The REAL reason millennial women aren't having children...
The REAL reason millennial women aren't having children...
We need to look beyond fertility rates and even housing costs.
Welcome to Dr Eliza Filby’s Newsletter,
This community is over 6000 strong and includes many readers who support my work. Stay here to find out about the key mega-generational trends that are reshaping how we live, love, work and consume. If you’d like to learn more about my research and what I do, check out my website. You can also watch/follow me on Instagram.
In this week’s edition:
The REAL reason why millennial women aren’t having children
The monetisation of the menopause
What the heck is ‘vibe’ shopping?
Has the British Chancellor put a dent in the Inheritocracy?
My book, Inheritocracy, re-enters the Bestsellers’ List
LIVE EVENT! The Trouble Club
Tuesday 19th of November, Kindred Hammersmith, 7pm
Join me at The Trouble Club on the 19th November. I’ll be reading from Inheritocracy, signing copies, and diving into why we're so reluctant to talk about the "Bank of Mum and Dad." Don’t miss this candid conversation on family, finance, and the future. Book here!
The REAL reason for low birth rates
Few may have seen the link between yesterday’s budget and the latest fertility rates from the UK’s ONS, which showed they have dropped to their lowest mark since records began. Demographics always act as an undercurrent determining the allocation of public funds and the shape of economic growth. And, as both the Treasury’s announcements and ONS figures attest, it’s only heading one way.
The total fertility rate in the UK has declined to 1.44 children, well below the desired ratio between wage earners and pensioners. Nor is this a temporary blip; birthrates have been falling steadily since 2010. Demographics, as they say, is destiny; and we are beginning to realise the realities of a low birth rate and ageing society.
In some London boroughs, primary school-aged children have dropped by a third, in part due to the Covid migration out of the city but also because these families are not being replaced. Primary schools are closing or reducing to one-form entry. Unexpectedly, parents are finding once tight catchment areas are loosening, but the downside is fewer pupils means less funding. Labour’s educational investment will be predominantly in secondary schools as this is where the demographic pull is.
At the other end of the life spectrum, these demographic shifts are straining the NHS and an underfunded social care system, putting pressure on families to fill the gaps. An ageing society has forced topics like the triple lock, social care, assisted dying, and inheritance tax thresholds into public debate in ways they just weren’t under the previous Labour government. For businesses, it also means a necessary new focus on older talent. Few CEOs view their over-40s as the future of their business, but soon, investing in middle-aged workers will be critical for sustaining their bottom line.
These trends are not unique to Britain. Europe is an ageing continent; the median age of a European is 44 years old. Globally, fertility rates have halved since the 1960s. More recently, the issue of declining birth rates has been co-opted by (mostly male) pro-natalist politicians or commentators, including Elon Musk, encouraging pro-natalist policies and incentives around the world - albeit with little success.
The problem is that pro-natalists miss the fundamental point; demographics is a distinctly female, and yes, feminist issue. Women not only procreate, but they also live longer than men. It is also a highly emotive issue in which little is to be gained – bar contempt - from reducing women to their fertility rates and telling them to have more babies.
The key question is, why are we having fewer children in the 2020s? Firstly, there's the expense. The cost of the big things in life – education, housing, childcare - have gone up and are deterring couples. Wages have stalled, and in the case of working-class men, significantly declined. We have a benefit system that penalises families with more than two children. The consideration of having children is overwhelmingly now a financial one for women, be it fertility treatment or lost pension contributions, as well as extortionate nursery fees.
But historically women have had children, in fact many more children, in tougher economic conditions in the past. So, what gives? You could point to the decline of religion, or the rise of female tertiary education, but there’s also a more distinct generational point. Millennial women grew up with greater freedom than their mothers and distinct messaging about the timing of pregnancy: not too early, not too late, just on time.
Many of us have also entered the professional workplace where working motherhood was based on the idea that you must get to a certain point in your career before you have children. We watched as Gen X women struggled as working mothers of young children, sometimes in denial, often against the odds, and with little flexibility. It is a corporate culture that has turned those who want kids into incredibly efficient breeders; we have fewer children later in life and closer together. This is a break from previous generations of women, as is the number of us who choose to reject this entirely and be childfree. At the same time, society failed to put equal pressure on men to reach the level of maturity and stability that, frankly, women require when having a child.
Britain’s low birth rate affects more than public spending; it’s rooted in wages, housing costs, and shifting gender dynamics. This isn’t solely a government challenge—companies, too, must recognise their role in adapting to and supporting these realities if we’re to move beyond fertility stats and pronatalist proclamations.
This article was originally published in CityAM
My Budget Hot Take
I listened avidly to the UK budget in the car on the way back from the airport this week, the first delivered by a female Chancellor. As expected, Rachel Reeves closed some of the loopholes on Inheritance Tax, especially over agricultural land, pensions and investments. Before the budget, it was estimated that only 6% of estates will pay inheritance tax this year, under the new rules, it is estimated that 10% now will. I stress this is an estimate because, frankly, who yet knows? So, will this tightening make a dent in our inheritance driven economy? Not in terms of inheritance tax, but it may force older generations to plan their wills and wealth differently and speed up rather than slow down the passing down of wealth to the next generation.
In the immediate term, I suspect the one Labour policy where the Bank of Mum and Dad will play a role for some is in grandparents paying the additional VAT on private school fees for their grandkids….
But inheritance aside, I think the most worrying aspect of the budget was set out in this interview on Sky News. It gets to the nub of the issue, which is if we want our governments to be on the side of working people rather than wealth owners, what kind of employment do we want? A gig economy with little security or training for workers or good jobs where employers invest in their people?
The Reading Room
Genuine rage last week over British network ITV’s advertising for a ‘Head of Generative AI Innovation’ with a salary of £80-95k. It garnered much vitriol from screenwriters, creatives and the like, forcing ITV to take down the ad on Sunday. Apparently, ITV is no longer accepting applications. Controversial view here: but isn’t this exactly what companies like ITV need to be doing? We can’t leave AI to Meta, Amazon, Google and Microsoft to lead the charge (which they already are).
The traditional broadcasters have been behind every curve when it comes to other innovations of the last 20 years, hiding behind expensive big name ‘talent’ and classic formats that have for a long while failed to capture young audiences (read here the under 50s). There’s also an attitudinal problem amongst some (not all) senior leaders within the creative industries that tend to conceptualise their craft and sector with a very 1990s framework; that is an elevated concept of human creativity and their sector’s role in that. I’ve witnessed it in publishing, TV and other sectors, often purported by those at the top on very high salaries who had the best of the best years in the creative sectors. This frankly won’t stand the test of time in an AI driven world. We need to preserve, protect and unleash human creativity for sure, but aligning it with tech (of course with integrity) is obviously the best and only way forward.
What the heck is ‘vibe’ shopping? The latest answer to clicks and bricks. A new immersive shopping site on London’s Oxford Street called Future Stores opened this week and aims to move ‘at the speed of culture’. Which is a lot faster basically because of TikTok. Even fast fashion can’t keep up. Enter Future Stores, which is a 5000-square-foot version of a real life feed, with content constantly changing every two to six weeks. It promises dynamic activations (whatever that means) and floor-to-ceiling LED screens. The most interesting aspect is of course its ability to track our data, capturing footfall but also dwell time, age, gender…. yes, those exhibits and activations that are working and those which are not, and precisely mirroring the monitoring on your phone.
Finally, someone has said it. This piece on the monetisation of the menopause sets out the absolute truth behind all recent amplified talk about middle-aged women’s health. I love that this article by Valerie Monroe is written by someone who went through the menopause 23 years ago, so takes a somewhat jaded view on the latest trends. ‘One way to cope is to throw your money at anything that pops up on your social media feed promising to help you sail through the transition. This strategy, as you probably can guess, will leave your confidence and your bank account dwindling, but not your hot flashes.’ Gen X women, going through the transition now, are the most financially independent women in history with more disposable income than their predecessors and who are currently the great promoters of the positive ageing movement. That is all to be lauded, but let’s not pretend that companies aren’t aware of the money to be made in helping them realise this.
Inheritocracy - Bestsellers’ List
Promotion for the book continues… I wrote a piece for the Big Issue on how the inheritance economy fuels our housing crisis, contributed to this piece on Gen Z and Millennials for the i paper and have been across BBC Politics London and radio in expectation of the UK budget. I was in LA this week speaking at CISCO’s partners’ conference at the LA Convention Center - no time for jet lag as I was only there for 24hrs, but I was so impressed by all the questions in the audience. It was less weary conversations about ‘how can I get my team into the office’, and more ‘how can I recruit and keep my best talent’. More on this to follow!
Much to my absolute screaming delight, Inheritocracy entered the Sunday Times Top Ten Non Fiction chart this week in eclectic company alongside Boris Johnson, Al Pacino and Stanley Tucci.
I’m so grateful and inspired by how much feedback I’ve received on the book, especially by strangers (rather than family who may feel obliged)…. the thrill of someone else reading my words will never get dull!
Speaking of which, thanks for reading,
Eliza
P.S. My visit to LA derailed me this week so I was unable to finish a piece I’m writing about parents, AI and Generation Alpha so watch out for that essay in next week’s edition……