet speeds.
Live life or buy a house or have kids. You can't have all 3 in a dying Fiat currency system. Where you get incrementally poorer. I grew up in poverty. Its stressful and unpleasant. No thank you.
People are having fewer children thanks to the economic ideologies promoted by, among others, the IFS.
And does anyone really think that the working people,of the UK will actually meet the state obligations inherent in public sector pensions? No. The productive people and wealthy people will gravitate to those wise nations that do not have such a burden
All nations have this burdens .. so good look there … and i love people still think they can just move countries …😂
The wealthy might abandon the country they grew up in, speak the language of and their children are at school in, but the term "productive people" covers an awful lot of income brackets. Also what do you expect the other people will do, who will need public sector pensions later on, but who are presently doing all the grotty little jobs that the wealthy depend on them to do?
That's why unfettered immigration is the way forward.
@@kalebdaark100Will the wealthy leave? Some, obviously, but hardly the majority.
@@davidmorgan6896 Yes most of the wealthy will stay in "the country they grew up in, speak the language of and their children are at school in".
Done on purpose.
Make houses unaffordable for young adults and they cannot start proper adulthood and consider having their own children.
Inward migration is one of the main causes of house price growth.
They need to limit the size of one persons property portfolio. Greed is also causing inflated house prices.
@@peanutboxes4076 starting with the King!
We haven’t built enough houses for decades.
And yet immigrants can afford the houses? Care to explain that logic?
@@peanutboxes4076they need to limit non-residents buying property and add an investment tax on second homes
No our population is not living longer due to austerity/low paid work leading to ill health. Pension age should not be raised in my opinion. Men and women could both retire at age 65 with different choices. A move to taxing wealth rather than work e.g. more tax on those with wealth/assets over £10 million would solve the problems. As mentioned our state pension is much less generous than most of Europe - criminal in my opinion.
When the liberals introduced the state pension in 1908 you had to be 70 yo to claim but people lived much shorter lives coupled with families having more children back then.
Things won’t change here. Be happy with what you’ve got or leave. Simple as that.
@@jeremiahpoole6526you do know that it’s not a “gift”
Unintended consequence would be zero tax on wealth as it would go overseas to somewhere with less Tax.
76 pence in 1972 would be worth £10 of today’s money.
The Corporatocracy takes all the wealth to the point people cannot afford children.
That's meaningless if salaries increased more than inflation.
Which they consistently did.
@@harrydamien6346 and yet buying a house used to be 3 years your yearly salary and now it's 8 or more and if you cant live with ur parents ur extorted in rent
This is an economics focused channel, but the only sustainable solutions to this challenge are cultural. We have to put children back at the centre of adult life, which means accommodating them in their parents' workplaces for a start.
Immigration is not any kind of solution because populations are aging in all wealthy countries, and there is a small pool of skilled, trained, potential immigrants. It is a zero-sum competition among rich countries, with negative consequences in the source countries. Those people's home countries need their talents and entrepreneurialism. It is unethical to 'poach' them. And as things stand, the most skilled and talented families have already immigrated, so the quality of immigrants will steadily decline. Diminishing marginal utility again.
People are having few children because children decrease your social status (at least until they are grown). Expensive housing, and low wages, the zero-sum child investment race, and people wasting their best years in education are all issues, but the fundamental problem is low social status. If having children was prestigious, housing and labour policies would magically be fixed. Gender relations would also improve as men would want to be seen to be involved with a high status activity.
Changing the status of child-raising starts with making children more visible in the lives of non-parents.
refreshing response 👍
Why do we have to encourage childbirth at all? We could just accept that we will, eventually, have a smaller population. This is a good thing. Yes, the transition could be painful, but perhaps we should start planning for that transition instead of asking for the clearly impossible.
@@davidmorgan6896 Try that argument at your local book club and see how far you go
@@bopndop2347 Is "book club" a euphemism? Or do you mean lonely, middle-aged cat ladies?
@@davidmorgan6896 Absolutely! It's going to happen, so planning for it would be sensible. Also a first for our politicians.
There is a tremendous worry about what career opportunities any children will have : decent, secure jobs seem so hard to come by.
Pro natalist policies increasing the birth rate by 0.2 or 0.3 children per woman could make all the difference to the financial viability of a society.
Dismissing spending 5% of gdp on this as unaffordable seems stunningly short-sighted and complacent.
In the long run falling fertility rates are a good thing … the world’s major problem is too many people. The transition will be hugely painful (economically, socially etc.) but perhaps we should all embrace it as a good thing for humanity in th long run. Whatever the causes (better education, cost of housing, cost of raising children etc. etc.) we should work out how to make things work with fewer people and a falling population than trying to incentivise a higher fertility rate.
I’m no ecomentalist, just someone old enough to see how we are ruining the world around us and can’t think of any solution that doesn’t require far fewer people.
Britain has the second worst productivity in the G8, so there is plenty of room for improvement.
The demographics crisis is far worse than most in public policy will admit. The rate of decline will continue to accelerate and countries like South Korea, Japan & Italy will see their populations age and shrink much faster than they will admit to.
South Korea's replacement rate is at 37% of what is needed - if that continues for another 2 generations you will have 7 grandparents for every grandchild.
Their racist, xenophobic, immigration policies are catching up with them
250k excess deaths compared to other European nations due to austerity. We just lived through 15 years of zero real interest rates without fixing the roof. Well done IFS egg heads, you've done a great job, the young are really looking forward to what's coming next.
Whereas the young in the 1970s put up with 18% interest rates and sky-high income tax, with power-cuts and three-day weeks, an economy impoverished by war debt and rising oul prices. There was an awful lot less existential moaning though. Times have been hard since 1929.
@@davidmorgan6896 Honestly economically things were way better in the 70s than now. It wasn't paradise, but there was a level of economic stability for working people thanks to strong unions and functioning social democracy, with major room for improvement which is fine. No time period is ever perfect but we have to be honest and confront how much living standards have collapsed in England since Thatcherism
The wolves are crying because the sheep are not breeding
More on this topic please. It underpins everything!
Earth's population is still growing quickly.
Because people are living longer. Births peaked some time ago
Is it really any surprise given how difficult having a family has been made in most developed countries. Edit ps no im not happy to keep working a second longer than I have to.
I’m scared to give birth in underfunded understaffed maternity wards, if women’s health research was also more invested in , plus maternity pay met minimum wage then maybe I would consider having a child as a 28 year old women getting married next year xx
At 28 years have you tried to seek a basic level of training and career development to get you past the minimum wage? into a job that will pay your salary for 6-9months during a potential 12 month mat leave?
I'm guessing you're just watching the benefits rather than doing anything productive.
Also, mat wards are pretty well run and get the funding they need over other departments. We're expecting our first and they been great so far.
What do you even mean by 'women's health research'?
Parents in 80s /90s, 3 kids, 1 public sector good wage, 1 public sector basic wage. 2 cars, 2-3 holidays a year. Retired in their 50s. No fecking way is that possible today with the same jobs paying their 2024 wage.
What fantasy have you been reading? You are describing my cohort. Most of them had well-paying private sector jobs. We're now in our sixties and the only person I know who has retired is single and childless. The 80s was a depression. The 90s was a depression. 2008 so an economic collapse.
Life expectancy is shrinking drastically in the UK. It will continue to shrink.
Not true. The main killers include heart disease and cancer. All those older relatives aren't taking those prescriptions for fun. In so many ways people are kept living longer. Hip operations are a modern thing because people are living long enough to need them.
@@stephengreen8986 When was the last time you looked on the government websites about this subject. Go and look. The reduction in life expectancy has been discussed in the House of Lords and in Parliament. Google reduction in life expectancy in the UK. You will get lots of results. You could have done that before you replied.
Cant afford it.
Houses are too expensives.
Childcare too expensive.
Pensions too generous.
Saved you 48 minutes.
We have the lowest level of pensions in Western Europe.
@davidmorgan6896 public sector pensions i was referring to
@@richardcook1987 Not any more and for those that did manage final salary pensions had to put up with lower pay and poor promotion opportunities to pay for them.
The planets over populated. Politicians want growth in total GDP to excuse borrowing past and future. But its real GDP per person that matters to the population. Less crowded roads, less crowded countryside, reduced demand for services, less need for power and water, less pollution, less need for imports, the benefits of a reduced population are endless. Humans are not exactly on tbe endangered species list.
4:29 ...dang...from the statistician herself. Will the government heed this?
"...fertility crisis when it's not really a fertility crisis, it's a worker crisis. Governments aren't trying to create self-actualized happy positive individuals, instead they're trying to create meat for the economic grinder"
Yes and of course the IFS creature argues against this
Housing housing housing...simple...no one has money..all of it is going to landlords and tax
Irent wise it actually goes to hmrc first as (double) tax on rent, then expenses, then mortgage interest that had 2-3x, then what little is left goes on maintenance.
As a landlord the rent is added to my income and it pushes me up to the stealth 62% rate and I see none of the benefit.
Landlords with a mortgage are the worker bees for the government and banks now.
Labour's tinkering will only increase rents.
The Hungry Income polices are weird.
Let’s be real - if a Women has 4 children - it is unlikely that she is career minded and will pay any meaningful amount of income tax. That’s a minimum of 6 years in her prime career building years at home with children. Even past the initial phase pregnancy and maternity leave, juggling 4 children and career is unlikely. It sounds more like a cynical policy to try coax mothers back into the workforce.
If hungry was serious about improving fertility they would extend the income tax break the farther.
I don’t believe this. Go to Trafford centre In Manchester during the week. The kids outnumber the adults at times. They are everywhere like weeds
None of you mentioned net migration and the fact that over
500, 000 people left the UK in 2023.
They took their skills & experience with them and presumably lessened the burden on public finances from a health and pensions point of view.
Why do they leave?
What could be done to change their minds about leaving?
Wouldn't this reduce the blind reliance on immigration to fill a gap?
You also barely acknowledged the adverse cultural impacts on immigration from societies that don't wish to assimilate with our culture. Australia, Canada & NZ seemed to have this figured in previous years by targeting precisely the cultures they knew would assimilate without friction and quickly become net contributors to their economies ......
Why would you expect intelligent, educated and informed people to waste time engaging in your irrelevant Nigel Farage canards and talking points?
The Great Training Drain … I was part of it … fantastic eduction through the mid 90s (double masters) … moved to the states
@@beatonthedonisSeems like you're the only one turning up to the conversation with only ideological & political prejudices.
1) Urbanisation (smaller housing, particularly apartments compared with suburban and rural homes)
2) High housing costs (lack of social housing, need for both parents to earn)
3) Massive increase in the number of people going to college / university (cost of education, time taken to gain education, time taken to establish a career, especially the huge increase in the number of women going to college, many jobs now require college / university when they were previously learned on the job).
4) Increased life expectancy (less need to have as many children, live longer after retirement)
5) On line dating and social media (whereas in the past for the vast majority of people you married someone you met locally online dating gives people a near unlimited choice and makes it difficult to choose, paradoxically people also have fewer "real" friends)
1) and 4) are reasons for selecting smaller family size.
2) and 3) result in starting families much latter.
5) results in people not meeting real people
South Korea, Japan and I would argue countries such as Italy and Greece remain strongly patriarchal at the level of who runs business and the country and women are voting with their feet and refusing to get married.
Every thing this lady said is bang on 100%.Thank you.
This is a GOOD thing
Male sperm quality & quantity are falling across the globe. But nobody seems to be finding the causes.
There are many causes, from "forever chemicals" to micro plastics to a diet of ultra-processed foods. Drink and drugs. Obesity. And, of course, age. As populations age then the average man is going to have a lower sperm count.
The rising cost of living is making it too expensive for individuals or couples to live, the extortionate costs of rent, gas, electricity, transportation, council taxes, people can't afford to bring another life into the world, the previous government and the present government were hoping to kill off the British people by allowing so many migrants into the country, now where it's so expensive to live here, the working class migrants are going to Germany where the cost of renting is around a third or less than here in the UK, so I'm told, overall the cost of living is cheaper in general, Poland is an up and coming country, many people are going there, just speaking for the UK, there's no incentive to come here unless you have turned up illegally because our government will welcome you respect you
The government here in the UK don't want working class people having children, it's a privilege for the wealthy, as far as the elderly, the government have taken away their heating allowance, so they're hoping for a freezing winter to kill off the older generations, if not, I'm sure another pandemic can be thought up, a miracle cure quickly discovered and the medication will end older lives, here in the UK, birth is for the wealthy not the working class people
The government whether Tories or Labour have always said that a pension is a privilege, with the increasing debt here in the UK, I can see, probably not in my lifetime because I'm approaching pension age, but even those of us who have contributed to a personal pension, we will be told to work longer and eventually the pension/retirement, unless you're a politician or someone extremely well paid, the working class won't be able to afford to retire and, I think that it probably will be Labour who will say that the pension money that we have saved will be sucked up elsewhere and the law will change as such that people won't have a personal pension either, the video discussed the health service, the Tories stopped investing in the NHS, I wouldn't be surprised if Labour scrapped the NHS and we go Americanised and we have to pay for our treatment at the time, if you can't afford treatment (which many working class people won't be able to), you have to suffer, if you save, the government will tax savings so high it won't be worth it
It's ripped off housing.
Good discussion, thank you. The question at the end 'How do people feel about this?' wasn't really answered very well, maybe because time was short. It focused on men's health and fitness to parent, which has become the polite way of deflecting criticism from women's choices but is clearly not the whole picture. Women consistently say they want more children than they end up having and women's self reported happiness has declined along with the fertility rate.
Maybe ask why housing is so expensive then you’ll have your answer.
Hey paul, hey IFS, its not a mystery if you think about the economic benefit of having children. In the good old days, no state or even private pensions, no welfare, you would be mad to not have children. These days where children are a dead loss, why would you want them? Explain to an alien what the economic benefit is of having a child in the 21st century - to the parents themselves who bear the costs.
The costs of housing etc issues all assume that everyone "just wants children" but they don't.
If people can’t afford to have children….
Dont put it all on cost, you dont truely know the cost of kids until you have them. No one looks at how much nursery care is until you give birth 😅
There is also the life styles of current generations who see kids havint a major impact on their quality of life.
There is also the idea that we aren't settling down to form nuclear families/relationshops now. Just dating and repeating.
Demographics is destiny
So people are living longer because we are more affluent and
people are having fewer children because we are less affluent … Yeh, that makes sense.
It's london & and Southeast, not the entire UK .
Is it possible that the economic argument is not the right reason behind the decline, what role does cultural norm play in this? Scandinavian countries, e.g. Denmark, have great support for new parents and their birth rate is still shrinking. How does economic argument explain higher birth rate among low income earners both in the developed and developing countries?
Equal shared parenting after seperation would be a good start, as opposed to what we have now which is the effective employment, by the state, of mothers when they become homeless. Homelessness is more of an application process for single mothers. Local Authorities are the countries biggest estate agent...they sell lifetime tenancies that only single female parents can buy...and only with government debt...aka benefits. Fathers are then cruelly blamed for "abandoning" their children...whereas the government are actually selling lifetime tenancies to moms to give up work. Fathers then pay the family court to write some nade up domestic abuse allegations...its insane.
Tell me your marriage failed without telling me...
They touched on most of the biggest issues but one big one that they missed was how women who try to find a suitable man to make a family with later in life have often become jaded from hookup culture and the men that they want simply dont want them in return. Men who want families arent looking for emotionally damaged women whos biological clock has almost run out.
Fair play though, they managed to mention most of the other reasons.
1. Women in the workforce, not wanting babies until they are older.
2. Cost of living and house/rental prices.
3. Wages not keeping up with inflation.
I would also add contraception and abortion. There are probably a lot less unwanted babies now than there were 50 years ago.
Also religion and social stigmas. All my aunties and uncles and their friends were all married by the time the were in their mid twenties. Compared to my social circle where hardly any are married and only 1 couple i know got married in their 20s.
Divorce rates being sky high is probably another thing that deters men. Not wanting to have children with someone who is highly likely going to leave them in the future.
Social media is another reason, highlighting and encouraging the worst side of human nature, promoting hypergamy and mgtow, although this is more prevalent in the US i believe.
Likewise, women who want families aren't looking for old men who are jaded by hook-up culture and failed relationships. My dad was a very capable man in all areas of life. He didn't look sideways at other women. Likewise, my mum. A man can't expect to f around all his 20s then expect to give off hubby vibes in his 30s to the women he desires. Men who have had a 'past' do not give off the good, stable and loving vibes that attract women.
It is a whole load of issues. Cost is a factor , but also women having the ability through contraception not to have children. Children are a major commitment if you are to do it well .
Someone made a comment regarding couples in "stable" relationships should be the ones having children if they are able to afford to keep them, stable relationships are becoming a thing of the past as divorce is more common, as for being able to afford to bring up children, that leaves the responsibility of childbirth to the millionaires rather than the working class people who are being priced out of living in general
On migrant workers - have a look at Saudi Arabia's population pyramid to see a different model.
The fall in life expectancy in England resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic was unprecedented in recent decades, and life expectancy has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
Future improvements in life expectancy depend on many factors. However, the outlook for England is not promising given the deterioration in population health. The poor health of children, the huge and growing backlog of unmet health care needs (pre-dating the pandemic but exacerbated by it), the almost 3 million - and rising - working-age adults unable to work because of long-term sickness, the persistent constraints on NHS capacity and widening health inequalities illustrate the scale of the challenges that need to be addressed. Added to these are the unpredictable risks of, for example, periodic resurgences in Covid-19, flu or other viral infections, and extreme climate change events such as the heatwaves in 2022.
Life expectancy in the UK compared poorly with most comparator countries before the Covid-19 pandemic; higher excess mortality during the pandemic has resulted in the UK’s further downward slide in international life expectancy tables, with female life expectancy now the lowest among comparator countries (with the exception of the US). Meaningful long-term gains in reducing health inequalities and improving population health and the UK’s life expectancy relative to comparator countries have never been more urgent and yet also more challenging.
I wonder what are the extreme ideas to fix this issue? Are old people getting too much support? My aunt gets atleast £3000 a month from the state because her husband is in a care home (both pensioners). One 89 year old woman shouldn't be getting and above average income, at what point do we start calling these things out?
Choice vs Constraints - I imagine it's super difficult to find evidence that not/having children 'makes you happier'- a lot of confirmation bias in any data- hell I can't even get a straight answer out of my mates!
I have been educated, but have been amazed and am incensed that I have to watch this video to understand just how little almost any significant economic and governmental bodies know about where our country (and the world) is going, economically from the point of view of population. SURELY the IFS must have considered that its projections on the economy are totally dependent on the issues discussed here today, and the facilitator is sitting rabbit in headlights at the information presented by the two experts that he should have known, quantified and included in any of the work output of his organisation. Failure to be aware of the desperately obvious, and create realistic models of the population and demographics is essential. Is the whole country blindfolding itself to any responsibility for anything? Where are all the hundreds of experts, academics, and others who should be discussing together and modelling our country's' future? I am shell shocked at the ignorance being displayed here. If there is a world forum on Climate Change (albeit fairly toothless), why isn't there a world forum on this issue with discussions and planning happening before that tornado hits our society? Or if there are some discussions, why isn't IFS being onboard with the findings up to now? Why isn't this headline news in every newspaper? As for "health issues", it is very clear, in the UK if nowhere else, that these fugitives from working have a bad case of "Bandwagon Disease". Millions of people have just given up on working since the Pandemic having been paid for doing nothing for a year, they create a fashionable "condition" that they can wave under the nose of the DWP that triggers money and sit back and await the tidal wave of taxpayers money to lift them into a world of idleness. There appears to be little energy being put into why these people appear suddenly to be "ill", and society just pays pay out to avoid any accusations of "discrimination" of whatever sort, health, fitness or mental issues. I am shocked.
Why is giving native Britons of the UK demographic & cultural security so offensive to all these people?
& why do they feel so entitled to deny people that when clearly haven't the right?
These non proposed, demographic & cultural policies of increasingly marginalising & minoritising Native Britons, that were never openly proposed or voted for, but in fact voted against have been a disaster & need to be stopped & reversed.
School student body demographic reporting have the children of English families becoming a minority in the English school system in around 10 years.
By the trends of the official voluntarily provided census figures, along with official immigration ones since, the English nation will be a minority in their homeland in a mere few decades & all Britons (in the Isles not just the UK) will be some short years after that, & who knows what the reality on the ground means for how much sooner crossing each of these demographic thresholds will occur.
Still no mention of this on tv, or most of the supposedly independent & dissident online media, the omerta remains unbroken & the slow walk ethnic cleansing into dissolution continues.
We want, have appealed for & are entitled to demographic & cultural security in our homeland from our institutions who are denying us it.
It IS an existential issue & we are rapidly approaching a point when self defence calculus applies.
Organisations like the IFS & OBR never criticise bringing in millions of people who haven't paid in but immediately draw from the public purse, are a weight on public services & housing & only a minority of whom ever contribute anything, with an even smaller number meeting the costs their presence imposes, let alone surpass them.
Nor do they criticise & attack borrowing billions to pay for unneccesary things the public doesn't want & hasn't called or voted for & aren't good for the families of the nations of this country.
But billions for people who've broken into the country or overstayed illegally (the majority) & are costing far more than they could generate in tax contributions, services provided & infrastructure built, let alone what they actually do.
A policy of mass remigration would be the foundation of a cure for all sorts of ills: housing (especially social), waiting lists, traffic, rubbish mess, prison overcrowding, child g3n!tal mut!lat!on, acid attacks, stabb!ngs, shame k!llings, bl00d feuds, r*pe, s3xual assaults, modern day slavery, fraud scams & the general degradation of social trust that comes with a high churn, ethnically diverse society.
When I checked last year, only 44.5% of the White British population are under 40 acdording to official ONS stats. (Which is to say 44.5% of the 73.5% of the official population on the basis of voluntary census data, giving 32.7% of the official total)
Offical ONs stats had the population of just England at 56.5million, of which 41.54million are White British, of whom only 9.14milllion are females under 40 (this demographic is the reproductive generational portal) & we have been below replacement fertility (2.1 children) for half a century & half of women at 30 are now childless & even if all 2.5mil of them try for a single child only half will succeed; that only leaves 6.64mil under 30s to have children with co-ethnics & provide most of the demographic future of the English.
Current trends showing fewer than half (3.2mil) will; whilst the inflows of millions of foreign extraction continue (policies of just population stability puts the official figure of foreign extraction to match the gap at circa 60mil) & will likely continue to increase as the easiest level to pull for (headline not per capita) GDP growth - unless you stand on the principle that the native people of the land not being outnumbered & replaced in most of their homeland is more important than line-go-up.
@@GodsOwnPrototype this nonsense always comes from English people,who are as native as Donner kebabs. What do you mean by "cultural security" anyway? Do you want our society to become frozen in time?
It's a lofty goal to maintain population.
Inflated house prices and rents. End of story.
Politicians, the media and the public all worship HPI which along with the NHS is the nearest thing that Britain has to a national religion.
This has distorted government policy and the structure of the tax system for decades.
Imputed rent on owner occupied properties is also used to inflate GDP artificially so Britain can borrow more than it can really afford which increases the public debt burden to levels that are higher than the income from the rest of the economy can pay.
The middle earners need something. If IVF was made more accessible on the NHS, housing more affordable and not having to move 50+ miles away from your support system then the right people will be having children. Children who are more likely to grow up and contribute like their parents. Until these changes are made you’ll have the not working/part time working benefits class and immigrants churning out the future.
This won’t happen though because the middle earners are just being pummelled into hell; high housing costs, high taxes, no access to services you are perceived as able to access privately.
A £40k salary for a person who completed a degree and pays into a pension is around £29,707.66 after tax. Rent in London can easily gobble up £20k of that, yet you are considered to be some blessed being for earning £40k 🤣
Low wages ?
Very frightening to learn that public spending is over 40% of GDP and rising fast and yet dependent on a dwindling number of tax paying adults!
Also eye-popping to learn of those statistics about Swedish and Finnish childless men and their likely application to other industrialised economies! Failed states?
My children will be working while I am retired; they are creating the wealth needed to fund my retirement.
Having children and bringing them up has been very expensive for me and my wife.
Why should someone who has not made the same "investment" benefit as well.
I am suggesting that the State Pension continues and to some extent is dependent on how many children one has.
This might persuade some of those freeloaders to think again.
I doubt you have paid more into the state pension pot than me. Why should you be rewarded just for choosing to have kids, for choosing to increase pressure on all our environmental systems?
@ I think the aim of the game is not to pay tax and just ensure you pay minimum to qualify for benefits.
India understands importance of traditional relationships
Houses cost a gazillion pounds while wages are essentially at adult pocket money levels. If you start saving now you could maybe have a child when you’re 130. 😂
Everybody is talking about money and housing. How about just women not willing to go through it physically? There is no amount of "love" I'd go through that shit. No epidural right from the beginning, no one's going to pay for your pension.
We dont need handouts , just affordable stable Gov rental housing/flats for working people to balance shortage supply of private development. Gov housing should also not be garenteed for "life" . If you start earning big bucks, you need to move on. If you get a criminal record , you lose your place.
How are we going to incentivise people in their early 60s that can afford to retire to work for longer? Maybe they build up a tax protected inheritance pot?
Our pension is rediculasly low compared to other countries. Still working at 71
Your productivity levels are also very low.... What do you expect?
@@dooley-chyou think people WANT to work at 71? What a weird response you gave to a fact that effects us all eventually.
Nobody should have to work at 71. If pensions were better they wouldn’t have to work and it would free up jobs for younger people.
Fix the care system, housing markets, job markets, culture wars, health systems and then maybe young people will be able to muster the energy and interest to care for draining, expensive, thankless children. Stop skirting around the true causes. - Childfree by choice fellow Gerontology PhD.
Child care has gotten better.I have 2 kids, so from my experience.not great, but it is functioning.
Men are not having they are impregnating them at that age
The worst inequality is that some can pass on their pension and others cannot
And now they’re coming for more inheritance tax. They’re removing hope and lifelines from too many people who could have their life boosted through an inheritance.
@@peanutboxes4076 what about the people who will not have their lives boosted through an inheritance?
@ listen, I come from a poor family. I’ll be lucky to get a few thousand passed down to me, but even that would boost my life, yet I heard a figure of 40% on inheritance tax?! This is immoral. It’s immoral whether one will be getting inheritance or not. I’m not selfish, I realise there’s many people out there who would get a much needed boost and I don’t want them to have it taken away. I don’t only care about things being better for myself. I want things to be better for all society.
If my dad suddenly won the lottery and had something to pass on I would be very upset if the government tried to take a chunk before it got to me.
Why would you ask such a question? That’s like someone saying “cancer treatment should be free” and you replying “what about people who don’t have cancer” 😂
@@peanutboxes4076 40% is for estates over £1m (approximately, the threshold can be affected by a lot of things). It’s 0% below that.
Its a huge problem, with debt raising the young generations will be crushed
Feminism abortion forcing women into the workplace, resources allocated to new arrivals,
It’s not hard to work out.
You talk about pro-natal policies and their high costs. So how much do you think our pro-geriatric policies cost? 100s of £billions a year!
'Pro-geriatric policies', a good reframing.
What is this people thing ? Isn’t this the fault of women ? Are you going to blame men for this too ? All the incentives put in place and women do not respond ? Do they not take any responsibility for the disaster ?
We need protection of all humans life from moment of conception.
Let's shoehorn in a specious argument, shall we?
Institutional economic thinking is part of if not the main problem.
Nonsense.
@@dooley-ch Import millions so that line still goes up, ignore the demographic realities on the ground & pretend people are just numbers in a spreadsheet.
England is more densely populated than India now.
Choose :
Fertility?
Or
Modern civilisation?
You can't have both.
Ain't it so. It's almost as if modernity comes with population limiting mechanisms to counter the seemingly unlimited resources.
We have to permit assisted death - people are living longer, not living better
Nothing stopping most people planning ahead to depart early without involving the cold demonic hand of state bureaucracy as a legal actor in ending the lives of it's increasingly expensive elderly citizens - many societies had honour systems that weighed on the old to not overly burden their children & grandchildren; nonesuch appears to exist at all in our own society.
No mention of the coming impacts of advanced AI and humanoid robotics.
Single mother ls are given housing, single men are left homeless. If single men were given housing, women would have more incentive to stay with men.
The Climate nutters.
We want them to integrate and assimilate!!
Wait...now they're not having babies, just like us. Why not???
If you are royal.why not have 3 or more kids paid by tax payers.we all want to live like that.
Same strategy works at the bottom also.
You can be absolutely certain that if the cause is physiological, ie; couples can’t get pregnant, due to a certain medical product rolled out in 2021, then these people will never, ever tell you about it.
What a nonsense xD love listening to pseudo experts who have either no clue or are so politically correct to avoid real issue :)
And claiming it's ok to replace your culture with immigrants who generally don't integrate with local culture is amazing xD aaaa its fine my child died as long two imigrant children will come and replace it xD
High cost of living.
As a couple in our 30s we've chosen to be child free. Cost and freedom is a major motivator but another consideration for us and I don't think you mentioned global warming once, why would you want to bring a child into this world. Of course it's only opinion but frankly it would be selfish.
Global warming?!
Seriously?
I'm 37 with two kids. The planet isn't about to set on fire/explode anytime soon.
@mrmeldrew693 of course it is matter of opinion... No not right now but by 2100 the world will be a mess. We're about to eclipse the 1.5C . Only time will tell eh.
@@orangesub121it’s not natural though, you realise this is done on purpose? Have you not heard of geo-engineering or cloud seeding? TH-cam tends to delete my comments when I use these terms. That in itself speaks volumes. The globalists push a manufactured lie and implement green taxes.
@@orangesub121 It might be worth noting the last 50 years of climate predictions & pronouncements & tracking how accurate or not those claims were when the dates they cited arrived - surely the minimal due dilligence once should do before making whole of life decisions on the latest in a long line of such pronouncements.