Current public discussion around declining fertility rates in the UK is failing to address the underlining fact that the problem is not shrinking family size rather it is the increasing numbers of people never becoming parents in the first place, argues a column in today's Sunday Times.
According to new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), women in England and Wales had, on average, just 1.41 children in 2024: the lowest figure since records began in 1938.
That may seem a familiar trend – modern couples simply choosing smaller families – but that’s not what is behind the data at all, says Stephen J Shaw, a published researcher in data science and demography, writing in the Sunday Times.
