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<\/p>\nLarissa Hazell is passionate about children. She was a full-time nanny for 15 years, working 60-hour weeks before her son was born three years ago, and has now set up a company helping parents to find childcare. <\/p>\n
But she has made the decision to not have any more children. \u201cMy husband and I are priced out of having a bigger family, we just couldn\u2019t afford it,\u201d Hazell, 33, said. <\/p>\n
They are not unique. Last year there were some 3.7 million families with only one dependent child \u2014 14 per cent up on the 3.2 million in 2004, according to the Office for National Statistics. <\/p>\n
One-child families are becoming more common; in some cases parents simply choose to have a smaller family, but many others are being priced out of having more children. A study by University College London last year found that two fifths of 32-year-olds in England wanted children, or more children, but just a quarter were actually trying to conceive \u2014 affordability pressures and career concerns were among the biggest reasons for the delay.<\/p>\n
Priced out <\/p>\n
Hazell, who lives in Essex, works part-time as a nanny, and can take her son with her to work. She works on The Childcare Guide, her advice website, in the evenings and until 3am twice a week. <\/p>\n
\u201cHaving a second child is just not feasible. We had a huge loss of income when our son was born because of the change in my working hours and my earnings are now a fifth of what they were. <\/p>\n
\u201cBecause they are so low I am not saving into my pension, so the economic knock-on effects last for a long time. That\u2019s why I made the decision to start a business, with the plan that it will be my retirement pot,\u201d Hazell said. <\/p>\n
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Larissa Hazell: \u201cWe had a huge loss of income when our son was born. We just can\u2019t afford a bigger family\u201d<\/p>\n
HANNAH MORLAND<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to be able to give our son access to the experiences and extracurricular activities he would like to try, whether that\u2019s sport or music or something else. We know how expensive they are and having more than one child would restrict that choice.\u201d <\/p>\n
A second baby would mean that Hazell and her husband, who works full-time, would have to pay for care for at least one child, as she would not be able to take two children to work. They would also have to move to a bigger home. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs well as the big ticket costs, it\u2019s also all the general things that come with having children \u2014 they are so expensive,\u201d said Hazell.<\/p>\n
Fewer children<\/p>\n
The fertility rate \u2014 the average number of children born to women of childbearing age \u2014 in England and Wales fell to 1.44 in 2023, a record low and below the 2.1 children needed for a stable population without relying on migration. It is a problem shared across the world: by 2050 more than three quarters of countries are on track to have a fertility rate too low to sustain their population size.<\/p>\n
This has serious implications for the public purse, with fewer babies who will grow into taxpayers to help pay the cost of an ageing population, with greater demand on the NHS, care costs and a growing state pension bill. <\/p>\n
The triple lock, which guarantees that the state pension goes up every April by wage growth, inflation or 2.5 per cent (whichever is higher) is already under significant strain. If inflation rises to 4 per cent in September<\/a>, as forecast by the Bank of England, pensioners could be in line for a \u00a3478 boost to the new state pension next year, increasing it to \u00a312,451 a year \u2014 at a cost of \u00a32.1 billion to the exchequer. <\/p>\n The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expects the cost of the state pension to be 7.7 per cent of GDP by the early 2070s, about 50 per cent higher than today.<\/p>\n Meanwhile the old-age dependency ratio (a measure of the population aged 65 and over as a share of the working-age population) is forecast to rise from roughly 33 per cent today to 50 per cent by the mid-2060s, according to the OBR. <\/p>\n The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a think tank, has suggested that the government might look to increase taxes to pay for an ageing population, or make the state pension less generous. The pension is under review by the government and the age at which you can claim it is already on track to increase from 66 to 67 by 2028, and again to 68 between 2044 and 2046. <\/p>\n The Adam Smith Institute, an economic policy think tank, predicts that the triple lock in its current form will become unaffordable by 2036, and the IFS has calculated that the state pension age would need to rise to 74 by 2068-69 to keep funding it. <\/p>\n \u2022 Open door, open wallet. Welcome to the forever cost of parenting<\/a><\/p>\n Many countries have tried to pay their way to a bigger working population by using financial incentives to encourage people to have babies. <\/p>\n Hungary offers would-be parents tax breaks, cash handouts and free IVF, France has a means-tested birth bonus worth up to about \u00a3940 per child, in South Korea new parents can get cheaper housing and lower mortgage rates, and Russia hands out cash bonuses to mothers and the \u201cMother Heroine\u201d gold medal to those with ten children or more. <\/p>\n But for the most part, the global effort to reverse the declining population has been unsuccessful and no country is expected to have a fertility rate above 2.3 by the end of the century.<\/p>\n Beth Goss with her two children<\/p>\n \u2018We couldn\u2019t afford a second child without an inheritance\u2019<\/p>\n For some parents, like Beth and Dan Goss, having a second child was only possible after they inherited money from her grandma. The couple had agreed that they could not afford a second child after the birth of their son in 2021. <\/p>\n \u201cWe were told in January 2023 that we had been left some money and that meant we could afford a second child. It sounds crazy, but it really was the case. We were already paying \u00a3500 a month for our son to be in nursery three days a week and simply couldn\u2019t afford to do that for another child,\u201d said Beth, 33.<\/p>\n She found out she was pregnant in July of the same year and they now have a one-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son. <\/p>\n The couple, who live in Liverpool, pay \u00a31,000 a month for care three days a week, on top of the government-funded nursery hours that both children are entitled to. The bill is more than twice the \u00a3470 they pay towards their mortgage each month. <\/p>\n Beth works at a laboratory in a children\u2019s hospital and until recently Dan worked in digital marketing, but navigating their careers in the early years of parenting has been complicated. The rise of artificial intelligence forced Dan to switch careers and he now works as a barista in a coffee shop, which gives him the flexibility to schedule work around the children. <\/p>\n \u2022 The \u00a388,000 household income you need to afford two children<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI work shifts at the hospital and Dan needs to be flexible. We are almost through the worst of it as our son starts school in September and that will really help to cut costs,\u201d Beth said. <\/p>\n How much to raise a child?<\/p>\n The cost of having a child has risen dramatically amid stubborn inflation, with parents of young children hit particularly hard by annual increases in nursery fees. <\/p>\n In 2023 the investment app Moneyfarm calculated that raising the average child to adulthood would set parents back more than \u00a3223,256. This year Moneyfarm expects the cost to be closer to \u00a3250,000, a rise of 10 per cent over two years and equal to an annual cost of about \u00a313,900. <\/p>\n Will Stevens from the wealth manager Killik & Co said more of his clients were choosing to have fewer children, or in some cases no children. <\/p>\n \u201cMany are increasingly conscious of childcare, education and daily living costs of their family finances. Mortgage rates have started to come down, but many couples have been locked in at higher borrowing costs over the last few years, or are struggling to get on the property ladder at all, delaying decisions to have children or opting out altogether,\u201d Stevens said. <\/p>\n For many families having a second child would mean a dramatic cut in earnings while expenses for their first child are still high \u2014 childcare in the UK is among the most expensive in the world. <\/p>\n Women in full or part-time employment are eligible for 39 weeks statutory maternity pay, with the first six weeks at 90 per cent of earnings before tax and the remaining 33 weeks at the statutory \u00a3187.18 \u2014 less than half the minimum wage for a 35-hour week. <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\/33ad1418-8aa3-426d-9153-34f96cbafd23.jpeg\")
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