Births in England and Wales increase for first time since 2021 | Population
An increase in babies born of fathers over the age of 60 has helped to trigger the first increase in the number of births in England and Wales since 2021.
Data from the National Statistics Office (ONS) showed that there were 594,677 living births in 2024, up 0.6% compared to 2023.
The birth rate remains historically low, with 2024 the lowest third total since 1977. But the small increase means that the downward trend observed in recent years can stop.
The largest birth increases were found in the West Midlands, up 3.4% and London, up 1.8%, with five regions that experienced an annual fall, including a 1.4% drop in the northeast.
The ONS said that there was a “notable increase” of living births for fathers aged 60 and over, which jumped 14%, from 942 births in 2023 to 1,076 in 2024.
Births to young mothers and fathers have fallen, pursuing a long -term trend in the average age of parents regularly increasing in the past 50 years.
The highest increase in living births concerned women aged 35 to 39, which increased by 2.7%, while the largest decrease was observed in people under the age of 20, down 4.6%.
Greg Cely, the head of monitoring the health of the ONS population, said: “The number of births to mothers under the age of 30 has fallen, while people continue to repel children until life later.
“The largest decline is observed in those under 20, which has dropped by almost 5%, while the number of mothers aged 35 to 39 has increased the most.”
On Monday, the Secretary of Education, Bridget Phillipson on Monday, called on the British to consider having more children and having them earlier, describing the “disturbing repercussions” posed by a drop in fertility rates.
“A generation of young people has thought twice before starting a family, worrying not only about the rise in mortgages and rent reimbursements, not only be wary of the price of fuel and food, but also for a childcare system missing simultaneously in places and dear loudly,” she wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
Data has also shown that 39.5% of living births in England and Wales last year had one or both parents born outside the United Kingdom, compared to 37.3% in 2023 and 32.5% per decade earlier in 2014.
The ONS have stressed that the data did not give a complete image of the history of ethnicity or the migration of a family, nor reflected recent immigration trends, because all women born outside the United Kingdom would not have arrived in the country in recent years.
