The New Baby Boom.... Biggest in 4 decades

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Women in Britain started to breed like rabbits from 2001 and only last year did they begin to control themselves a little.

We’re still talking about the postwar baby-boomers half a century on. The Noughties equivalent is already wreaking havoc and they’re barely out of playschool.

The fertility rate in the UK is the highest since 1973. Half of that is children of foreign-born mothers, but British-born women are popping ever more out too.

In 2008 there were 708,711 babies born in England and Wales, compared with 594,634 in 2001. Some 33,000 extra babies are being born year on year.

The population is now growing at 0.7 per cent a year, more than double the rate in the 1990s, and three times that of the 1980s.

And for the first time in a decade, it is births, rather than immigration, that is the biggest driver of population change.

Britain’s birth rate in 2001 was one of the lowest on record. That was the national story: ageing population, career women shrivelling their ovaries, shrinking primary schools, the end.

Then suddenly the doors of the emptying maternity units started to swing.

When I looked up the statistics, I discovered that an extra 754 babies were born in my borough in 2006 compared with 2001 — my daughter was extra number 755. They require a further two labour rooms a day, physically impossible for our local hospital to build in the short term.

Population swings of this kind cause logistical nightmares for anyone providing housing, education or hospitals, as I would find out. David Coleman, professor of demography at the University of Oxford, says: “Booms crash through maternity services, then schools, then the job market, wreaking destruction.”

The late 1990s rise in immigration is the easy part of the story, as immigrants usually have bigger familiesthan Brits. But, says Coleman, the sharpness of the rise is still a mystery — some of the highest birth rates are in rural Britain where there are few immigrants.

When the daughters of the postwar baby boomers moved into the workforce in the 1990s “initially that was a great disincentive to childbearing”, Coleman says.

Births dropped — because the twenty and thirtysomethings such as me were putting them off. Then we — I speak for an entire generation of mothers — thought, whoops, better not forget to have kids!

Since 2001, the largest relative increases in the number of births in the UK are in women over 40 (up 55 per cent), and between 35 and 39 (up 33 per cent). It turns out that all those working women were going to have children after all — just 15 years later than their own mothers.

“The birth rate had been artificially depressed by the rise of educated women in the workforce — but when they stop postponing children, the eventual family size may remain the same,” Coleman says.

That’s not the whole explanation. British-born twentysomethings are having more children too.

Family-friendly policies of the Labour Government may play a part. But, in a broader sense, there may be a new relationship between wealth and fecundity.

In the past, when a country moved from poverty (with high death and birth rates) to wealth, family size naturally dropped. Contraception, education, progress, all go hand in hand.

Now, in wealthy countries, Coleman says: “There is some evidence to suggest that better-off people are having more children — that’s starting to happen in some Nordic countries.”

Some believe that the recession is the reason this baby boom has finally tailed off.

It has led, though, to intense bickering about who failed to predict and plan for the boom. Maternity units are pretty stuffed — they only have months to brace themselves for newborn tidal waves. But schools — they have five years. So how come in boroughs across the country portable buildings are going up in playgrounds, and parents are mounting desperate 11th-hour campaigns for new schools?

The Department for Children, Schools and Families predicts that by 2018 there will be an extra 549,000 children in primary schools from the levels now.

It will be the biggest number of pupils in the system since the late 1970s, and the equivalent to 2,300 new primary schools. But do you see the school building programme in full swing? Debatable.

Schools, in fact, are bursting at the seams — the number of primary school children taught in classes of more than 30 pupils, the legal maximum, more than doubled in the past two years, to 10,010.

Southwark, in southeast London, where my daughter was born, is one of the worst hit. It has the fourth highest increase in births of inner-London boroughs: those extra births my daughter contributed to in 2006, amount to an extra 25 classrooms of children on the 2001 figure. And that’s in a neighbourhood that is exceptionally short of space.

John Hollis is the demographic consultant for the Greater London Authority, in charge of advising councils on the birth bomb.

“Many London boroughs are facing a triple whammy: increasing births, probably fewer people choosing private school and a real drop in people leaving London when they have children,” he says. “We can make predictions, but it’s only at application time when you can see what is actually happening, and then you’ve got a mere six months to rejig the system.”

What is the future for my little baby-boomers? Not all doom and gloom, David Foot says.

First, smart investors take note — do all you can to capture this huge market.

“This has huge implications for sales of children’s toys now, and so on throughout their lives,” Foot says.

Second, although boomers have to compete more — “worse pupil-teacher ratios, more graduates competing for jobs”, says Foot — there is strength in numbers.

“The front half of a boom does very well, it gets all the jobs, pushes up house prices.

If you’re part of a boom, society pays attention to you. You are more likely to get what you want, politically and in the marketplace.”

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article7113284.ece

Really interesting article.

It demolishes another bear myth that falling population will result in decreasing house prices in the future.... In fact, the first of todays baby boom generation (born 2001 onwards) will be of house buying or renting age in just 10 to 15 years or so. And of course immigration will add still further to those numbers by then.

Population of 70 million in 20 years, with a huge new population bubble working it's way through the system, it's difficult to see how anyone expects any sort of long term stagnation or falls in house prices.;)

nembot

Good Night, Hamish

ManAtHome

So we'll be borrowing an ever-increasing umpty billions each year to pay for their NHS, education, benefits etc for the next 10-15 years... What could possibly go wrong?

Kohoutek

This article does a more effective job of making the future seem like a nightmare than the peak oil doomsters.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Population of 70 million in 20 years, with a huge new population bubble working it's way through the system, it's difficult to see how anyone expects any sort of long term stagnation or falls in house prices.

Mass emigration away from that bankrupt overcrowded post-industrial island in the North Sea probably...

amcluesent

Babies for the benefits and 50% are from the ethnic 'minorities' too in London, 30% across England. I have no desire to live in the Dar al'Islam under the jackboot of Shariah Law - I must be a bigot!

MrEnglish

It does make me worry about the future of my kids.

With this next baby boom mainly from immigrants and those on benefits what kind of future has this country got?

One thing is for certain, there will not be money available to pay all those not working. So no more rents being paid for all the immigrants who come over here to have kids.

This will bring down rents and with it HPrices`s.

DaddyBear

Another "oh look, a shiny thing" article from Hamish. As others have posted, the boom is coming from the lower social classes, those that either will never work or who have long been priced out of the Market.

tomterm8

amcluesent wrote: »

I must be a bigot!

You know, I wonder if I could get away with putting that quote in my signature:p:D:D:D

chucky

DaddyBear wrote: »

Another "oh look, a shiny thing" article from Hamish. As others have posted, the boom is coming from the lower social classes, those that either will never work or who have long been priced out of the Market.

the article doesn't say that... you and the other spoons made that bit up...

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

DaddyBear wrote: »

As others have posted, the boom is coming from the lower social classes, those that either will never work or who have long been priced out of the Market.

Absolute rubbish.

The article, which you've clearly not bothered reading, points out that the biggest increases in births are from older career women.

Since 2001, the largest relative increases in the number of births in the UK are in women over 40 (up 55 per cent), and between 35 and 39 (up 33 per cent). It turns out that all those working women were going to have children after all — just 15 years later than their own mothers.

“The birth rate had been artificially depressed by the rise of educated women in the workforce — but when they stop postponing children, the eventual family size may remain the same,” Coleman says.

These are prime property owning middle class career types......

Who will be able to help their own kids on to the ladder due to their wise decision to invest in housing and become financially stable before having kids.

Your worst nightmare, in other words.:D

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

chucky wrote: »

the article doesn't say that... you and the other spoons made that bit up...

He's not doing himself any favours these days, is he?:rotfl: