A creeping tragedy: Declining birthrates
We cannot afford to sit passive as birth rates tumble further with no signs of improvement.
The conundrum as to why modern-day Brits are having fewer children than previous generations is seldom touched upon by politicians and the commentariat alike.
The short-sightedness of a generation of politicians and civil servants has bought forward feeble attempts to incentivise natalism, which in-turn has led to the nation sleepwalking into the steady dismantlement of the family structure. Without strong financial and social safeguards, we could soon see a deepening of the crisis.
‘We need to act before it’s too late’ – words echoed by climate change protestors in a school walk-out across the country recently – is a statement our cause can draw parallels with, however the parallel’s starts – and ends – there.
The existential scepticism spouted by climate change activists is deeply disturbing; an internal debate on whether it is moral to birth and raise children in such a world is utterly ludicrous. In a post-enlightenment world, we have seen the eradication of disease, a rapid expansion of individual freedom, and a triumph of rationalism. It would seem the latter is wasted on such individuals, if it is indeed immoral to birth children into such a climate; what of your grandparents? Your great-grandparents? How deeply irresponsible of them to birth your family into poverty, disease, and war!
Rationality does not even enter the equation, this scepticism is a shallow attempt to signal how caring they are for the environment, as well as rather cynically assuming the position that having children would be at the detriment to the environment as opposed to conserving it.
The almost nihilistic attitude towards natalism doesn’t stop there. As well as social opposition, there is also underlying economic pressures scraping away at what little incentives there are left. A contentious argument which I believe plays a pivotal part in this debate is that of the ‘wage gap’, all-to-often thrown out because of studies with poor methodology – which is a colossal understatement – when you examine more rigorous studies you find out there is in-fact a gap in earnings, just not where you would expect. The gap in earnings is not between genders, the gap lays between mothers and the rest of the population. In one study the distance between the two numbers have largely been attributed to child bearing costs, where in Denmark alone it has been described to be as much as twenty per cent. Similar studies have shown the effects on salary after children, where it does not affect the salary of men, but rather, has a detrimental effect on women’s salary.
When taking this loss of income into consideration, it is easy to see a correlation, women are often choosing putting off child-birth until later in life because of the risk of financial instability. As a country we need to be proactively looking at ways to soften the financial burden of children in order to encourage families to reverse this worrying trend.
One such way the government can mitigate some of the risk for families is to make childcare tax-deductible as opposed to subsidising it, as it currently does. As it stands, the UK has some of the most expensive childcare costs in Europe, bound by regulations such as 2-6 children per day care attendant depending on qualification, is no doubt inflating costs for poorer families.
Removing subsidies and allowing markets to correct themselves, alongside the addition of payment for childcare to become tax-deductible, will ensure demand becomes higher and in-turn see greater supply in the future – increasing competition and lowering prices.
Another complication for affordable childcare is overly-complex VAT laws, local authority nurseries are entirely VAT exempt and zero-rated, they cannot charge VAT to parents but can claim VAT back off purchases from their local authority. However independent nurseries have no such luxury, they are losing potentially thousands of pounds of VAT rebates they are not allowed to claim back as they are not zero-rated. The cost of this policy has to be either passed onto the quality of service, or more likely onto the price of the service.
We cannot afford to sit passive as birth rates tumble further with no signs of improvement, there needs to be an expansion of duties for the cabinet committee for social reform, or a genesis of a new cabinet committee entirely – with a sole focus on matters of the family.
When considering it is the prime minister herself who heads the committee for social reform, it would be safe to assume her attention is otherwise preoccupied, and could be forgiven for it not attracting her undivided attention…
