“More deaths than births would leave the UK facing a shrinking population unless it welcomed more migrants.
The think tank said: “These out-turns suggest that 2026 may be the first year in a new era when deaths exceed births by an ever-widening margin, forever closing a chapter in the demographics of this country that opened over a century ago.”
Higher immigration is definitely not the answer. It only serves to inflate the demand for a limited number of housing stock.
Lower immigration, replenish the housing stock, and more people will have the social mobility and stability to have and raise children.
FlaviousTiberius on
My main worry is that rather than try to improve life for people and put them in a position to have kids, that corporate interests will push for nasty policies like taxes on childless people just so they don’t have to part with any of their own money. Basically punishing younger people for doing whats in their economic best interest and what they were told growing up with the whole “don’t have kids you can’t afford!” stuff.
I’ve already seen the social media shills floating it on places like xitter which tends to be a vanguard warning of what they’re planning.
sarah_impalin76 on
Land fill is getting out of hand, It Looks like WW3 is on its way and all evidence points to possible future environmental collapse oh yeah we also have an expensive economy with less working rights that is unaffordable. Reading about these things should be a good deterrent for anyone who doesn’t want their future kids to suffer.
Use contraception no one deserves to be born into this future
Next_Replacement_566 on
Baby boomers of the 50’s and 60’s with 5 kids each
Humble_Dirt_5751 on
Sorry my fault for the death ratio lads, I had a busy 2025
jeramyfromthefuture on
Who wants a baby born into the world when it only cares about billionaires.
helpnxt on
Unless things change…
Also this is something that is being seen in most Countries in the World
colin_staples on
This should satisfy the “we are full up” crowd
Oh, wait, now they’ll complain about the economic impact
Hot-Palpitation4888 on
someone explain this to me, why can’t the population reduce? In 1900 the population was between 38/41 million? What was the issue then? Surely less people will free housing etc for everyone and wouldn’t the economy just retract accordingly? Why do we need our population to constantly be rising?
R3tr0N3wB on
Just in time for a new industrial revolution, AI and Robots.
Strict_Counter_8974 on
Why do we NEED to have more people during a permanent housing crisis?
Toastlove on
>population shrinking
Everyone bangs on about over population but populations are never allowed to decrease.
plawwell on
Less taxpayers. More older people who can’t work. The cost of a pensioner to taxpayer will eventually be 1:1.
AdviceHefty4561 on
Everything except directly trying to improve society will be on the table.
Line must go up!
OrinocoHaram on
shit! this could be a huge problem. The aging population will need a lot of resources spent and a lot of people willing to work in nursing and care homes.
I sure hope we don’t have a deeply weird obsession with immigration that would prevent us from getting in the people we need to function!
mattius3 on
The cost of living is far too high, wealth inequality is getting worse, wages are barely rising while corporate profits are climbing. There is an obvious answer to all of this.
AmbitiousYam1047 on
Hooray for population decline. Now all the wages will magically go up. Dunno who’ll actually work, but fuck it.
gemgem1985 on
People can’t get on the housing ladder, they can’t pay rent and childcare, can’t afford for a parent to stay home with their child.. the world is hostile to children and to mothers, why would anyone have children right now?!
Rather than a government that is tackling inequality, we have whatever shit show we currently have. I don’t think anyone is surprised.
IllustriousStage1807 on
I would love to have a child but I cannot afford to. Me and my partner have a good household income but to add a child and childcare into the mix when we don’t know what bills will be raised now. Not a chance we can afford that – we have no family around so we would have to rely on paid childcare
CyberRaver39 on
Wages are shit, cost of living is high, you need 2 parents in full time work to support a house BEFORE kids, rent is out of control and most of the support programs dont exist any more
Who the fuck would have kids now?
civicnational on
I do wish politicians had had the balls to tell people that we haven’t had the domestic birthrate to sustain the quality of life people expect for years instead of allowing them to believe all kinds of conspiracy theories around migration.
The reality is, migration – Commonwealth, EU, and then Commonwealth again – has protected us from later retirement ages, ghost towns, having to care for the sick and elderly at home, the loss of public services that depend on economies of scale and the economic doom loop you get from dwindling demand for goods and services.
The schools closing and merging in parts of the capital are the canary in the coalmine. People assume less kids means the same number of schools with smaller class sizes – er, no, it means fewer schools with larger class sizes.
People assume less migration means house prices fall – not necessarily, as builders are less incentivised to increase supply when populations aren’t growing, least of all at the bottom end of the market or in towns where the jobs aren’t – cheap areas stay cheap and expensive areas (where the jobs are) stay expensive.
People assume less migration means better healthcare and transport – but not if you don’t have the taxbase or consumer profile to support either model. In short, people are in for a shock – the populist’s rights plans only work, with the UK’s demographic profile, if everyone is willing to make do with a worse standard of living.
People assume throwing money at families will make them have more kids – not really, the main factor in birthrates dropping is women’s education, and when the burden of an ageing population falls on fewer shoulders, more and more young people don’t bother with relationships and families, a la Japan.
Some will of course think it’s all worth it, which is fine. Just don’t let people think it’s a one way bet to the point resenting minorities becomes fashionable.
rainribs on
The human population quintupled in one century. Any population of any organism that experienced such a boom needs to be met with a gradual decline before falls off a cliff edge of collapse (or extinction) by outbalancing it’s resources.
You cannot have infiinite growth. You cannot. It doesn’t matter what the economy says, what the GDP will be, how well business might grow in the short term. You have to find an equilibrium within your ecosystem and try to keep it stable and adaptable. We’re already seeing decline in soil nutriention from overfarming, the climate reacting to our output. People of child-bearing age are looking around and not seeing any space *to* populate with children. We currently have and are fast developing the technology to handle an aging population. Yes we need to support parents and make that easier, but people need to get it into thier heads that death outpacing birth at this moment is a healthy reaction to an extreme boom.
HelloW0rldBye on
After this week of USA rising as aggressor. I’m happy with the declining population. We need a do over.
StrangeNormal-8877 on
This is good thing in a couple of generations , each person and hopefully plants and animals will have a fairer share of mother earth . Not just hoards of humans consuming resources like locusts
andrew0256 on
This is not a surprise, and deaths already outnumber births in a number of countries, the best well known being Japan. It would be happening here now were it not for immigration.
There are many reasons for this which has its origins back in the 1960s and that was the pill. The post war baby boom ended abruptly and add to that women entering the workplace, making their own career choices and the problem, if it is a problem, was compounded.
The economic disincentives we see today whilst obviously unwelcome will not stop depopulation for the reasons I have given. The country is probably not receptive to mass immigration either at this point.
Haulvern on
Population is due to decline globally. Time to accept the fact and start adjusting now. Rather than keeping this pyramid scheme of growth filled by migration going.
drewbles82 on
Just reminds of Elon saying the world needs to have more kids…yet they keep punishing us, making it so we can barely feed ourselves and they want us to bring kids into that, then probably moan we aren’t doing enough for our kids…their the ones not even giving kids a future, ai doing all the jobs, doing sod all about climate change, cost of living so high, why the hell would anyone want to be born into this world…we really need to go after the billionaires and I have no idea how
27 Comments
“More deaths than births would leave the UK facing a shrinking population unless it welcomed more migrants.
The think tank said: “These out-turns suggest that 2026 may be the first year in a new era when deaths exceed births by an ever-widening margin, forever closing a chapter in the demographics of this country that opened over a century ago.”
Higher immigration is definitely not the answer. It only serves to inflate the demand for a limited number of housing stock.
Lower immigration, replenish the housing stock, and more people will have the social mobility and stability to have and raise children.
My main worry is that rather than try to improve life for people and put them in a position to have kids, that corporate interests will push for nasty policies like taxes on childless people just so they don’t have to part with any of their own money. Basically punishing younger people for doing whats in their economic best interest and what they were told growing up with the whole “don’t have kids you can’t afford!” stuff.
I’ve already seen the social media shills floating it on places like xitter which tends to be a vanguard warning of what they’re planning.
Land fill is getting out of hand, It Looks like WW3 is on its way and all evidence points to possible future environmental collapse oh yeah we also have an expensive economy with less working rights that is unaffordable. Reading about these things should be a good deterrent for anyone who doesn’t want their future kids to suffer.
Use contraception no one deserves to be born into this future
Baby boomers of the 50’s and 60’s with 5 kids each
Sorry my fault for the death ratio lads, I had a busy 2025
Who wants a baby born into the world when it only cares about billionaires.
Unless things change…
Also this is something that is being seen in most Countries in the World
This should satisfy the “we are full up” crowd
Oh, wait, now they’ll complain about the economic impact
someone explain this to me, why can’t the population reduce? In 1900 the population was between 38/41 million? What was the issue then? Surely less people will free housing etc for everyone and wouldn’t the economy just retract accordingly? Why do we need our population to constantly be rising?
Just in time for a new industrial revolution, AI and Robots.
Why do we NEED to have more people during a permanent housing crisis?
>population shrinking
Everyone bangs on about over population but populations are never allowed to decrease.
Less taxpayers. More older people who can’t work. The cost of a pensioner to taxpayer will eventually be 1:1.
Everything except directly trying to improve society will be on the table.
Line must go up!
shit! this could be a huge problem. The aging population will need a lot of resources spent and a lot of people willing to work in nursing and care homes.
I sure hope we don’t have a deeply weird obsession with immigration that would prevent us from getting in the people we need to function!
The cost of living is far too high, wealth inequality is getting worse, wages are barely rising while corporate profits are climbing. There is an obvious answer to all of this.
Hooray for population decline. Now all the wages will magically go up. Dunno who’ll actually work, but fuck it.
People can’t get on the housing ladder, they can’t pay rent and childcare, can’t afford for a parent to stay home with their child.. the world is hostile to children and to mothers, why would anyone have children right now?!
Rather than a government that is tackling inequality, we have whatever shit show we currently have. I don’t think anyone is surprised.
I would love to have a child but I cannot afford to. Me and my partner have a good household income but to add a child and childcare into the mix when we don’t know what bills will be raised now. Not a chance we can afford that – we have no family around so we would have to rely on paid childcare
Wages are shit, cost of living is high, you need 2 parents in full time work to support a house BEFORE kids, rent is out of control and most of the support programs dont exist any more
Who the fuck would have kids now?
I do wish politicians had had the balls to tell people that we haven’t had the domestic birthrate to sustain the quality of life people expect for years instead of allowing them to believe all kinds of conspiracy theories around migration.
The reality is, migration – Commonwealth, EU, and then Commonwealth again – has protected us from later retirement ages, ghost towns, having to care for the sick and elderly at home, the loss of public services that depend on economies of scale and the economic doom loop you get from dwindling demand for goods and services.
The schools closing and merging in parts of the capital are the canary in the coalmine. People assume less kids means the same number of schools with smaller class sizes – er, no, it means fewer schools with larger class sizes.
People assume less migration means house prices fall – not necessarily, as builders are less incentivised to increase supply when populations aren’t growing, least of all at the bottom end of the market or in towns where the jobs aren’t – cheap areas stay cheap and expensive areas (where the jobs are) stay expensive.
People assume less migration means better healthcare and transport – but not if you don’t have the taxbase or consumer profile to support either model. In short, people are in for a shock – the populist’s rights plans only work, with the UK’s demographic profile, if everyone is willing to make do with a worse standard of living.
People assume throwing money at families will make them have more kids – not really, the main factor in birthrates dropping is women’s education, and when the burden of an ageing population falls on fewer shoulders, more and more young people don’t bother with relationships and families, a la Japan.
Some will of course think it’s all worth it, which is fine. Just don’t let people think it’s a one way bet to the point resenting minorities becomes fashionable.
The human population quintupled in one century. Any population of any organism that experienced such a boom needs to be met with a gradual decline before falls off a cliff edge of collapse (or extinction) by outbalancing it’s resources.
You cannot have infiinite growth. You cannot. It doesn’t matter what the economy says, what the GDP will be, how well business might grow in the short term. You have to find an equilibrium within your ecosystem and try to keep it stable and adaptable. We’re already seeing decline in soil nutriention from overfarming, the climate reacting to our output. People of child-bearing age are looking around and not seeing any space *to* populate with children. We currently have and are fast developing the technology to handle an aging population. Yes we need to support parents and make that easier, but people need to get it into thier heads that death outpacing birth at this moment is a healthy reaction to an extreme boom.
After this week of USA rising as aggressor. I’m happy with the declining population. We need a do over.
This is good thing in a couple of generations , each person and hopefully plants and animals will have a fairer share of mother earth . Not just hoards of humans consuming resources like locusts
This is not a surprise, and deaths already outnumber births in a number of countries, the best well known being Japan. It would be happening here now were it not for immigration.
There are many reasons for this which has its origins back in the 1960s and that was the pill. The post war baby boom ended abruptly and add to that women entering the workplace, making their own career choices and the problem, if it is a problem, was compounded.
The economic disincentives we see today whilst obviously unwelcome will not stop depopulation for the reasons I have given. The country is probably not receptive to mass immigration either at this point.
Population is due to decline globally. Time to accept the fact and start adjusting now. Rather than keeping this pyramid scheme of growth filled by migration going.
Just reminds of Elon saying the world needs to have more kids…yet they keep punishing us, making it so we can barely feed ourselves and they want us to bring kids into that, then probably moan we aren’t doing enough for our kids…their the ones not even giving kids a future, ai doing all the jobs, doing sod all about climate change, cost of living so high, why the hell would anyone want to be born into this world…we really need to go after the billionaires and I have no idea how