So Carrie Symonds has just had her fourth child – and Boris Johnson’s what, eighth? Ninth? Congratulations to them. It’s always a joyous event. The inevitable jokes write themselves, of course. Wry eyebrows are raised on social media amid mutterings about population control. But beneath the mockery lies an unpalatable truth: we actually need more babies. Not just the Johnsons, and not just for headlines. All of us.
Of course, it helps when you’re a former Prime Minister with a healthy book deal(s), a lucrative speaking circuit sideline, and a sizeable property portfolio. For Boris and Carrie, the cost of childcare isn’t quite the same existential crisis it is for most late 20- or 30-somethings staring down average rents, insecure work, and nursery fees that rival the price of private schools.
The news, coming simultaneously with the prospect of changes to the controversial two-child benefit cap, necessitates reflection not just on the attitudinal shift towards having larger families, but on the consequences.
www.instagram.com/p/DKClDlRol05/Last week, I spoke to a 55-year-old former marketeer, who was contemplating retraining as a teacher – a mid-life switch, which I made myself at that age. She asked if she could expect a stable career in education. Her concern wasn’t discipline, workload, or even Ofsted. As a prospective primary school teacher, other than the paltry starting salary, her worries were about whether there would be enough children to teach. Increasingly, the answer is no.
Across the UK, primary schools are quietly closing. Some inner London boroughs are projected to have one in four school places empty in the near future. Local authorities are merging, consolidating and shutting down primary schools because birth rates are falling. My own local state primary now shares its site with a Mandarin school. We need to talk about this.
As Elon Musk tweeted – again – this weekend, it’s not a UK phenomenon. From Bologna to Barcelona, Europe is ageing. Italy (1.18 children per woman, compared with the UK’s 1.45), which has the most acute crisis in Europe, is now shrinking by over 100,000 people a year and is being compared with chronically suffering Japan. Even France (1.63), once held up as the EU’s baby boom outlier, has dipped below replacement level too.
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As the population balance tips, the consequences become clear. Who pays for pensions and social care for the elderly? How will the NHS cope? Who fills classrooms, drives buses, or builds homes?
Yet in Britain, we seem to be to making having children harder. Consider that two-child benefit cap, introduced in 2017. Controversially, it restricts child tax credit and universal credit to a family’s first two children. Have more, and you’re on your own. The policy has pushed thousands of children into poverty and sends a stark signal about whose families we value.
No wonder prospective parents hesitate. Children aren’t just emotionally expensive – for so many, struggling to meet exorbitant housing costs, they’re financially out of reach. While social media might glamorise parenthood, the maths tells another story. People aren’t having fewer children because they’re selfish; they simply cannot afford them.
Yes, we can chuckle at Boris’s expanding family tree. But after the chuckles fade, ask the harder question: how is it that one of the most important things a society needs – children – has become something only the comfortable can afford?
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