Even as the Tory government stumbles resignedly towards what will probably be a cataclysmic defeat in the next election – some opinion polls suggest they will lose more than 250 seats – reformers on the political right are setting out ideas to solve the country’s big problems; low birth rates, low productivity and low economic growth. We need, they say, to reduce taxes, build more houses and more infrastructure, clear away obstacles to businesses working effectively and so on.
Discussions of the UK’s declining total fertility rate (TFR) – now at 1.61 births per woman, down from a peak of almost 3 per woman in 1964 – tend to focus on the increasing economic obstacles to family formation, such as over-inflated property prices and high childcare costs. And these financial trends are definitely part of the puzzle.
