UK birth numbers show dramatic shift as British-born parents hit record low

British-born mothers births dropped to just 403‚000 in 23ʼ from 538‚000 in 08ʼ (a huge drop that nobody expected)

The numbers show big changes in whoʼs having kids: births from Indian parents went up 73%‚ West African parents 37% and east-EU parents like Polish and Romanian families grew 32.6%. Now about 1 in 13 UK babies have parents from India Pakistan or Bangladesh; thats way more than 20 years back

Foreign-born parents are making up more of UK births - its now 37.3% up from last year which was already high. Londonʼs got the most with 67.4% of babies having non-UK born parents (places like Brent and Westminster are over 80%)

The total baby-per-woman number is super-low at 1.44; experts say we need 2.1 to keep population stable. This matches whats happening in other rich countries - places like Italy and Spain are even lower at 1.2 kids per woman

Theres lots of reasons for this drop-off: more women working and studying longer; super-expensive childcare (about £300 weekly for under-3s); and housing costs. Young people say they cant find right partners or feel ready - like Chris Taylor and Jemma Wrathmell from Wakefield who earn £60k but think kids are too expensive right now

Migration might help with worker shortages as population gets older but Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak want to cut yearly migration from 764k to around 250-300k