The Reluctant Earth Mother

I really dislike the term fertility rate for what it’s used for. Particularly when there is growing “concern” around the numbers of babies not being born. To me, the word fertility is far too close to infertility to be used for what is essentially describing the number of babies being born in a given year. The Oxford English Dictionary defines fertility as “the ability to produce babies, young animals, fruits or new plants”. Ability stands out.  Fertility implies that the reduction in births is completely unchangeable, out of the hands of external factors, women just don’t have the ability. And yes women because it’s based on the population of women in their reproductive years AKA aged 15 to 44. Around 1 in 6 people (men and women) will struggle with actual infertility in their life, defined as not being able to conceive after 12 months of trying (WHO, 2023) but more and more people are choosing not to have children because of the environment we’re living in right now. 

Declining fertility rates suggests that there’s something wrong with us. Us personally. Not that we’re living in a system that is actively suffocating the very natural urge to procreate. It misses the point that people are choosing not to have children rather than facing massive, biological hurdles. It is now far more acceptable to make the very valid choice to not to have kids for perfectly good, personal reasons but too often this decision can be attributed to a lack of money, fears of climate change, an unwillingness to bring new life into a world that seems so bleak and unkind (ONS, 2024). And once you have a child, having more feels impossible in a society that doesn’t support or value parents, that requires you to be economically active.  

The total fertility rate is the one most frequently used. It describes the average number of live children women have in a year. For England that is currently 1.42 meaning each woman between 15 and 44 years old is likely to have one child and every third woman, two. For population stability, that number needs to be around 2.1 so the panic is that we’re heading for a decline. Similar stories are seen the world over (ONS, 2025). This is used instead of the birth rate because it is specific to the number of women of reproductive age rather than the whole population. My issue isn’t with the numbers, they are interesting, just the name.

We did not think when we decided we wanted children. We turned our lives upside down but we didn’t think about all the contributing factors. We got on with it then panicked when it was too late. If you think, you can’t do it because, rationally, it is a terrible decision. We weren’t on the housing ladder, Partner was made redundant when I was just about to go onto maternity leave with Baby 1 and then had 3 more jobs before finally landing on his feet just before I had Baby 2. Maternity pay is impossible without substantial planning and a decent second income; I don’t know who thinks that two weeks of poorly paid paternity leave is something tenable, particularly as 46% of births were C-section in 2026 (Ahmed, 2026) and that is just going up. Childcare costs a fortune so, even with the free hours, you need to work more than you’d like to make it worth it or feel you have to so you have a chance at a pension or any kind of progression, then what the hell do you do once they get to school? If you go part time, that’s a whole other juggling act; I am incredibly grateful that I get very flexible working, it has meant that we’re not in impossible amounts of debt and we have kept our children at home until we’ve felt they are ready to go nursery but I am exhausted. Families are often spread to all corners of the earth, parents are older, grandparents are older. GP appointments are like gold dust, dentists are like diamond dust. Rent is insane, bills are getting billier, it’s impossible to stick to a grocery budget and eat decent food. How dare you want a car when there’s shoddy, expensive public transport on offer? And these are just some of the factors in my list from my very narrow, middle class, and somewhat sheltered viewpoint, there’s so much more to be added to this list but I don’t like to go in. 

I just do not think it’s about fertility. It’s about survival.

Ahmed M, Burns C. (2026). One in four births in England is now emergency caesarean, BBC analysis shows. [Online]. https://www.bbc.co.uk. Last Updated: 5 June 2026. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqxpxjrqd1po [Accessed 14 June 2026].

ONS. (2024). How is the fertility rate changing in England and Wales?. [Online]. https://www.ons.gov.uk/. Last Updated: 28 October 2024. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/conceptionandfertilityr [Accessed 14 June 2026]. 

ONS. (2025). Families and households in the UK: 2024. [Online]. https://www.ons.gov.uk/. Last Updated: 23 July 2025. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/bi [Accessed 14 June 2026]. 

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research (SRH). (2023). Infertility Prevalence Estimates, 1990–2021. [Online]. http://www.who.int. Last Updated: 23 April 2023. Available at: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/978920068315 [Accessed 14 June 2026].