Il peggiore congedo di paternità in Europa impedisce ai genitori del Regno Unito di avere più figli | Notizie ITV
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-10-14/uk-parents-put-off-having-more-kids-by-europes-worst-paternity-leave
di coffeewalnut08
Il peggiore congedo di paternità in Europa impedisce ai genitori del Regno Unito di avere più figli | Notizie ITV
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-10-14/uk-parents-put-off-having-more-kids-by-europes-worst-paternity-leave
di coffeewalnut08
4 commenti
Late stage capitalism really is not family friendly in the slightest. Both parents need to work full time, childcare is too expensive, housing is too expensive and grandparents don’t seem to be so open to helping out as much as they uses too. Our culture has changed too, we used to have kids young and poor and the family would level up with time. My parents had four of us and were very skint when we were young but as we got older and our parents got promoted we became better off and we moved into a bigger house. The family unit was stronger too, now people seem to want to be a lot more independent and go alone and want to be 100% sorted before having children and often leave it to late.. So its a whole combination of things leading to our low birthrate.
From the article:
“The UK has the worst statutory paternity leave in Europe, and it’s putting parents off having more children, a survey shared with ITV News has found.
British fathers are entitled to just two weeks off work after their child is born and are paid a maximum of £187.18 a week.
The European average is eight weeks at 100% of earnings.”
**I really don’t think this is a major factor** explaining why British couples are putting off having more children.
Much bigger concerns for parents are the UK cost of living crisis, including seemingly ever higher percentage of income being used for housing & utilities and the rising cost of childcare, plus increasing job insecurity and a general lack of confidence in the UK economy.
Having said that, I think a standard 4 weeks leave for new fathers on full pay is a good idea. **That first month is very tough!**
And yet in terms of fertility rates in 2025 we are middling in Europe (higher than Germany, Netherlands, Italy, and particularly Spain and Sweden where the article makes a point about the paternity leave they get). Question is thus, does paternity leave make that much difference? And to be clear I am not saying better paternity leave is not a good thing, just that I am not seeing the link.
It’s not just the money. Having kids has been culturally portrayed as absolutely killing any ability to live your own life. And in many ways that is true. Also, it’s harder than ever to connect with other people – the sense of community has disintegrated, and with the proliferation of online lives, there’s less time to meet people offline. In person. The birth rate is down 20% IIRC both here in the UK and in the US from 2008-now which has even worse parental leave rates (and none statutory). There’s lower rates of teen pregnancy too.