From a childless tax to ‘get pregnant memos’ and cash for kids – our fertility can’t be bought

Time’s running out. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.”

These aren’t simply the words of a “smug married” encouraging everyone’s favourite fictional diarist, Bridget Jones, to get “sprogged up”. They are now the sentiment behind one of the French government’s most prominent health policies.

France is planning to send out letters to an entire cohort of young people, reminding them about their fertility windows and reproductive health, and warning them not to leave it “too late” to have children. Part of a 16-point plan designed to increase the country’s declining birth rate – which has fallen to 1.56 babies per woman, the nation’s lowest level since 1918 – the letter aims to help people swerve fertility problems later down the line and avoid thinking “if only I had known”, say health officials.

There is some method behind the madness. The letters are being sent specifically to 29-year-olds – at that age, women can have their eggs frozen in France without a medical certificate. The country is way ahead of the UK in terms of supporting this kind of fertility treatment: the social security system (public health insurance) covers the cost of elective egg freezing and conserving for women aged between 29 and 37, a fact that the letter will remind recipients of.

France is the first country to offer free elective egg freezing for non-medical reasons. In comparison, egg freezing in the UK is only free on the NHS if it is deemed medically necessary to preserve fertility – for example, before a woman undertakes cancer treatment. For everyone else, it remains a costly business, typically costing more than £5,000, plus storage costs.

It’s also at least slightly gratifying to note that the letters are being sent to France’s young men as well as its young women, defying the stereotypical assumption that fertility is somehow the preserve of those without a Y chromosome. “The biological clocks are not the same, but men have one too,” said a ministry official of the decision.

But at least some of the intended demographic have levelled the charge that sending grown adults letters informing them that fertility declines with age is, ironically, a little infantilising. Paul Brunstein-Compard, a 29-year-old stand-up comedian who lives in Paris, accused the government of “treating them like children”, reports The Times.

The suggestion that young people only need a little encouragement and education to procreate is incredibly reductive, as 29-year-old Lydia Spencer-Elliott pointed out in The Independent: “I’d be horrified if I arrived home to find a letter serving as a biological alarm waiting on the doormat. Last week, I was evicted by my landlord, a no-fault eviction, which will be entirely illegal when new renters’ reforms come into force in May.

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“I can’t afford to buy a house, despite having a healthy deposit, because my salary is low and nowhere near in line with ever-climbing inflation. Plus, I have student loans and a half-lingering hope that I might be able to enjoy rather than just survive my life.”

The myriad socio-economic and health issues behind decreasing fertility are not only far too complex to be solved by the equivalent of a government “reply all” email – they are not limited to France, either. Other than in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, fertility rates have been gradually falling across the world for decades, more than halving since 1963. More than half of all countries have now dipped below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, the rate necessary to maintain a stable population.

South Korea and Taiwan have both sunk to the bottom of the table, with birth rates having fallen beneath 1 per woman and hovering between 0.7 and 0.75. Indeed, in a stark illustration of how demographics are changing in South Korea, adult disposable nappies – for the elderly – now outsell those for babies. Closer to home, the fertility rate in England and Wales has dropped to its lowest level on record, down to 1.44 per woman as of 2023.

France is still faring much better than many comparative countries. Spain stands at about 1.12 and Italy roughly around 1.21. But France’s decline has been much sharper and swifter than that of other nations, going from 1.99 in 2013, the second highest in the EU, to 1.66 a decade later.

Perhaps this latest fertility push is a point of pride. President Emmanuel Macron has been particularly vocal about his desire to turn the tide, having even given this goal the vaguely threatening and militaristic label of “demographic rearmament”. And, while the latest move of letter bombing people before they turn 30 might feel a little like attempting to pop a plaster on a haemorrhage, other policies focusing on medical intervention have more heft to them.

Free fertility checks were announced for individuals aged between 18 and 25 in 2024, alongside plans to extend parental leave. There’s talk of expanding the number of egg-freezing centres from 40 to 70, and of making France a leading pioneer of fertility research. Back in 2021, the country passed a bill to give single women and lesbian couples the right to access fertility treatment such as IVF, something that was previously reserved for heterosexual couples. Surrogacy, however, is excluded from this fertility drive, Macron having claimed it is “not compatible with the dignity of women” and that it “[turns] their bodies into commodities”.

A number of other countries have also implemented pro-natalist strategies in recent years in an attempt to combat their own shrinking and ageing population statistics. These can range from tax breaks and cash incentives to free childcare and more robust maternity and paternity leave policies.

For example, in South Korea, President Yoon Suk Yeol announced plans to establish a government ministry that would address the “national emergency” of the country’s low birth rate in 2024. He pledged to increase parental leave allowances, implement flexible working practices and increase time off for fathers.

In the US, the Make America Mate Again (Mama) movement is in full swing, with Donald Trump signing an executive order directing the government to expand access to IVF and reduce the costs of the popular fertility treatment. One plan reportedly being discussed was to give a $5,000 incentive to new mothers, while another would involve 30 per cent of all Fulbright scholarships being given to applicants who are married or have children.

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Despite all this, very few countries have seen these kinds of schemes actually pay off in the real world. Even those that ease some of the financial burdens associated with parenthood fail to address the wider picture and demographic shifts.

Finding a suitable partner to have a baby with in the first place, for example, was found to be a major stumbling block for educated women in one particular study in the US. Putting off parenthood has an inherent impact on fertility, yes, but some research has also suggested that environmental factors, such as “forever chemicals”, might be harming the quality and quantity of men’s sperm.

Here in the UK, education secretary Bridget Phillipson said back in June that she hoped to make it easier for people to have children. She called the falling birth rate “a trend which has worrying repercussions for society in the future, but tells a story, heartbreakingly, about the dashed dreams of many families”.

And yet very little has been done in terms of implementing concrete policies that would make raising children materially less costly. The UK is the third-most expensive country for childcare in the world, based on a couple earning the average wage, according to data from the OECD. While scoring highly for the length of paid time women have the legal right to take off for maternity leave, Britain also languishes at the bottom of the pack in terms of overall pay. And single women still have no access to free fertility treatment, such as IVF, on the NHS.

On the flip side, there’s a fine line between carrot and stick, with a worrying strand of the pro-natal conversation tipping into arguments that women who can’t or won’t have a baby should be penalised. Matt Goodwin, Reform UK’s candidate for the Gorton and Denton by-election, suggested that people who don’t have children should be taxed extra as punishment, according to an unearthed blog post; he mulled imposing a “negative child benefit tax” on “those who don’t have offspring”.

Government policies that reduce the cost and friction of starting a family to enable people who want to go down that path are to be encouraged. But parenthood should always be a choice – and warning twentysomethings that they’re “running out of time” might just send them running for the hills instead.