Camilla Cavendish warns falling birth rates will strain pensions and care

Camilla Cavendish, author of the book Generation Maybe, has warned that falling birth rates will make it harder to pay British pensions, even with changes to the triple lock. She made the comments in BBC discussions about the impact of a shrinking younger population on the welfare state and the wider economy.

Cavendish said the global population is still rising but is about to peak, which she described as good for the planet. The problem, she argued, is that most countries are going rapidly down the other side. That means they are quickly running out of younger people, who will have to pay more to support a growing number of older people. Welfare states and economies have not caught up with that transition.

The pension pressure forms part of a wider demographic time bomb. An ageing society raises questions about how to pay for older people's incomes and how to care for them. One contributor noted that frailty and dementia will add to the strain, while another argued that the triple lock will eventually have to come down. The same discussion heard that the moment when older citizens were left behind has passed, and that the grey vote and demand for pensions will strengthen as the population ages. Cavendish said this is the moment to tip policy back towards parents and would-be parents.

Cavendish's book examines why people are having fewer children. She said the fall is happening faster than she expected and is sweeping the world. The United Arab Emirates, Tamil Nadu and India now have lower birth rates than the UK, while Mexico has fallen below the United States. She called it a sweeping wave of childlessness.

She drew a distinction between people who are happily child free and people who are unhappily childless. She said she wrote the book after interviewing people and reviewing studies across the world. Some people miss out on children they would have liked, and she described a heartache gap that needs to be addressed.

The causes are not only economic. Cavendish said housing costs in big cities are a massive factor, but not everywhere. She also pointed to what she called a romance famine. The single biggest reason straight women give for not having had a child, after not wanting one, is that they cannot find a reliable partner. She linked this to online dating, where the business model rewards churn rather than long-term relationships, and to filters and misrepresentation. She gave the example of a woman who swiped again while a date was in the toilet.

Cavendish also cited social contagion. People reflect what they see around them, and children are less visible in daily life. In Japan, she said, there is a map showing how to avoid children because they are noisy. Large families tell her they do not feel welcome in cafes. More people are getting dogs instead of children. Academic studies on social norms show that people anchor to those around them, and she argued that smartphones are accelerating this spread.

Family patterns are changing too. Europe has reached the point where the only child is the norm. Half of all European families have one child and probably will not have another. People are leaving home later, going to university, settling down later, and some couples move in together and then break up.

Governments have tried to raise birth rates, but Cavendish said the chapter on policy was scrapped because every government has done the same thing and it has not worked. Most pay baby bonuses, which can cause a short-term uptick because people respond to money. But she argued the problem is cultural. She cited Denmark's 'Do It For Denmark' campaign as incredibly unsuccessful. She is reluctant to say government should tell people what to do, and doubts it would help.

She suggested other measures: teaching about infertility, because men are just as likely as women to be infertile and many do not know it; making childcare more flexible; allowing working women to use vouchers to pay a grandparent or stay at home longer rather than use institutional childcare; and helping young people more broadly. She warned that as the population ages, the grey vote gets stronger and the demand for pensions gets stronger.

Immigration came up as a possible quick fix. Cavendish said young, economically active people are needed to pay pensions, and immigration can provide a quick fix within one generation. But she added that immigrants very quickly revert to the mean birth rate of their country. Somalis who moved to Norway, she said, started having two children rather than seven within one generation. When the UK was in the European Union, high-skilled people came from EU countries, paid taxes and then left.

The discussion also touched on current migration policy. One contributor noted that Shabana Mahmood is having some success in reducing legal migration, and that an FT story had already estimated an economic impact of a couple of billion pounds. Cavendish's argument was that immigration is not a long-term answer on its own.

The warning comes as the UK debates the cost of pensions and social care. Cavendish's central point is that falling birth rates will make it harder to pay for an older population even if the triple lock changes. The response, she argues, has to include cultural change and support for parents, not just financial incentives.