Britain’s baby bust
England and Wales join the low-fertility club
IN 1945 A sociologist, J. G. Ferraby, tried to explain why women were having so few babies. He mulled various possibilities, such as cramped housing, women’s fear of childbirth and the cost of educating children. In the end, though, Ferraby blamed the baby bust on a lack of “zest” and confidence in the future. “It is possible”, he wrote, “that the majority of people in England—and perhaps all over the Western world—are now just drifting.”
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Turning Japanese”
Britain July 25th 2020
From the July 25th 2020 edition
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