We’re having fewer babies. Peak fertility in postwar England and Wales was 2.93 children per woman in 1964, but that has dropped to 1.6 today. The big falls were largely over by the late 1970s but there has been another decline in the last decade, sparking widespread angst and soul-searching about what could be done.
We’ve long known that bad economic times generally, and high unemployment specifically, mean fewer babies. Lower or more uncertain income matters because it is 100% certain that having children costs a lot.
