Never before have English and Welsh mothers produced so few babies. New data, released by the ONS yesterday, shows the number of babies expected to be born per woman last year fell to 1.44 – down from 1.49 the year before and the lowest recorded level since these things began to be officially tracked in 1938. For a population to ‘naturally’ sustain itself (e.g. without immigration) an average fertility rate of 2.1 is needed.
Looking at the raw numbers, fewer babies were born than at any time since the late 1970s. Last year just 591,072 births were registered in England and Wales and the fertility rate has been falling consistently for the past 14 years.
Things are even worse north of the border where figures published
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