Benefit cuts may be why fewer babies are now born to under-25s
A SUDDEN drop in the birthrate among women in their twenties could have been caused by welfare cuts, an official report said yesterday.
It found births to mothers under 25 have fallen – even though the number of women in their twenties is rising fast.
Birthrates among women in their later twenties have also begun to decline, marking the end of a 12-year baby boom in the age group.
The Office for National Statistics, which produced the report on births in England and Wales last year, said a key reason could be ‘reforms by the Coalition to simplify the welfare system’.
It pointed to cuts in housing benefit, the removal of child benefit from higher earners, and the benefits cap for families. These ‘significant changes to benefits may have influenced decisions around childbearing’.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith – the architect of the reforms – declined to comment.
But critics said the cutbacks, which foreshadowed deeper post-election benefit reductions, may have sent a message to a generation of young women that they can no longer rely on state support if they become mothers without an income.
In 2014, the number of births in England and Wales fell 0.5 per cent, from 698,512 in 2013 to 695,233. This appeared to put a stop to a 12- year period of rapid increases, during which numbers of babies went up by nearly 23 per cent to nearly 730,000 in 2012.
Immigration has been a key factor. Last year, a record 27 per cent of babies were born to migrant mothers. But a new influence seems to have cut births as immigration is still high.
Last year’s fall was the second in a row, and it happened among women under 30 as birthrates rose among older women. The sharpest decline was among teenagers – more than 10 per cent to 25,977 in 2014.
But the rate among 20 to 24-year-olds slipped 5.7 per cent, and has fallen nearly a fifth since David Cameron entered No10 in 2010. Birthrates among 25 to 29-yearolds – until a decade ago the most likely group to give birth – dropped for a second year in 2014, by 1 per cent.
The ONS said: ‘Women who have had children and may be considering having another will be influenced by different factors to those who have not had children.
‘Reforms by the Coalition to simplify welfare, which have resulted in some significant changes to benefits, may have influenced decisions around childbearing.’
These included the socalled bedroom tax, which cut handouts for those with more rooms than they need. Child benefit was also withdrawn from families in which one parent earned more than £50,000.
The benefit cap of £500 a week was brought in to ensure benefit- dependent families could no longer live on more than the average wage for working families.
Author on the family Patricia Morgan said: ‘The news gets around. Young women start to think that if they have babies they might not get so much.’