Too Poor To Start A Family: Will ‘Generation Pause’ Ever Grow Up?

[Riedquat]

What's the problem if people aren't having children? It's not as if no-one is having any, just a reduction. Sounds like good news to me, and it spares them from being brought up in the ugly, depressing characterless sh1thole that the UK has become in all too many parts.

(born in the 70s, no kids, no desire to have any).

[Riedquat]

Obviously societies and people should move forward both in terms of what they are able to have in material terms and what they are able to have socially.

What the should move forward in is happiness, it's just rather hard to measure. What actually makes life worth living? All the toys are nice to have but nowhere near as significant as people often make them out to be. Not having to worry about the basics and having good company and good surroundings, the rest is icing on top of that. Unfortunately it's those things that are going (often chucked out to make room for those who don't see anything worthwhile beyond mere practicality and ease). I really pity anyone born today.

[Austin Allegro]

What's the problem if people aren't having children? It's not as if no-one is having any, just a reduction. Sounds like good news to me, and it spares them from being brought up in the ugly, depressing characterless sh1thole that the UK has become in all too many parts.

(born in the 70s, no kids, no desire to have any).

The problem is the demographic pyramid. There aren't enough future taxpayers being born to keep the big-state jamboree going. The rich won't accept more taxation and the ordinary people won't stand for cuts in welfare, so the only solution is to allow unlimited immigration in the hope that the birthrate (and tax revenues) will rise.

Depending on your viewpoint, unlimited immigration (and the attendant, ongoing cultural revolution it has caused/will cause) may be a good or bad thing. In my view it is causing rather more problems than it is worth.

[Executive Sadman]

Interesting thread.

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/latest-news/top-stories/walking-the-streets-of-1970s-yorkshire-1-6880214

In the Yorkshire post today "Walking the streets of 1970s Yorkshire" - so it was better then than today?

FASCINATING images of Leeds form part of a new exhibition showing the harsh reality of life on the back streets of the North at the turn of the 1970s.

Previously-unseen pictures taken by acclaimed photographer Nick Hedges between 1968 and 1972 have gone on display at London’s Science Museum.

They were commissioned by the Shelter charity in an attempt to draw attention to the plight of people living in poor housing conditions. However their use has been restricted until now to protect the privacy of Nick’s subjects.

Inspiration for the title of the exhibition, Make Life Worth Living, came from an end-of-terrace painted advert for Beecham’s Pills that features in one of the Leeds pictures. The photo dates from the summer of 1970 and although its exact location is unknown, it is believed to be of a street in either Armley or Holbeck.

Other photos in the exhibition were taken in cities such as Bradford, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool. One of the Sheffield pictures shows a family of five living in a decaying terraced house with no gas, no electricity, no hot water and no bathroom.

Nick believes his work for Shelter carries an important message for 21st century Britain, despite being more than 40 years old. He said: “Although these photographs have become historical documents, they serve to remind us that secure and adequate housing is the basis of a civilised urban society.

“The failure of successive governments to provide for it is a sad mark of society’s inaction. The photographs should allow us to celebrate progress, yet all they can do is haunt us with a sense of failure.”

The exhibition runs at the Science Museum until January 18 next year. It is taking place in the attraction’s Media Space, a joint venture between the London museum and Bradford’s National Media Museum. Nick donated around 1,000 prints from his work with Shelter to the National Media Museum back in 1983.

For further information on the exhibition, visit: www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/makelifeworthliving

Of course it was better. They had governments in the 60s and 70s who actually spent money on new housing with heating and toilets. OK it was ugly tower blocks, but still an improvement from unsanitary conditions we see here.

Now we have governments who do nothing but get in the way of building.

[worried1]

Of course it was better. They had governments in the 60s and 70s who actually spent money on new housing with heating and toilets. OK it was ugly tower blocks, but still an improvement from unsanitary conditions we see here.

Now we have governments who do nothing but get in the way of building.

True, and they also allow the councils to dodge looking after the buildings they have already got.

The local council in my borough built a new estate of tower blocks in the 60s, boasting at the time how they were 'tearing down Victorian slums' to do so. Now the blocks are in disrepair and a bit of a no-go area and the remaining Victorian houses directly surrounding it are worth about half what they would be a mile or so away.

As I just posted on the local thread, the 'Victorian slums' that are a bit further from the estate have no been modernised quite nicely and sell for silly money to people coming down from central London:

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/34425809#MjFxIjvHQZqxj2Hv.97

[campervanman]

This thread seems to perfectly summarise an understanding of how things are worse for young people in 2014 (even if not in absolute terms) whilst simultaneously demonstrating a complete failure to understand why. Young people can bleat on forever about how previous generations had things better than now but a failure to understand the root causes and therefore not having a clue as to what needs to change will just produce more of the same only worse.

Edited October 7, 2014 by campervanman

[porca misèria]

Of course it was better. They had governments in the 60s and 70s who actually spent money on new housing with heating and toilets. OK it was ugly tower blocks, but still an improvement from unsanitary conditions we see here.

They also had lots of people who would make a business buying old houses, modernising them, and selling for a profit. Hence HPI.

The first house I remember from when I was little was kind-of a case in point. My parents sold it in 1973, to someone with the money to fix the roof and install (then-)modern plumbing and electrics and such things, which no doubt doubled the house's value for him.

[Riedquat]

The problem is the demographic pyramid. There aren't enough future taxpayers being born to keep the big-state jamboree going. The rich won't accept more taxation and the ordinary people won't stand for cuts in welfare, so the only solution is to allow unlimited immigration in the hope that the birthrate (and tax revenues) will rise.

Depending on your viewpoint, unlimited immigration (and the attendant, ongoing cultural revolution it has caused/will cause) may be a good or bad thing. In my view it is causing rather more problems than it is worth.

Unlimited immigration is so downright obviously a bad thing I can't understand why anyone who claims to be sane would suggest it. It's the very definition of a pyramid approach. Any system designed on having to continually increase just to stay still is clearly broken, and in any case I've said often enough that the last thing I want are more people.

The demographic pyramid shouldn't be a problem for the reasons I've already mentioned, namely that we don't actually require much of a workforce thanks to technological development, the problem is that we've got a system that's completely blind to that reality. It's not geared to supporting the population, it's geared to finding as much to do as possible. It's an issue we'll have to address sooner or later. The ongoing population growth approach will eventually become physically impossible to deal with, even if that's not for centuries, and will seriously damage quality of life long before that (I'd argue that it already has). Best to try to fix it now before the worst of the damage is done. Admittedly I don't know what that fix is and as far as I can tell no-one else does, but TPTB's answer to that seems to be to deny that there is a problem, an approach that means they're not even trying to find a solution.

[Northerner]

Boom ...

Soaring immigration sparks British baby boom as London becomes the birth-rate capital of Europe

• Number of babies being born in the EU has dropped since the financial crash
• But the UK has bucked the trend, with soaring birth rates in London
• British women are having two babies each on average - more than rest of EU

Soaring immigration has sparked a baby boom in Britain outstripping almost every other country in Europe, official figures have revealed. Across the EU, the number of babies being born has dropped since the financial crash – sparking falls in population in some countries. But the UK has bucked the trend, with soaring birth rates in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds contributing to a boom in the number babies being born.

British women are having two babies each on average – higher than anywhere else in Europe, apart from France and Ireland. Overall, London is now seeing more babies born per 1,000 of the population anywhere in Europe, according to the EU’s official statistics body. Across the EU, there were 10.4 babies born per 1,000 people. But in the capital, the birth rate has hit 17.7. At least 14 births per 1,000 population were recorded in the west Midlands, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire as well – a rate only matched in Brussels and Paris. The UK, Germany and Austria were the only countries in Europe to report an increase in their birth rates from 2009 to 2012. Almost every other country in Europe saw the number of babies fall. The figures were buried in the EU Commission’s annual statistics release. The official figures exposed the impact of mass migration into the UK over the past decade. Immigrants moving to Britain are often in the key child-bearing ages, contributing to the spike in babies born across the country.

Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migration Watch UK, which campaigns for low immigration, said: ‘This is yet another example of the impact of mass immigration on our society.’

The EU, meanwhile, said more babies were being born in countries where the family is ‘relatively weak’. It said fertility rates were higher in countries where there is a ‘low proportion of people being married and a high proportion of births outside marriage’. It added that ‘couple instability’ and high divorce rates also contributed.

Fertility rates were lower than 1.5 live births per woman in 13 – the lowest rate being recorded in Portugal — one of the countries most severely hit by the financial and economic crisis — at 1.28 live births per woman.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2783472/Soaring-immigration-sparks-British-baby-boom-London-birth-rate-capital-Europe.html#ixzz3FSUORtHY

[FallingAwake]

That's OK, keep shoving them in. Apparently immigration has no significant effect on house prices, and they're providing skills that the current population don't have (according to Cable), so I say let's import a million a year. Why not? There's room for everybody!

[gf3]

That's OK, keep shoving them in. Apparently immigration has no significant effect on house prices, and they're providing skills that the current population don't have (according to Cable), so I say let's import a million a year. Why not? There's room for everybody!

I work for a job agency.I went into the office today to sort out my pay. There was a Polish girl there answering the phone to all the Polish workers.

[R K]

That's OK, keep shoving them in. Apparently immigration has no significant effect on house prices, and they're providing skills that the current population don't have (according to Cable), so I say let's import a million a year. Why not? There's room for everybody!

No Irish or b****s though, obviously.

(for the avoidance of doubt, I'm parodying a 1950s landlady with that comment)

Edited October 7, 2014 by R K

[Billy soy]

Cue the usual suspects telling us about their grandparents growing up in families of 8 in a 2 up 2 down terrace and how the yoof don't know their born.

I've been told that government grants were available to modernise these cheap doer uppers. 9grand house, 5 grand grant to install gas and electric etc. 1 colleague tells me he flipped 2 houses using these grants, doubled his money every time.

So they didn't have gas and electric ( for a short time). Young adults today are even worse off, they don't even have the house in the first place.

[Riedquat]

Boom ...

Soaring immigration sparks British baby boom as London becomes the birth-rate capital of Europe

Really, really worrying - unless you're running the country.

They also had lots of people who would make a business buying old houses, modernising them, and selling for a profit. Hence HPI.

The first house I remember from when I was little was kind-of a case in point. My parents sold it in 1973, to someone with the money to fix the roof and install (then-)modern plumbing and electrics and such things, which no doubt doubled the house's value for him.

Although in those cases, unlike now, they were pushing the prices up by making very worthwhile changes to the houses. Twigs in a vase the modern equivalent of an indoor toilet?

The Victorian "slums" were fundamentally reasonable buildings. Not perfect but better in many ways than a lot that has come since. The picture at the top of page 4 doesn't look all that terrible to me, no garden is the biggest problem but compared to flats that's no different and not much worse than the postage stamp token garden and the design and appearance, whilst not exactly wonderful doesn't have quite the depressing soulessness that most 20th century stuff does. I'd rather live in one of those (modernised, as long as the neighbourhood isn't full of scum) than a newbuild shoebox.

[Goat]

What's the problem if people aren't having children? It's not as if no-one is having any, just a reduction.

The problem is who is and isn't having the kids.

The benefits/tax credit mothers keep popping them out to keep the money rolling in, meanwhile the self supporting wage earners and professionals who are paying for everyone else might have one or two, think about the implications of that for a moment.

The benefits kids are likely to become the next generation of single mother benefits claimants or uneducated, unemployable men. The wage earners kids are likely to become the next generation of taxpayers who are expected to pay for the rest.

If the tax credit kids are being born at 3x the rate of the taxpayers then sooner or later there won't be enough taxpayers to keep the party going, what happens then?

Sounds like good news to me, and it spares them from being brought up in the ugly, depressing characterless sh1thole that the UK has become in all too many parts.

But why has the place become a s***hole in the first place? Could it be to do with 40+ years of state dependency, encouraging the poor to breed whilst taxing the productive out of existance?

[Riedquat]

The problem is who is and isn't having the kids.

The benefits/tax credit mothers keep popping them out to keep the money rolling in, meanwhile the self supporting wage earners and professionals who are paying for everyone else might have one or two, think about the implications of that for a moment.

Yep, another downside to it.

If the tax credit kids are being born at 3x the rate of the taxpayers then sooner or later there won't be enough taxpayers to keep the party going, what happens then?

Enough taxpayers or enough people doing useful stuff? There's a link between the two of course but the almost entire emphasis on the former when the latter is the actual reality is a problem I keep going on about. Economics should reflect these realities but have become something in their own right.

But why has the place become a s***hole in the first place? Could it be to do with 40+ years of state dependency, encouraging the poor to breed whilst taxing the productive out of existance?

There's more to it than that but that's definitely a part of it. Encouraging getting rich by gaming the system rather than doing something productive is another part.

[Self Employed Youth]

Boom ...

Soaring immigration sparks British baby boom as London becomes the birth-rate capital of Europe

• Number of babies being born in the EU has dropped since the financial crash
• But the UK has bucked the trend, with soaring birth rates in London
• British women are having two babies each on average - more than rest of EU

Soaring immigration has sparked a baby boom in Britain outstripping almost every other country in Europe, official figures have revealed. Across the EU, the number of babies being born has dropped since the financial crash – sparking falls in population in some countries. But the UK has bucked the trend, with soaring birth rates in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds contributing to a boom in the number babies being born.

British women are having two babies each on average – higher than anywhere else in Europe, apart from France and Ireland. Overall, London is now seeing more babies born per 1,000 of the population anywhere in Europe, according to the EU’s official statistics body. Across the EU, there were 10.4 babies born per 1,000 people. But in the capital, the birth rate has hit 17.7. At least 14 births per 1,000 population were recorded in the west Midlands, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire as well – a rate only matched in Brussels and Paris. The UK, Germany and Austria were the only countries in Europe to report an increase in their birth rates from 2009 to 2012. Almost every other country in Europe saw the number of babies fall. The figures were buried in the EU Commission’s annual statistics release. The official figures exposed the impact of mass migration into the UK over the past decade. Immigrants moving to Britain are often in the key child-bearing ages, contributing to the spike in babies born across the country.

Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migration Watch UK, which campaigns for low immigration, said: ‘This is yet another example of the impact of mass immigration on our society.’

The EU, meanwhile, said more babies were being born in countries where the family is ‘relatively weak’. It said fertility rates were higher in countries where there is a ‘low proportion of people being married and a high proportion of births outside marriage’. It added that ‘couple instability’ and high divorce rates also contributed.

Fertility rates were lower than 1.5 live births per woman in 13 – the lowest rate being recorded in Portugal — one of the countries most severely hit by the financial and economic crisis — at 1.28 live births per woman.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2783472/Soaring-immigration-sparks-British-baby-boom-London-birth-rate-capital-Europe.html#ixzz3FSUORtHY

I despise the use of the phrase 'baby boom' for a TFR that is below 2.1.

The so called baby boom is nothing of the sort. We are still not having enough children to replace ourselves. The 43 year long BABY BUST continues.

[winkie]

Interesting thread.

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/latest-news/top-stories/walking-the-streets-of-1970s-yorkshire-1-6880214

In the Yorkshire post today "Walking the streets of 1970s Yorkshire" - so it was better then than today?

FASCINATING images of Leeds form part of a new exhibition showing the harsh reality of life on the back streets of the North at the turn of the 1970s.

A comment from someone who was there at the time.

The photos are very misleading. If they had been taken 12 months before or later, those conditions would not exist. These were working communities that were demolished, often much loved and wrongly designated as slums, and the people were re-housed. The photos were taken as houses were waiting to be knocked down. There are scores of such pictures on the Leodis website. It shows that the camera can indeed lie if we do not know the context of the photograph. The photographer has his own agenda here and historical accuracy isn't on it.

[Goat]

Enough taxpayers or enough people doing useful stuff? There's a link between the two of course but the almost entire emphasis on the former when the latter is the actual reality is a problem I keep going on about.

How do we determine whether something is useful other than by looking at if someone is willing to pay for it to be done, with the person doing the task becoming a taxpayer as a result?

There's more to it than that but that's definitely a part of it. Encouraging getting rich by gaming the system rather than doing something productive is another part.

Lets leave the bankers and BTLers out of this, they are at best a minor part and this situation precedes them by a long way.

For me the benefits system is at the heart of all that's wrong with this country. Rather than being a safety net we've parked large numbers of people on benefits for life, told them not to bother trying to improve themselves and simply accept whatever the council gives them; the result: large numbers of out of control kids turning our towns and cities into s***holes.

I always go back to a post in another thread in cases like this:

Middlesbrough. A friend works in social services up there.

He points out that there have been a generation of kids, the ones who are the product of the trendy fragmentation of the family that got in to full swing in the 70s, who had kids themselves but were too feckless to look after them. So the grandparent/s bought those their kids up, after a fashion.

However, who is going to look after the spawn of those kids? The parents are even more feckless, and it won't be the grandparents this time because they were too irresponsible to look after their own sodding offspring, never mind that of the children they were so incapable of bringing up properly!

So places like Middlesbrough have become ASBO and TWOC central, an absolute feral baseball-capped ratboy infested hellhole. No one who had half a choice would dream of living there. Who in gods name is going to set up a private business in that environment? Even places like Yarm are getting rough on a night.

This is the price we pay for two generations of liberal hand-wringing and the encouragement to do the absolute most stupid thing in the world - have a child you are unwilling and unable to care for properly.

[Riedquat]

How do we determine whether something is useful other than by looking at if someone is willing to pay for it to be done, with the person doing the task becoming a taxpayer as a result?

Common sense - we need to eat, we need to stay out of the weather etc. One of the most stupid things I've ever heard was back in the foot and mouth crisis when some idiot asked why we're even bothering being concerned about farming because it wasn't economically significant and hardly employed anyone any more. The economics are supposed to help us keep track of all of these things but if you only consider them how do you tell when they've wandered off in a meaningless direction? That economics seems to postively encourage busy work and waste (no good making something that everyone will buy once and never need to replace) is a big warning sign to not let them be the sole driver and decider.

Lets leave the bankers and BTLers out of this, they are at best a minor part and this situation precedes them by a long way.

No, they aren't a minor part at all. They are perhaps sponging in a different form though. Edited October 7, 2014 by Riedquat

[Goat]

Common sense - we need to eat, we need to stay out of the weather etc........

What you're saying is that your subjective view of what is and isn't "useful" is better and more reliable than that of the person who is actually paying to have the task done. I'm sorry but I'm going to side with the guy who's writing the cheque every time.

No, they aren't a minor part at all. They are perhaps sponging in a different form though.

Like it or not bankers and landlords are an integral part of any modern economy, to dismiss them as "spongers" is simply naive.

We might dislike the scale they've grown to but that's a consequence of government regulatory failures and planning policy.

[Riedquat]

What you're saying is that your subjective view of what is and isn't "useful" is better and more reliable than that of the person who is actually paying to have the task done. I'm sorry but I'm going to side with the guy who's writing the cheque every time.

I find it rather absurd that "we need to eat" is a less useful way of deciding that growing food is a worthwhile activity than seeing if it stacks up economically.

Like it or not bankers and landlords are an integral part of any modern economy, to dismiss them as "spongers" is simply naive.

We might dislike the scale they've grown to but that's a consequence of government regulatory failures and planning policy.

As is the misuse of a social safety net. That they are an integral part of the modern economy in their current form is a big part of the problem. It's not remotely naive to point that out, indeed it's naive to think that because there are still bits of useful function buried in there that they aren't a big problem too. The entire economy revolves around gamers.

[Neverwhere]

I find it rather absurd that "we need to eat" is a less useful way of deciding that growing food is a worthwhile activity than seeing if it stacks up economically.

As is the misuse of a social safety net. That they are an integral part of the modern economy in their current form is a big part of the problem. It's not remotely naive to point that out, indeed it's naive to think that because there are still bits of useful function buried in there that they aren't a big problem too. The entire economy revolves around gamers.

Well said.

[porca misèria]

A comment from someone who was there at the time.

Like Shirley Baker, who took photos of streets like those when they were lively and busy?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-29410300

[andygivenup]

But why has the place become a s***hole in the first place? Could it be to do with 40+ years of state dependency, encouraging the poor to breed whilst taxing the productive out of existance?

I agree, but how did we get here?

Edited October 7, 2014 by andygivenup