Abstract
As in most wealthy countries, the United Kingdom (UK) population is aging and is set to continue to age for the next several decades. Recent and projected rates of change in the share of the elderly population are slow, however, compared to most other European Union (EU)-27 countries. Although since 1998 net migration has played some role, the UK’s relatively benign demographic profile has much to do with its relatively high fertility rates. Population issues, low fertility in particular, are not considered to be a major policy concern or an appropriate target for government intervention. A combination of moderately high fertility and high female employment has (at least historically) been achieved without implementing the kinds of work-family reconciliation policies that are credited with sustaining fertility elsewhere in Europe. A laissez-faire approach to the economy and residual approach to welfare may well have sustained UK fertility levels by facilitating childbearing in more socio-economically disadvantaged families. Recent, path-deviant, work-family reconciliation policies have been adopted, but the wider institutional context has moderated their potential to reduce the costs of childbearing.
Britain is insular, bound up by its trade, its markets…with the most varied and often the most distant countries…. She has, in all her work, very special, very original habits and traditions. In short, the nature, structure, circumstances peculiar to Britain are different from those of the other continentals…. How can Britain, being what she is, come into our system?
—Charles de Gaulle, Paris 1963
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- 1.
According to estimates from the Office for National Statistics, the provisional TFR for the United Kingdom in 2013 was 1.83 (Office for National Statistics 2014b).
- 2.
Between 2001 and 2006, the share of the foreign-born population increased from 8 to 10 %. The increment from 6 to 8 % took place over the previous two decades (Dunnell 2007).
- 3.
The more recent 2012 projections assume slightly lower short-term rates that stabilize at 1.89 (Office for National Statistics 2013).
- 4.
In contrast to “institutional” models that tend to provide universal welfare benefits and services, the approach of the residual welfare state is more targeted and means tested.
- 5.
The Population Investigation Committee established the journal Population Studies in 1947.
- 6.
For the first five years, however, abortion services were limited and rates of use were low (Department of Health 2007).
- 7.
Social reproduction is a concept used by feminist scholars who study gender divisions of labor. Laslett and Brenner (1989, p. 382) describe it as “…the activities and attitudes, behaviors and emotions, responsibilities and relationships directly involved in the maintenance of life on a daily basis, and intergenerationally.”
- 8.
Attached as a protocol to the Maastricht Treaty of the European Union.
- 9.
Under qualified-majority voting, each member state is allotted a number of votes based on its size and population. For more information, see http://www.euro-know.org/europages/dictionary/q.html.
- 10.
The opt-out meant that the UK was exempt from legislation arising from this protocol.
- 11.
To qualify for maternity benefits, women had to have worked continuously for the same employer at least 16 h per week for two years or eight hours per week for five years. Only about one-half of all working mothers met these eligibility criteria.
- 12.
Women who met more stringent eligibility requirements relating to their work history (see previous footnote) and to their National Insurance contributions were entitled to a longer period of leave (initially 28 weeks) than the minimum of 14 weeks required by the Pregnant Workers Directive.
- 13.
When its opt-out from the Agreement on Social Policy ended in 1997, the UK was required to give force to the Parental Leave Directive.
- 14.
The document set out a proposal that would ensure that all four-year-olds had access to early education by September 1998 and presented a funding plan of £435 million (US$682 million as of 21 May 2015) over five years for the development of childcare services, £310 million (US$486 million) in start-up funds for out-of-school childcare facilities, and a £6 million (US$9 million) investment in the provision of childcare places for younger children.
- 15.
A means-tested benefit for families with an adult working at least 24 (later reduced to 16) hours per week and at least one dependent child. Originally called the Family Income Supplement (FIS), it was renamed Family Credit in 1988 and replaced by the Working Families Tax Credit in 1999.
- 16.
The deduction was increased to £60 (US$90) per week in the 1995 budget.
- 17.
A number of authors have criticized this simplistic dichotomy, but for the purposes of the discussion that follows, this stylized framework has some heuristic value.
- 18.
The “right to buy” program gave tenants in public housing the opportunity to buy their homes at reduced prices and so provided some opportunity for home ownership. The program reduced the stock of public housing, however, and as a consequence, only those families most in need gained access to a public-housing unit (Lupton et al. 2009).
- 19.
In a television interview (BBC News 2002), Prime Minister Tony Blair was asked whether he thought “an individual could earn too much money.” His response provides a good summary of his Government’s view on inequality: “…Do you mean that we should cap someone’s income? Not really, no. Why? What is the point? You can spend ages trying to stop the highest paid earners earning the money but in an international market like today, you probably would drive them abroad. What does that matter? Surely the important thing is to level up those people that don’t have opportunity in our society.”
- 20.
By 2007, all mothers were entitled to 52 weeks of leave (although the right to return to the same job was only extended to the first 26 weeks). While there has been little change in the likelihood that a mother will return to work within 18 months of birth (in fact, the figure declined slightly between 2002 and 2007), in recent years mothers have been more likely to return to the same employer (Stewart 2013). What is less clear is whether those women returned to the same job or whether they experienced any occupational downgrading subsequent to their return, particularly if they wanted to reduce their working hours.
- 21.
Since 2003, fathers have been entitled to two weeks of Ordinary Paternity Leave (as it is now called), which is compensated at a flat rate. Throughout the period, parental leave, which included unpaid individual entitlements for men, remained minimal (Lewis and Campbell 2007). From April 2011, qualifying mothers could choose to return to work and transfer up to 26 weeks of their leave entitlement (which was compensated at the same flat rate as additional maternity leave and ordinary paternity leave at £128.15 (US$198) per week when it was first introduced) to their (qualifying) partner (Trades Union Congress 2013). Although the measure provided some opportunity for men to take leave, it clearly reflected and continued to reinforce gendered divisions of labor. From 2015, fathers can take up to 50 weeks of the leave entitlement. Although it has been renamed “shared leave,” mothers still must trigger men’s entitlement by returning to work.
- 22.
In 2013, the entitlement was extended to two-year-olds in low-income families.
- 23.
Estimates from 2008 suggest that the cost of childcare represented an effective tax of about 41 % on the income of a second earner in an average-wage family (OECD 2011).
- 24.
Originally, the Right to Request was available to parents of children under the age of six (18 if the child was disabled), and in 2009 it was extended to parents of non-disabled children age 16 and younger. In 2007, the Right to Request was extended to employees with caring responsibilities for sick or disabled adult household members, and, in 2014, to all workers.
- 25.
Survey data for the period 2009–2011 indicate that, of those who were not still awaiting the outcome, about 14 % reported that their request was declined, and about 20 % reported that their request was accepted only after “negotiation/compromise/appeal.”
- 26.
From £1000 (US$1549) per annum in 1998 to £9000 (US$13,940) per annum since 2012 at most universities in England and Wales.
- 27.
The rate at which benefits are reduced as household income rises.
- 28.
The A8 countries are the eight low-income (per capita incomes of about 40 % of the EU average), Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia) that, along with Malta and Cyprus, joined the EU in 2004.
- 29.
There was a net migration of 180,000 A8 citizens to the UK between 2004 and 2006, accounting for 13 % of the total long-term immigration. Among the A8 countries, the largest number of immigrants came from Poland, and by 2010 they formed the largest group of non-UK nationals resident in the UK (Office for National Statistics 2011).
- 30.
Decommodification is a concept used to guide the comparative analysis of advanced welfare states. Esping-Andersen (1990, p. 37) defines decommodification as “the degree to which individuals, or families, can uphold a socially acceptable standard of living independent of labour market participation.”
- 31.
A proof structure that allows us to conclude that a property is not true by identifying an example where it does not hold.
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Sigle, W. (2016). Fertility and Population Change in the United Kingdom. In: Rindfuss, R., Choe, M. (eds) Low Fertility, Institutions, and their Policies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32997-0_4
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