Britain’s birth rate has hit a record low of 1.41 children per woman, according to a major new report that warns the country’s housing market is driving a “looming disaster” for families and the economy. The fertility rate – now below the replacement level of approximately 2.1 children per woman needed to sustain the population – has fallen for the third consecutive year, official figures show.
The analysis, published by the Family Education Trust and written by demographer Lyman Stone of the Institute for Family Studies, argues that soaring house prices, shrinking living space and a chronic shortage of family homes are increasingly preventing Britons from having the number of children they actually want. More than 2,000 UK adults were surveyed for the report, which includes a foreword by former Conservative MP and GB News presenter Miriam Cates.
Housing crisis at the heart of the decline
The report details a stark “fertility gap” – Britons still say their ideal family size is around two children, yet the actual number of children they are having has fallen to a record low. Researchers found this gap is especially pronounced in London, where people report some of the strongest desires for children despite the capital having among the country’s lowest birth rates.
Housing costs and the size of available homes are identified as the primary barrier. Over eight in ten Britons (81 per cent) believe the cost and availability of family homes makes it harder for people to marry and start families, while nearly three-quarters (74 per cent) say the type and size of housing has a major impact on decisions about having children.
Young adults today are far less likely to own a home than their parents were at the same age. Home ownership among 25- to 34-year-olds has more than halved in a generation, falling from 53 per cent in 1991 to just 22 per cent in 2021, the report states. More recent data suggests a slight recovery – 39 per cent of that age group owned a home in 2022/23, the highest level since 2010 – but that remains significantly lower than in earlier decades.
At the same time, new housing has increasingly shifted towards smaller flats rather than family homes. The report found that would-be parents consistently prioritise practical needs such as extra bedrooms, gardens, good schools and short commutes when considering whether to have children. One finding showed that moving from a one-bedroom to a two-bedroom property increased confidence about having a baby by a similar degree to cutting housing costs by roughly £1,100 to £1,900 a month.
Housing pressures weigh most heavily on renters, flat dwellers, lower-income households, and people who want children but do not yet have them. Research indicates that rising house prices negatively affect fertility among renters, while potentially increasing it for homeowners due to wealth effects. Renters, who now spend a significant portion of their income on rent, often have little left for the costs of raising children. Many young adults are forced to live with parents for longer or remain in high-cost, low-stability rented accommodation, creating significant barriers to starting a family.
Miriam Cates warned that Britain is facing a “full-scale fertility crisis” with devastating economic and social consequences. “Politicians, policymakers and the media are increasingly recognising collapsing birth rates as a looming disaster and economists are gravely concerned about the impacts of a shrinking future labour force and tax base,” she wrote. She added that for increasing numbers of women and men, “childlessness is not a choice but a source of grief and regret.”
The demographic impact extends beyond the birth rate. Britain’s population is ageing rapidly: people aged 65 and over made up 19 per cent of the population in 2022, a figure projected to rise to 27 per cent by 2072, while the number of people aged 85 and over is expected to double in the next 25 years. A declining birth rate threatens long-term economic growth and places an unsustainable financial burden on public services.
What needs to change
Public opinion strongly backs a shift in housing policy. Almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of those surveyed said improving access to affordable family-sized housing would encourage more people to marry and have children. More than half said they personally know young people or couples delaying children because they cannot afford a suitable home.
Dr Tony Rucinski, chairman of the Family Education Trust, said: “Britain is not anti-family. Britain cannot afford to be a family. Eighty-one per cent of the country says housing costs are stopping people from starting families. Sixty-five per cent want planning rules rewritten to prioritise three-bedroom homes. The strongest cross-party consensus in British politics right now is that we are building the wrong houses. Family-sized homes for a family-sized country.”
The report argues that the post-war era offers a template. Between 1945 and 1980 an average of approximately 126,000 social homes were built each year. Miriam Cates noted that in the two decades after the war Britain built seven million homes, over half of which were social houses. “Young men and women in the 1960s and 1970s had access to a plentiful and affordable supply of homes that Gen-Z can only dream of,” she wrote, adding that most post-war homes were houses rather than flats, in contrast to many modern developments dominated by smaller apartments.
The report calls for a return to large-scale housebuilding, including social housing ring-fenced for young families. “Perhaps then, what is needed is a new wave of social house building, replicating our post-war success, but this time ring-fencing those homes for young couples with or intending to have children,” Ms Cates wrote.
Current housing delivery levels remain well below government targets. Despite a goal to build 1.5 million new homes in England over the current Parliament, only 221,000 net additional homes were delivered in the year to March 2024. Meanwhile the private rented sector has ballooned – over one in five children now lives in it, compared to one in twelve twenty years ago – a sector associated with growing instability and insecurity for families.
Lyman Stone, the report’s author, emphasised that people who undershoot their fertility goals experience decreased happiness and higher rates of depression, representing a welfare loss for the country. He noted that economic freedom and deregulation in areas such as childcare and housing policy could positively affect family formation.
Miriam Cates concluded: “If Britain wants more babies, we must build baby build.”