Over the past few months, my generation has once again been blamed for something that’s not our fault. Granted, we Gen Zs are annoying in many respects — we’re constantly either glued to our screens or searching for our vapes, we hate hard work and we’re sinking the night-time economy by being too boring. And yes, I don’t like answering the phone if I don’t know who’s calling me. I’ll hold my hands up to that. But one thing we’re not about to take responsibility for? The falling birthrate.
The stats would have you believe that we are to blame. A study carried out by the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies found that only one in 10 people from Gen Z (which usually refers to those born between 1997 and 2012) had had a child by the age of 23, compared with one in four millennials at a similar age. This exacerbated fears about the already declining fertility rate, which the Office for National Statistics confirmed last week had fallen to a record low. These figures found that the total fertility rate in 2025 had reduced to 1.39 children per woman, down from 1.41 in 2024 — the lowest since data collection began in 1938.
Gen Zs — the cause, and solution to, all of the world’s problems. But I’m here to say: no more! I’ve been sent by Gen Z HQ (one street over from TikTok, if you hit Skype you’ve gone too far) to issue a formal statement. We are sick of being blamed for everything — and while we will try our best to fix the previous generations’ mistakes, the one thing we aren’t going to do is crank out babies for you. Not yet, at least.
Firstly, you have to understand why we aren’t doing it. For one: we literally aren’t doing it. It’s well known by now that Gen Z aren’t shagging as much as previous generations were at our age, leading to cries of a “sex recession”. Researchers at the Institute for Family Studies in America have pointed to falling cohabitation and social time as the main reasons. Far fewer young adults are living with their partners and the total weekly time spent socialising with other people has taken a depressing nosedive. If we’re spending only five hours a week hanging out with our social circle (an average confirmed by the IFS), it’s not likely that one of those hours will be dedicated to making a baby, is it?
Dating apps have ruined dating, making many Gen Zs cackhanded at best when it comes to finding love in real life. Men and women have never seemed more divided — and sometimes it feels like my options for sexual partners are limited to a nail varnish-wearing, coke-taking bar tender and a manosphere-adjacent “provider”.
Pints, the fuel of many sexual exploits, are reaching the £10 mark, further blueballing our sexless generation
While I am absolutely on board with Gen Zs shagging more (good for the soul), I am very much not on board with people who spend only five hours a week socialising trying to socialise a child. They need a little more rounding out before that, or iPad babies will be birthing more iPad babies, like weird Matryoshka dolls. Secondly, we can’t afford it. The cost of living crisis has castrated us. It costs £1,000 a month to rent a room in London (plus most of them are too small to fit a double bed, so you can forget about a cot), and the majority of us live with friends or strangers who would not take kindly to a wailing infant. Pints, the fuel of many sexual exploits, are reaching the £10 mark, further blueballing our sexless generation.
Many Gen Zs have given up on the goal of owning a house, the traditional pre-requisite for having a baby, and are having to make peace with the idea of renting for life. I’ve lived in London for eight years and never saved a single penny. Currently, my most realistic Help to Buy pathways are getting famous or dating a boy who works in finance (ew).
Plus, the majority of us are already in debt. Any Gen Z who went to university would have paid a minimum of £9,000 a year for their degree. Some of those grads also paid through the nose for an education disrupted by Covid, or strikes, or both. In 2025, students graduating from English universities incurred an average of £53,000 of student loan debt. What I’m saying is: I already have a child who takes a portion of my income every month; she’s called Student Loan Repayment Plan 2. And that’s if you’re even employed. From January to March 2026, 1,012,000 young people aged 16 to 24 were not in work, education or training, up from 957,000 in the previous quarter. A report commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions painted a grim picture, claiming one in six young people will not be in work or training in five years without action.
I can’t help but think this is everyone else’s fault
Then there’s the state of the world you want us to bring children into. The UK economy is facing the “real possibility” of a recession, there is war in the Middle East and each decade inches us closer and closer to setting the earth on fire. Last week, I had three oscillating fans pointed at me at any given moment. I can’t help but think this is everyone else’s fault, a belief that was instilled in me way back in 2016, at the exact moment it was revealed we would be leaving the EU, my fruitless Remain vote cancelled out by elderly people who will be alive for only half of the impact.
They say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Well I’m saying, “If you broke it, you fix it.” Want Gen Zs to have children? Start by changing the world you made for us. Or, if seeking a more direct route, my bank details are available on request.
