Birth rates

• Study of populations and their characteristics

  • Size
  • Age structure
  • Births
  • Deaths
  • Immigration
  • Emigration
• Demographics

  • Birth rates have decreased
  • Death rates have decreased
  • Population has grown
  • The UK has an aging population
• Factors directly influencing population size:

  • Birth rate
  • Death rate
  • Immigration
  • Emigration
• Birth Rate

  The number of live births per thousand of the population born per year. The Birth rate has fallen from 28.7 in 1901 to 11.17 in 2024
• Total fertility Rate

  The average number of children a women will have in her fertile years. The UK's TFR has risen but is still lower than the past. All time low of 1.58 in 2020 to 1.75 in 2024.
• Changes in the position of women

  • Legal equality with men, right to vote
  • Increased educational opportunities - girl do better in school than boys
  • Changes in attitude to family life and women's role
• Harper 2012

  The education of women is the most important reason for the long term fall in birth and fertility rates. A change in mindset for women. Women are now choosing to delay childbearing e.g. 2012 - 1 in 5 women aged 45 was childless.
• Children have become an economic liability

  • Laws banned child labour, compulsory schooling. This means that children remain economically dependent
  • Cost of bringing up children has risen
  • As a result of financial pressures parents feel less able or willing than in the past to have a family.
• Decline in infant morality rate

  • Harper argues that a fall in TMR leads to a fall in birth rate, because if many infants die parents have more children to replace those ones they have lost.
  • Brass and Kabir argue that the trend to smaller families began not in rural areas but urban areas
• Decline in infant morality rate

  • In 1900, the TMR for the UK was 154, Over 15% of babies died within the first year. It began to fall due to improved housing, better sanitation + nutrition, improved services for mothers etc.
• Child-Centredness

  • Increasing childcentredness both of the family and of society as a whole means that childhood is now socially constructed.
  • In terms of family size, this has encouraged a shift from 'quantity' to 'quality' - Parents lavish more attention and resources on their few children.
• Summary

  More women are remaining childless than in the past and women have children later (average age for giving birth is now 30.7) and they may be less fertile and produce less children.
• Future trends

  • Birth rates, fertility rates and family sizes have fallen over the last century, but there has been a slight increase in births since 2001.
  • A reason for this is increased immigration. Mothers outside the UK have a higher fertile rate
  • The annual number of births should be fairly constant up to 2041 at around 800,000