A demographer at the University of Oxford has triggered widespread anger after proposing that people without children should be taxed at a higher rate to help boost Britain's falling birth rate. The suggestion, published in an opinion piece for The Sunday Times, has been branded an attack on women's bodily autonomy by campaigners and social media users alike.
Dr Paul Morland, a demographer at St Antony's College, Oxford, wrote that Britain should 'introduce a negative child benefit tax' for those who do not have offspring... but it recognises that we all rely on there being a next generation'. Writing in The Sunday Times, he argued: 'We need to think seriously about how we incentivise parenthood in a society that has lost its way on family formation.' He argued the funds raised could be used to fix what he called the UK's 'broken, expensive early-years care system'.
