Cavendish charts a sweeping decline in births, from the UK’s record low fertility to global pressures, and reveals why hope for families is fading.
When Camilla Cavendish released Generation Maybe she gave a name to a phenomenon that many had already sensed: a relentless slide in the number of children being born. The title is deliberately tentative, yet the evidence she gathers leaves little room for doubt.
Across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development societies are seeing fewer babies, and the underlying causes are as varied as they are profound.
In the United Kingdom, the fertility rate slipped to 1.39 children per woman in 2025 – the lowest figure ever recorded for the country.
That single number sits alongside similar trends in Germany, China and the United Arab Emirates, each of which now registers birthrates below the German average. Russia, meanwhile, has been able to keep its population roughly stable only by annexing Crimea and portions of Ukraine, a political maneuver that masks a deeper demographic weakness.
Why the birthrate is dropping everywhere
Viktor Orbán’s Hungarian experiment with lifelong tax breaks for women who remain pregnant illustrates how governments have tried to reverse the tide, only to find that money alone does not change personal choices. Tech billionaires such as Elon Musk have publicly applauded Orbán’s approach, while Peter Thiel has financed a company that freezes eggs for future use. These examples reveal a new strand of wealth-driven eugenics where the right to reproduce becomes a commodity filtered through wealth and influence.
Beyond political grandstanding, the data point to everyday hurdles. The United Kingdom’s housing market, for instance, has become so expensive that many young couples postpone or abandon the idea of having children altogether. In the United States, commentator Anna Louie Sussman argues that a “precisely eugenic system” subsidises birth-control for low-income families while financing IVF for the affluent, a dynamic echoed in the broader OECD context.
Even before couples form, cultural shifts already undermine the path to parenthood. The rise of what Cavendish calls the “situationship” – a steady but undefined romantic arrangement – leaves many individuals feeling that commitment is optional. Low-income men, especially those with limited education, often find themselves without partners, turning involuntary childlessness into a demographic reality.
Health, work and the looming “spermapocalypse”
Scientific research on male reproductive health adds another layer of urgency. A 2017 study of sperm counts suggested that, if the downward trend continues, the median Western man could be virtually sperm-free by 2045, forcing most couples to rely on assisted-reproduction technologies. While Cavendish admits the evidence is not yet conclusive, the hypothesis alone has sparked widespread concern.
Work cultures that prize relentless productivity further strain family formation. In China’s notorious “996” schedule – nine-a-m-to-nine-p-m, six days a week – one interviewee lamented that he not only lacked time for intimacy but also could not envision a child destined to become another cog in a capitalist machine. Similar pressures appear in the United Kingdom, where the average pensioner household now enjoys a higher standard of living than the average working household, a paradox that fuels inter-generational tension and fuels skepticism about the value of raising children.
Housing scarcity, job insecurity and an ever-present climate crisis combine to produce a pervasive sense of pessimism. Young people across continents report that the anxiety of an uncertain future outweighs any desire to start a family, a sentiment that mirrors the last year people felt optimistic enough to have more children than the previous year – 1989 – as highlighted by geographer Danny Dorling.
Personal narratives that illustrate a broader trend
Through hundreds of interviews, Cavendish lets individual voices illustrate the statistical patterns. A 27-year-old woman in the UK confided, “Dating now feels like a competition of who wants the other less.” Another young woman described a date where, even while enjoying the moment, she found herself scrolling through other profiles during a bathroom break. Two security guards recounted the blunt reality of economic hierarchy: “You’re downstairs, they go upstairs, right? Know your place,” one joked, underscoring how class perception directly affects romantic prospects.
Men are not immune to the stigma of infertility. Many male interviewees expressed surprise at learning they had missed the biological window, while women more often voiced the fear of “running out of time.” Cavendish also explored the concept of social contagion citing a study that linked a friend’s obesity to a 57% increase in one’s own weight gain, hinting that peers could similarly influence decisions about parenthood.
Immigrant families provide a striking counterexample. Second-generation Somali women in Norway, for instance, average two children – far fewer than the seven typical in Somalia – while Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands match the native fertility rate. Conversely, Polish women who relocate to England tend to have more children than those who remain in Poland, suggesting that cultural norms adapt quickly to the surrounding environment.
All these strands converge on a single insight: the decline in births is not driven by a single factor but by a mesh of economic, cultural, health-related and political pressures that reinforce each other. Cavendish’s conclusion is stark – incremental policy tweaks will not reverse the trend; a radical re-thinking of how societies value work, housing, welfare and the environment is required if the world hopes to restore a demographic balance.
