Fertility Level Drops Among Women in England and Wales, Findings Show

According to a new study from John Ermisch, Emeritus Professor from Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, published earlier this month in Population Studies, fertility in England and Wales fell to its lowest documented level between 2010 and 2020 for women in all educational groups.

According to data from the Office of National Statistics birth registration figures, the total fertility rate decreased from 1.94 in 2010 to 1.55 in 2021. In the nations of Europe, this trend is prevalent.

Professor Ermisch, however, also considers information from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, Understanding Society. The study states ‘The substantial recent decline in period fertility was experienced irrespective of education group.’

Professor Ermisch says, “Previous research has shown education is an important indication of a woman’s fertility.”

While past studies have looked into differences based on a woman’s education, this study is the first to take into account both a woman’s education and that of her parents. This makes a bigger difference in fertility than either generation’s schooling alone.

The analysis finds a large reduction in each education category, characterized either by women’s parents’ education alone or by a woman’s education relative to her parents’ education, which indicates that all women had fewer children and did so later in life than in earlier decades.

This work extends beyond national trends to better understand the recent drop in fertility and provides researchers with a way for determining the representativeness of survey data on fertility, according to Professor Ermisch. Additionally, it creates opportunities for the study’s replication in nations that have intergenerational registration data, like the Nordic region.

The study found that upwardly mobile women delay childbirth substantially more than downwardly mobile women in terms of schooling.

Although women with lower levels of education and parents with lower levels of education had younger children than women with higher levels of education, the study reveals that women in all educational brackets are having children later.

The total fertility rate of women whose parents did not complete tertiary education and whose children did not complete secondary school decreased the most between 2010 and 2020; it went from over two children per woman to under two. Along with their parents, the number of children per woman who had a high degree of education fell from 1.8 to 1.4 during the same period.

The large recent reduction in period fertility was felt regardless of the education group, which was determined by the education of the woman’s parents alone or by the woman’s education concerning her parents’ education, according to the paper’s conclusion.