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16th April 2008

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Government Induced Fertility Decline in the British Isles       Press Release for use in conjunction with presentation at the BSPS, British Society for Population Studies conference in Southhampton University. September 18-19^th

Click HERE to download graphs to accompany this release.

Patrick Carroll, a British actuary and statistician, is presenting the findings of a new study of the decline in British birth rates at the BSPS conference in Southampton September 18-19^th . He considers several factors that have contributed to this trend and identifies several that are shaped by government policies.

The fall in the British birth rate since the 1960s can be linked to key decisions by governments which have had an impact on the birth rate though not designed to have that effect. If the task of reversing this decline in the birth rate is to be addressed it will require some government initiatives and for this it is necessary to identify relevant factors that are within the control of governments.

A parallel decline in the Birth rate in the Irish Republic is also examined with the differing impact of Irish legislation and government measures.

This paper identifies seven policy areas affecting fertility. The attached Power Point slides for presentation in Southampton illustrate the trends:

* Contraception.  A marked decline in the birth rate in the 1970s followed the decision to make available contraceptives pills free from prescription charges in 1973. The decision to make contraceptives free of VAT in March 2006 is a further illustration of British government promotion of contraception. 

The decline in the birth rate has been described as a “mirror image” of the increase in use of hormonal contraceptives by a leading British demographer.

 *Abortion.     In all parts of the British Isles, even in Ireland, the birth rate is now significantly below replacement level. And there is a close match between the shortfall below replacement level of the birth rate and the abortion rate. For the graphs illustrating this for Ireland the abortion rates have been computed using data on English abortions on Irish resident women. The 1967 Abortion Act does not apply to Northern Ireland or the Irish Republic and this is a factor contributing to a higher birth rate in Ireland. 

The abortion rate in England has increased since the 1967 Abortion Act so that the average woman now has about 0.5 an abortion in England & Wales. More than 80% of British abortions are paid for by the NHS, National Health Service.

*Decline of Marriage.

Marriage rates of young women aged 20-24 have fallen and this has contributed to the decline of birth rates. While the birth rate has been declining, the proportion of births outside marriage has increased. This is a further factor leading to further decline of the birth rate as single parents are more reluctant to add to their families. The UK income tax system does little to reward marriage and the UK’s means-tested benefit systems make it difficult for single parents to marry.

* Divorce

Divorce legislation was revised in the UK and made divorce easier and divorce become much more common in the 1980s. This prevalence of divorce has also been a negative for stability and British family formation. Divorce of women aged 30 to 34 can reduce fertility. In the Irish Republic until recently this has been absent.

*Social Housing.

Privatisation of council houses in the 1980s has reduced family type housing availability and made housing for families with children more difficult to find for lower income families. This has been a negative for the birth rate, especially in Scotland and Northern Ireland where there has been a high proportion of social housing. 

*Private Housing.

Increasing house prices merit more attention from demographers to assess their impact on family formation. The demise of mortgage interest relief in the 1980s has made it more difficult for young families with a mortgage to have more children. The continuation of mortgage interest relief in the Irish Republic has likewise helped to maintain a higher birth rate there. But higher house prices in the Republic are thought to now to be affecting the birth rate there negatively. 

*Improved Career Opportunities for Women.

Improved opportunities for women in paid employment and equal access to better paid careers has been a factor reducing the birth rate. In an increasing number of households a woman is the highest paid provider, and such households have fewer children. This trend is partly brought about by government policies and government related agencies such as the Equal Opportunities Commission.

Patrick Carroll

Contact address

PAPRI,  35 Canonbury Road, London N1 2DG

Tel 020 7354 5667

PRESS RELEASE: 

Legally Induced Abortion: the best predictor of 3 British breast cancer trends.

** New findings presented in a Paris Meeting of statisticians and epidemiologists ** on September 7th.
The latest data on British female breast cancer, now the commonest of all cancers among women and men, provides the following new evidence that induced abortion is a significant factor for this disease.

•The increased reverse gradient across social class,

Unlike other cancers, breast cancer is more prevalent among women in the higher social classes and this is called “reverse gradient”. This reverse gradient across social class for breast cancer has become steeper in England as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported in Health Statistics Quarterly, Winter 2003. It is less steep in Scotland. The greater gradient in England can be attributed to the abortion rate, higher in England than in Scotland, in conjunction with a later Age at First birth among upper class women. Young upwardly mobile women tend to have abortions in their first pregnancies. And these << nulliparous>> abortions are especially carcinogenic.

Using the model developed by London based research centre PAPRI, a further increase in the reverse gradient has been estimated for the next period of 4 years for England & Wales. (Those interested in seeing the graphs, contact L.L.G.) Whereas ONS reported a Proportional Mortality Ratio for the highest social class of 169 for the years 1993-1996 and 174 for the years 1997 to 2000, a further increase in the Proportional Mortality Ratio to 179 for the Highest Social Class is now forecast for the years 2001 –2004.

** The geographical variation across the British Isles shows a higher incidence of Brest Cancer in the South East.

The South East has a higher rate of incidence of breast cancer than other parts of the British Isles. This is explicable by the higher abortion rate in London and the South East, but it is not explained by the birth rate. Full term pregnancies are protective against breast cancer. London and the South East have a higher birth rate than the national average. Ireland has the lowest rate of breast cancer in the British Isles: 97 per 100,000 compared to 116 per 100,000 in the South East. The lower rate of breast cancer in Ireland is also explicable by the lower abortion rate there.

** Increase in incidence.

The Office fir National Statistics reported this year (ONS website): Breast cancer continued to account for 1 in 3 newly diagnosed cases of cancer in females. Between 1971 and 2002, the incidence rate for breast cancer (after adjustment for age) increased by around 70%…

A correlational analysis made by PAPRI has shown that breast cancer incidence within ages 50 to 54 for successive birth cohorts of British women is highly correlated with the numbers of children i.e. fertility of the cohort and other variables known to be important factors in female breast cancer such as age at first birth of women who have children and the proportion of women who are childless.

The Future.

Forecasts, using the PAPRI model, of the increased incidence of malignant breast cancers to be expected in Great Britain in the next 25 years have been presented in Paris as stated, by PAPRI’s Director of Research, Patrick Carroll at the workshop of EAPS (European Association for Population Studies) group on “Health morbidity and mortality”, hosted by the National Institute for demographic studies and the research unit “Mortality, health, epidemiology”. The workshop addressed the following issue: Patterns of morbidity and morality by cause of death as a reflection of social inequality.

(contact PAPRI at 35, Canonbury Road, London. N1 2DG, UK.)
 

October 2005

LAB OUR PRO LIFERS ENCOURAGED TO SUPPORT NEW CAMPAIGN.
 
Delegates attending the Labour Party Conference in Brighton have been encouraged to support the work of the All Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group of M.P.'s in their efforts to bring about changes to the Abortion Law.
Clare Curtis-Thomas M.P. addressing a Fringe Meeting organised by the LABOUR LIFE GROUP spoke about the remarkable images of life inside the womb taken by Professor Stuart Campbell which delegates had the opportunity to see at a meeting earlier in the week when the new campaign 'Alive & Kicking' was launched.
 
“This is a recognisable entity. You cannot deny what you can see. An unborn baby is not a blob at 4 or 5 weeks.”
 
Clare Curtis-Thomas and her parliamentary colleague Jim Dobbin, M.P. who chairs the All Party Parliamentary Pro Life Group, urged the need for church leaders to engage on a regular basis with the pro-life M.P.s in planning any future campaigns. Neither of the M.P.'s felt that there was any realistic chance of achieving everything that pro-lifers are aiming for in the immediate foreseeable future but they were able to cite evidence provided by a polling organisation that Professor Campbell's work has helped shift public and parliamentary opinion in a direction more favourable to wishing to see a reduction in the time limit and tightening of the grounds for abortion.
 
Jim Dobbin pointed out that it has been a long time since Parliament last considered the question of abortion and an opportunity to bring about an improvement to the law now exists. “There is a need to work in tandem with the Churches in a considered response” he said.