How The Cost Of Living Crisis Is Impacting UK's Record Low Birth Rates

Since 2012, the UK’s fertility rate has dropped dramatically. 

In 2023, it reached a new low of 1.6 children; thinktank The Resolution Foundation said in their recent “Bye Bye Baby” report that 2024 figures suggest it could “fall further still”.

Some are concerned we’re “unprepared” for the consequences of this trend, worrying that an ageing population might place enormous pressure on public services without a broad tax base to counterbalance that strain.

But the Bye Bye Baby report suggests that not all of this change comes down to choice. 

They write that “preferences for family size have remained stable,” and that the “recent decline appears to be driven, in part, by financial constraints facing young non-graduates, rather than a shift in what people actually want”. 

Housing and economic pressures matter

The research showed that the number of women who don’t have kids by 30 has risen in England and Wales from 48% for those born in the late 1980s to 58% for those born in the early 1990s. 

Of course, they add, these women might go on to have kids. Still, the change is not seen equally across groups of women. 

“Non-graduate women in their late 20s have seen the sharpest rise in childlessness,” they write. 

“This has happened alongside falling partnership rates and a major shift away from homeownership towards costly private renting and living with parents, both of which make starting a family harder.” 

In fact, added financial pressure seems to affect more than just fertility rates: it might impact the number of women who feel the desire to have children to begin with. 

Among childless 32-year-old women, those in the lowest income quarter are almost twice as likely as those in the top income quarter to say they’ve permanently decided against having kids. 

Overall, about 30% of women and 25% of men said they hadn’t had a child yet because of their financial situation.

So, while the report stresses that some people simply never wanted kids, the data suggest others’ hands are being somewhat forced. 

These findings mirror those found in similar research 

A 2025 global survey of over 14,000 people by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) found similar results. 

54% of respondents from 14 countries cited “economic concerns” as the top reason they didn’t have children, or couldn’t have as many as they wanted.

That made it the most common issue among those asked.

An anonymous Mexican woman who was a part of the survey said, “It is impossible to buy or have affordable rent in my city”. 

The UNFPA said that the solution is not to pressure women into having children they don’t want, but for policymakers to consider that “Many people would choose to have children if they could be sure the world they are bringing them into offered a clean environment, a healthy economy and a safe place to live”.