I originally started writing this piece exploring low birth rates around the world with a focus on the UK, however, the further I got into researching, the more my research lead me to the USA. Even when I was specifically aiming for insight into the UK, the US continued to come up and that feels extremely telling.

Exploring low birth rates has inevitably provided me with multiple reasons as to why this is the case. It’s financial, political, personal, geographical, legal… all factors depending on which part of the world you live in, the reasons surrounding why birth rates are low are vast and complex.

Analysis produced by Amnesty International has proved that the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport and the National Lottery Community Fund has given donations to crisis pregnancy centres considered to have an anti-abortion agenda. These centres are established across the UK and although many are simply often Christian charities providing free counseling for those considering their pregnancy options, according to Amnesty, many are believed to be spreading misinformation regarding abortions. It is worrying that the only online articles regarding this are from Amnesty and The Big Issue, no other news platform seems to have picked up this news story from over a month ago.

On 28th October 2024, for some reason, the BBC reported ‘Fertility rate in England and Wales drops to new low’. Sky News also uploaded an article on 10th June 2025 with the title ‘Birth rates are plummeting worldwide’. In August 2025, The Guardian reported ‘Fertility rate hits record low in England, Scotland and Wales’. Considering the BBC, Sky News and The Guardian are quick to detail birth rates as news, I am unsure why not this, as it is extremely relevant.

Amnesty mapped the nature and finances of 65 anti-rights groups operating across the UK.

AMNESTY’S ANALYSIS

32 of these groups spent £106 million between 2019 and 2023 (an increase of over 33%).

KEY FINDINGS

The key findings beside the dramatic increase in spending, is that the largest spenders are UK branches of US organisations (£34 million). Yikes. Hearing that the largest spenders in influencing our human rights and access to health care in the U.K. is America, is crazy to me. As if they didn’t recently overturn Roe v. Wade. It’s completely diabolical. Lobbying is an American thing, the UK Parliament prohibits members of the house from being paid to lobby. Andrew Bridgen (ex MP) broke transparency rules considered to be a “inadvertent breach of the MPs’ code of conduct”. It seems as though donating is a loophole away from and around lobbying.

THE US

The Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian group that was involved in eliminating abortion rights in the USA via the reversal of Roe v Wade, set up a UK branch in 2015. In the UK, they have been defending people charged for breaching Safe Access Zones around abortion clinics which is illegal in the UK. It turns out, The ADF’s expenditure increased by 187% between 2019 and 2023, for a total of 3.9 million. There is nothing bad about the US investing and donating to crisis pregnancy centres, in fact, it is welcomed in my eyes. It’s more money for the centres. However, it does seem nefarious – the sudden influx of millions more than previous years, alongside donations from The ADF who have defended individuals breaching Safe Access Zones.

THE UK

The UK has had an aging population for 12 years or so now. Recently, the British government including the Prime Minister have issued statements about wanting to get people off benefits and back into work. I wish it wasn’t considered bold to say the main reason why this is being pushed is to support the aging population that the UK has had since 2013.

CAPITALISM

What also has to be considered, is that life for most is not living or thriving, it’s surviving. So what is the concern about, really? Needing future employees, future tax payers? Why is the conversation low birth rates, not high cost of living? Not low wages compared to inflation? It seems as though it’s anything but ‘let’s have a real conversation’. If we look at the systems around the world, the capitalist systems – e.g the UK and the USA, the definition of capitalism means private ownership of the means of production and markets driven by supply and demand. This basically means that allocations of resources are put where they can generate the highest reward, not necessarily where it is needed. In almost all economic systems throughout the world, governments need more young people (workers) than old, so that there are enough resources to take care of the old (those not working). The less people born living in those economic systems, means less money for those who own the means of production, as less people means less workers, in turn less people paying tax… Capitalism doesn’t work if less people are born. An example of this, the USA has a social security system that only functions if there are more young people working than old people receiving benefits. If in 50 years, millennials outnumber younger generations, the social security system will eventually collapse, without major changes, that is. In my opinion, societies almost function like a flimsy pyramid scheme in this way, a giant house of cards. Japan is kind of going through this right now as well. As of a few hours ago, it was reported that the Bank of Japan (BoJ) is set to increase interest rates to 75bps, the highest level in 30 years. This is where high interest rates and the raising of the state pension comes in, all of a sudden sounding eerily similar to the state of things before the 2008 recession and stock market crash. Another indicator that the UK support system is also struggling is the raising of the state pension from 66 to 67 between 2026 and 2028. I’m not sure what the experts are predicting, I don’t know a lot about economics – my areas are law and politics, but I do know that I can see another recession coming. In 2003, the UK state pension age was 60 for women and 65 for men. As of 2022, 19% of the UK population was 65 or over. We should not be going backwards, leading citizens to work longer. When it gets flipped, like what we are experiencing now, people have to work in their old age because there aren’t enough young people to support them. Countries needing more young workers in order to support the elderly through taxes is the key trait of capitalism, it feeds off the worker like a parasite. At least if it was socialism, we, the workers, would own the means of production. In the words of Zach De La Roca, “F*ck a G Ride, I want the machines that are making them”.

On a personal note, I’m not sure about you – but it seems as though what we have heard for what seems to be a long time is that earth is overpopulated. ‘Want to fight Climate Change? Have less children!’. Cue the patriarchy stressing about low birth rates. There was an Emma Green article published on The Atlantic in 2021, ‘A World Without Children’ which explores the conversation around a generation facing ‘intractable problem debates wether to bring a new generation into the world’, which is worth a read. It explores women such as Miley Cyrus who said publicly about not wanting to have a baby on a “piece-of-shit planet” referring to climate change and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez conversation on Instagram about having children, choosing to be childless due to climate crisis concerns being legitimate reasons for concern.