According to new figures from the Office for National Statistics, the fertility rate in England and Wales has dropped to a new low. In a nutshell: women had an average of 1.44 children between 2022 and 2023. It marks the lowest total fertility rate recorded since 1938. This is a global trend. Twenty-three nations, including Spain, Japan and Thailand, are expected to see their populations halve by 2100. This is partly because of rising infertility rates among men (nobody’s talking about that, are they?) and partly because people are having fewer children and having them later in life.
