The Childless Generation

[goldilocksporridge]

The Childless Generation

The childless generation: Record one in five middle aged women paying ultimate price for putting career before a family

Childlessness has reached record levels among a generation of women wrestling with the pressures of careers, mortgages and rocky relationships.

One in five women are now reaching middle age without having had children, new official figures showed today.

The proportion of women who go without having a family has reached historic levels last seen in the generation born just after the First World War, whose peak childbearing years coincided with times of depression, another world war, and post-war austerity.

Currently married with no kids, but i want to have kids. However what scares me about having kids is the cost, job insecurity etc, you need a pretty good career and secure job. If you have kids you want to provide a good life for them and yourself. I see a lot of people in late 20s/ early 30s delaying children. Plus the divorce rate is high, so what are chances a marriage will suvive 20 odd years.

The cost of going to university,, debt, and the time, not so great paying jobs, surely this is primary reason for people delaying and then not having kids.

[ken_ichikawa]

Spells trouble tbh as bonds rely on future slavery of unborn children...

If there are no more slaves or a significantly lower number of them then the slave bonds are worthless (more worthless than they are now)

[blackgoose]

No kids is certainly not the ultimate price - the ultimate price would be death, which is not the case here. Mostly, it is a choice that people do not want to devote decades of the most productive and potentially enjoyable and exciting time of their lives to bringing up other people. Having kids is a big sacrifice, and is one that believe it or not not everyone wants to make.

[Ruffneck]

Bizarre , i thought they would have been saying people having no children was a good thing.

After all no children = no further C02 emissions?

The mainstream media really are all over the shop

[Number79]

Spells trouble tbh as bonds rely on future slavery of unborn children...

If there are no more slaves or a significantly lower number of them then the slave bonds are worthless (more worthless than they are now)

didnt labour solve that problem already with free cash and passports for all?

[Papa Serf]

It's a tough decision to have kids when you are living in a rented (no kids, no pets) 1 bed flat and needing two wages to pay the rent. Probably even harder if you bought the rechid place and have a huge mortgage. Putting off having kids till it's too late.

[fluffy666]

No kids is certainly not the ultimate price - the ultimate price would be death, which is not the case here. Mostly, it is a choice that people do not want to devote decades of the most productive and potentially enjoyable and exciting time of their lives to bringing up other people. Having kids is a big sacrifice, and is one that believe it or not not everyone wants to make.

Nothing wrong with not having kids you don't want.. but I think the problem is people who want kids but can't afford them, because a combination of stupid house prices, job insecurity, flat wages, high childcare costs and, in the future, cut benefits and student loans, makes it a financial impossibility.

[goldilocksporridge]

It's a tough decision to have kids when you are living in a rented (no kids, no pets) 1 bed flat and needing two wages to pay the rent. Probably even harder if you bought the rechid place and have a huge mortgage. Putting off having kids till it's too late.

yep - thats another point large mortgages are another factor in people delaying kids. Plus companies are not exactly friendly to women taking maternity leave - there are limited opportunities around, it seems in my experience difficult enough to another job in your own field let alone take a break for a few years and expect to come back into another good job. Plus the workplace seems to get more competitive all the time, simply going 9 - 5 and doing your job is not not enough you expected to live and breathe your career as if its the only thought that can possibly go through your head, you can't just leave your job, have your kids, and expect to jump straight into another decent paid job.

I just feel that lots of people end up dedicating their lives to careers and not having kids, only to get the boot when they are too old or there is not enough work.

[Mr. Miyagi]

In the department I work there are 4 colleagues who have children (including me) and 9 who are childless. All my colleagues barring one are all in the mid thirties or older. The figure includes males who's partners are also in their mid thirties or older. All professional mostly graduates just not having children.

Having said that around half are planning in the future to maybe have children, they don't think the body clock is a clicking.

[Executive Sadman]

Hate kids, dont want kids. If i happen to end up with a woman that does, we'll adopt some africans.

[Riedquat]

Could fuel long-term population decline, good. Just a pity that I'll be of the age to miss the benefits but feel the short-term pain of getting it down a bit. I've never understood why people want children anyway. Just seems a way of tying chains around you and soaking up all your time and money. Wonderful.

[Papa Serf]

yep - thats another point large mortgages are another factor in people delaying kids. Plus companies are not exactly friendly to women taking maternity leave - there are limited opportunities around, it seems in my experience difficult enough to another job in your own field let alone take a break for a few years and expect to come back into another good job. Plus the workplace seems to get more competitive all the time, simply going 9 - 5 and doing your job is not not enough you expected to live and breathe your career as if its the only thought that can possibly go through your head, you can't just leave your job, have your kids, and expect to jump straight into another decent paid job.

I just feel that lots of people end up dedicating their lives to careers and not having kids, only to get the boot when they are too old or there is not enough work.

So true, I had a real battle with me last employer that kept pushing me to go the extra mile, with a wink "it all gets noticed, all this unpaid overtime you're doing you'll get a nice pay rise". It never happened and after several years I ended up p155ed off or possible a bit depressed by it all. Until that wonderful day that redundancy come

Could fuel long-term population decline, good. Just a pity that I'll be of the age to miss the benefits but feel the short-term pain of getting it down a bit. I've never understood why people want children anyway. Just seems a way of tying chains around you and soaking up all your time and money. Wonderful.

Yeah, who wants a bunch of tiny sociopaths around the house.

[fluffy666]

In the department I work there are 4 colleagues who have children (including me) and 9 who are childless. All my colleagues barring one are all in the mid thirties or older. The figure includes males who's partners are also in their mid thirties or older. All professional mostly graduates just not having children.

Having said that around half are planning in the future to maybe have children, they don't think the body clock is a clicking.

A quick perusal of 7 people I graduated with (now age 36+) gives 5 kids as opposed to the 15 you'd need for replacement.

Also know of several couples in work/friends who are suddenly finding that Nature doesn't wait.

The scary thing is that my generation actually had a chance at getting jobs and houses.

[Gone baby gone]

No kids is certainly not the ultimate price - the ultimate price would be death, which is not the case here. Mostly, it is a choice that people do not want to devote decades of the most productive and potentially enjoyable and exciting time of their lives to bringing up other people. Having kids is a big sacrifice, and is one that believe it or not not everyone wants to make.

It is death, the death of your genetic line. Having children is the most natural thing possible, it it wasn't you, I and all the rest of us wouldn't exist.

In nature, only purpose we have as living organisms is to reproduce.

[Bob Loblaw]

Cant see how this is a problem:

Impact of the 'Immigration Decade' on English Primary Schools

28 November, 2010

The dramatic impact on Primary schools of the massive increase in immigration into the UK in the last decade has been spelled out in a new paper from think tank Migrationwatch.

The paper examines the effect of a net increase of more than 2.5 million long-term immigrants from non English speaking countries, between 1991 and 2008.

It follows an earlier Migrationwatch paper which showed that over the next five years to 2015 over half a million more school places will be needed for the children of recent immigrants to the UK - those who arrived after 1998 – at a total cost of £40 billion over the period.

‘These pupils will of course continue through the education system - with all the attendant costs - but it is primary schools where the effect is being felt most acutely at present and where the education of English speaking children is bound to suffer as immigrant children require extra help, ’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migrationwatch chairman.

The paper examines England as a whole, individual regions, and three groups of Local Education Authorities (LEAs) - London Boroughs, the largest urban boroughs outside London, and the remaining LEAs in England. It also projects the numbers to 2018.

In total, between 1991 and 2008, there was a net increase of over 2.5 million in long-term immigrants arriving in the UK from non English speaking countries, mostly to settle. Of these, two million arrived between 1998 and 2008.

The effect on birth rates has been intensified by the rapid increase in the number of foreign born women of reproductive age. In 2007 this total was nearly 43% higher than in 2001.

In contrast, the number of UK born woman of reproductive age was nearly 3% lower in the same period.

In the period 1994 to 2009 the proportion of births to foreign born women rose from 14% to 25%.

In the period 1998 to 2010, the proportion of children in primary schools in England for whom English was not the mother tongue nearly doubled to 16%, or over half a million out of 3.2 million children.

In inner London native English speaking children are already in a minority - in 2010 55% of all primary school pupils did not have English as their first language.

In Outer London the proportion of pupils without English as a mother tongue almost doubled from 22% to 39%.

In six out of the nine regions and in England as a whole, the percentage of children without English as a mother tongue also nearly doubled from 8.5% to 16%.

‘Our projection suggests that the percentage of primary school children in England without English as a mother tongue will increase to 22.7% in 2018, or almost 830,000 - a 60 % increase on current numbers,’ said Sir Andrew.

‘We believe it is important that these issues are discussed as they have enormous implications, not only for our schools at a time of severe financial constraint, but also, if the present scale of immigration is allowed to continue, for the very nature of our society. Once again the case for major reductions in immigration to the UK is powerfully made.’

‘It is astonishing that this situation has been allowed to develop without discussion and without regard to the views of the vast majority of people of this country,’ he said.

[goldilocksporridge]

So true, I had a real battle with me last employer that kept pushing me to go the extra mile, with a wink "it all gets noticed, all this unpaid overtime you're doing you'll get a nice pay rise". It never happened and after several years I ended up p155ed off or possible a bit depressed by it all. Until that wonderful day that redundancy come

Yeah, who wants a bunch of tiny sociopaths around the house.

I think people do want to have kids, surely its a natural human desire, people who on this board saying they kids will just soak up there time and money - what there really saying is they don't earn enough to have kids, or they can't maintain there lifestyle with children . Who wants to get into your 50s with no kids, and stuck with their partner or on your own.

The problem is the average job or career just does not cut it anymore for wanting to have a largish family and decent standard of living - While my parent generation could have had a family of 4 on one person, now its two to pay the mortgage. whilst people have an outward to appearance of more wealth with holidays, cars, gadgets - this is the normal lifestyle - the has to be some give, and now its less children or no children.

[ken_ichikawa]

I think people do want to have kids, surely its a natural human desire, people who on this board saying they kids will just soak up there time and money - what there really saying is they don't earn enough to have kids, or they can't maintain there lifestyle with children . Who wants to get into your 50s with no kids, and stuck with their partner or on your own.

The problem is the average job or career just does not cut it anymore for wanting to have a largish family and decent standard of living - While my parent generation could have had a family of 4 on one person, now its two to pay the mortgage. whilst people have an outward to appearance of more wealth with holidays, cars, gadgets - this is the normal lifestyle - the has to be some give, and now its less children or no children.

You might not want to do this doesn't mean other people don't. I don't want any of this.

Heh on top of this the world is a horrible harsh place, why on earth would you want to put somebody else through that? Years of horrible things before I went nuts in my late 20s and simply stopped caring about things.

[Dorkins]

This graph should be shown to every woman at the age of 18. It shows the average likelihood that a woman will get pregnant in a given year, assuming she is trying to get pregnant:

Basically if you don't start trying by 35, you are really rolling the dice.

Edit: Also it's pretty obvious that women are built to have children while they are in their 20s, not their 30s.

[goldilocksporridge]

You might not want to do this doesn't mean other people don't. I don't want any of this.

Heh on top of this the world is a horrible harsh place, why on earth would you want to put somebody else through that? Years of horrible things before I went nuts in my late 20s and simply stopped caring about things.

I agree the world is becoming a more horrible place and it can only get worse with debt levels, and in order for kids to get ahead they will have to become greedy, selfish unfeeling sociopaths.

[worzel]

I think people do want to have kids, surely its a natural human desire, people who on this board saying they kids will just soak up there time and money - what there really saying is they don't earn enough to have kids, or they can't maintain there lifestyle with children . Who wants to get into your 50s with no kids, and stuck with their partner or on your own.

The problem is the average job or career just does not cut it anymore for wanting to have a largish family and decent standard of living - While my parent generation could have had a family of 4 on one person, now its two to pay the mortgage. whilst people have an outward to appearance of more wealth with holidays, cars, gadgets - this is the normal lifestyle - the has to be some give, and now its less children or no children.

I have heard people say that if you went without the tat, then you could afford kids, but let be honest, the costs of the tat is pretty insignificant compared with the cost of housing and essentials like food, it certainly is for me anyway.

I have one kid, would like more. Fortunately, the Mrs and I both had very good jobs up until the first, and I still have mine for the time being at least. Despite having what some would consider a great household income, we can only afford a fairly modest house without taking on a monster mortgage.

I don't think that the 20 somethings that would previously have settled down and bought a house by their age are necessarily realising that there is quite a big obstacle in the way of a family, as it seems a long way off to them now, its not until its too late that they realise what has happened.

Looking at my friends, I'd say it looks like they will have on average fewer than 2 per person, but difficult to pick a truly representative sample of friends.

[Gone baby gone]

I have heard people say that if you went without the tat, then you could afford kids, but let be honest, the costs of the tat is pretty insignificant compared with the cost of housing and essentials like food, it certainly is for me anyway.

I have one kid, would like more. Fortunately, the Mrs and I both had very good jobs up until the first, and I still have mine for the time being at least. Despite having what some would consider a great household income, we can only afford a fairly modest house without taking on a monster mortgage.

In my experience, people who really want to have children and are not prevented from doing so by biological reasons, find a way.

[Gone baby gone]

I agree the world is becoming a more horrible place and it can only get worse with debt levels, and in order for kids to get ahead they will have to become greedy, selfish unfeeling sociopaths.

Many of your ancestors will have lived in a far worse world than the one you or your potential children inhabit.

[Riedquat]

I think people do want to have kids, surely its a natural human desire, people who on this board saying they kids will just soak up there time and money - what there really saying is they don't earn enough to have kids, or they can't maintain there lifestyle with children . Who wants to get into your 50s with no kids, and stuck with their partner or on your own.

Me, for one. Why on earth would I want to be in my 50s with kids? What's so great? What's the point? Why does it make any difference if my genetic line dies out or not, other than as some sort of weird ego trip or delusion of effective immortality? On the other hand plenty of time to myself is something that I can appreciate and enjoy. I'm also suspicious about there being any biological drive to have children, and think that it's more the effect of social ideas. The biological urge that produces children is the urge to have sex; humans, unlike animals, have worked out what the result of that is, but the drives and instincts come from prior to that. There's also some biological drive to protect your children once you have them (the species would've died out otherwise), but I can't see any to have children in the first place.

I earn enough to be able to look after them if I had them. Doesn't mean that I wouldn't prefer to spend the money on something else, in exactly the same way as I can afford the bills, still have enough left over to do most of what I want, but would still prefer to not have to pay bills.

[CrashedOutAndBurned]

The Childless Generation

Currently married with no kids, but i want to have kids. However what scares me about having kids is the cost, job insecurity etc, you need a pretty good career and secure job. If you have kids you want to provide a good life for them and yourself. I see a lot of people in late 20s/ early 30s delaying children. Plus the divorce rate is high, so what are chances a marriage will suvive 20 odd years.

The cost of going to university,, debt, and the time, not so great paying jobs, surely this is primary reason for people delaying and then not having kids.

Have kids now. You're clearly not a pituitary retard like most people squeezing them out by the dozen. Don't further dilute the gene pool by being responsible. I'm serious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSROlfR7WTo

[worzel]

In my experience, people who really want to have children and are not prevented from doing so by biological reasons, find a way.

Agreed, but plenty are not in the stable situation that they would like to be in order to have kids and so put it off until it is too late.