It was a rainy Monday during half term, and I was in the Islington kitchen of the family I nanny for, frantically googling local events to entertain a restless four-year-old. I struck gold: a children’s library ten minutes away was hosting a free Halloween painting session, starting in twenty minutes.
Rushing out the door in record time, a feat with a four-year-old, with promised snacks and fruit shoots to keep her motivated. We arrived just after it began and were welcomed by a relieved staff member. The space, set up for twenty children, was nearly empty—only one other child was there. I found it odd; such events in my own childhood were always packed. On a rainy day in bustling London, why was a free activity like this so sparsely attended?
I mentioned this to the mum at the end of my shift and she said she’d noticed that and found it strange, even as a well-off family they jump at the chance to entertain their kids freely, so why weren’t their neighbours? There were some with kids, surely?
It has recently been announced that 2023 continued the trend of decreasing birthrate and now is the lowest since records began in 1938 standing at 1.44 children per woman of childbearing age (defined as 15-44).
There are many reasons for the declining birthrate and central London, where many cannot afford what’s needed for them, never mind a child, isn’t going to be the most representative of this. Some boroughs in London have a birthrate lower than one, like that of South Korea where you’re more likely to see a young woman pushing a buggy with a dog in than a baby.
Women are choosing not to have children due to career aspirations, inadequate maternity support, high nursery costs, and the desire to maintain financial and personal freedom by staying child-free.
These are the typical explanations you find in an internet search on declining fertility rates. But I don’t think this tells the whole story — especially for Gen Z, when looking to the future.
Through more research, I came across an unconventional and seemingly unnatural philosophy, Antinatalism, a view that deems procreation unethical.
Antinatalists believe humans only procreate for selfish reasons and by bringing another being into the world you are increasing the amount of suffering on the planet.
This theoretically is true, but then aren’t you also increasing the amount of pleasure that will be had? Both by this child and those close to it.
The more I look, the more I realise this seemingly peripheral outlook may not be so abstract.
Should we be bringing more people into a world engulfed in a climate crisis, wars, unstable economies, injustices and more? This strikes a chord with me and many of my peers, who worry not just about the suffering of a future baby, who will spend much more time as an adult than a cherub-like infant, but the suffering their existence will inflict on pressing issues such as climate change and overpopulation.
A recent survey by onepoll shows many young people hold at least some form of antinatalist view. Even if they are far from subscribing or do not know what one is.
Philosopher David Benetar, the author of Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, was quick to stress that the diminishing birthrate was down to much more than anti-natalist thinking alone, differentiating between that and ‘child-free sentiment’, which is just people deciding they do not want to have children.
They have other priorities and things they want to do, which will be part of the explanation. Benatar expanded by telling me about the different types of antinatalism, placing his theoretical approach into the real world. One he highlighted was environmental anti-natalism, which was prominent in my research.
“The one form it can take is you are worried about bringing a child into a world in which there is this environmental threat. Another is you worried about creating a child who will contribute to the environmental threat.”
When asked about the growth and interest anti-natalism has garnered over recent years Benatar is again reluctant to get too optimistic. While he has seen its growth over the past twenty years he emphasises “it’s anecdotal. I haven’t done hard empirical studies, quantitative studies demonstrating this, but that’s my impression.”
Like many philosophies it is complex and confusing when first introduced to it, especially in its fully theoretical form, it can feel almost dystopian.
Antinatalist advocate and YouTuber Lawrence Anton explains it in its simplest form: “the view that it is immoral to bring new, sentient beings into existence, any individual that can be harmed.”
He also explains a common anti-natalist argument, lack of consent: “We value consent very highly in day-to-day life… sex without consent is rape, work without consent is slavery, [but] when it comes to procreation and the fact that it’s basically the most important thing you can do to someone.
“Create them, consent goes out the window and people almost say, you know, ‘Why would I need consent if they don’t exist?’ That’s the whole point. So, you’re creating someone and they’re going to go through all this suffering, whatever it is in their life, and you’re not even able to ask them if they want to take those odds. So, just the fact that we’re rolling the dice for someone else by creating them when there was no risk to them by not creating them, that leads me to think it’s unethical.”
Being nicknamed as the ‘most pessimistic philosophy’ antinatalists see the asymmetry between the existence of pain and pleasure. David Benatar put forward this argument.
“There is the axiological asymmetry between the good and bad. I argue that the absence of bad is good but that the absence of good is not bad unless there is somebody who is deprived of that good which is not the case when somebody does not exist,” he explained.
“Thus, the absent good that would be experienced by people who could have been, but who were not brought into existence, is nothing to mourn, but the avoidance of the bad things that would have characterized those people’s lives is good.”
Another popular anti-natalist argument is the means to an end argument. This sees the child only being brought into the world to meet some kind of end, be it economic stability, care in old age or purpose for the parent.
Lawrence understands the need for meaning in life but doesn’t think it’s permissible to do this through procreation, adding to this argument “we’ve got to understand that your right to find meaning stops at someone else’s nose. I can’t just use other people as a resource to fulfil my need for meaning. That goes for existing people, that goes for people who I could create. I don’t really see a difference there.
“And the same applies to the more nationalistic argument of having a kid to help the economy, things like that, or pay taxes. Again, it’s using children as a means to an end.”
While I acknowledge having a child purely to enrich your life isn’t ideal, I doubt people are making these life-altering decisions just for that, when it is well-documented how draining, financially and emotionally parenting can be.
I asked Lawrence about the common argument against antinatalism, what about all the good these potential people could do for both communities and the world around them? What if they grow to be the doctor who finally cures cancer?
He is quick to discount this argument with the hard truths: “If you look at the world around us, they’re much more likely to die from cancer than cure it. There’s been [an estimated approximation of] 100 billion people that have ever lived. None of them have cured cancer, and a massive amount of them have died.”
He goes on to offer a more hopeful outlook on what a prospective parent could be thinking of instead: “People always talk about the good their child could do, but what about the good you could do as an individual?
“If anything you’re impairing the amount of good you could do by having a kid and pumping all your time, energy and money into that child for a pipe dream; and you could have used your time, energy and resources in a much more effective way to benefit the people and things you care about.”
While most antinatalists, including Benatar, emphasise the importance of legal freedom to make personal reproductive choices. However, the world they theoretically envision appears dismal, marked by extended working ages, higher taxes to sustain an ageing population, and a fundamental conflict with the evolutionary drive to reproduce.
But what about our primitive urge to reproduce at the fundamental level? Lawrence told me he used to see himself having children but for him, the antinatalist arguments were too compelling.
“I think it might explain some of the reasons that people procreate, but it doesn’t justify it. I don’t think. Whereas often people appeal to it as some form of justification. I think that that’s people kind of selling themselves short as if they can’t act but for their hormones.”
While antinatalists focus on the ethical dilemmas of procreation, pronatalist Aria Babu takes a more optimistic view, framing consciousness as inherently valuable. Responding to the consent argument, “insofar as it possible, I have a preference for getting people’s consent… but consent in some cases is totally impractical.”
Aria analogises through the Government overwriting people’s consent in the case of seatbelts, “people might not have directly consented to wearing a seatbelt, but if we aggregate their actual preference, which is to be alive, they would prefer that. Obviously, you can’t consent to being. But I think most people have a preference to be alive.”
Aria also emphasised the impact of an ageing population, unsustainable population growth is a key antinatalist argument. “More countries will start facing the economic consequences of that unless they can find a way to reopen up a population pyramid and have more young people come in, we need it for economic reasons.”
Britain is getting older, and like most Western countries is set to follow in the footsteps of Japan and Korea, healthcare and pensions for the elderly will put more stress on the state with fewer workers to fund it.
Feeling the pinch of both increased life expectancy and falling birthrates Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in January 2023: “Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society.” This is due to a mass reduction of the working-age population, now over half of the businesses in Japan rely on the labour of the over seventies.
It is also important to note the impact immigration will have, supplying workers where our current birthrates are falling short. But this won’t suffice for long, there have been dramatic decreases in birthrates in countries where the UK gets most immigrants from, India, Poland and Pakistan.
“2040 is when the world starts to get old. It’s like we have been supplementing our low birth rates with immigration from countries with robust fertility rates, India is now replacement rate, almost all of Asia is at a replacement rate, Latin America is now falling to replacement rate,” Aria tells us.
“So when we’re looking for new grads and young people in about 20 years’, it’s going to be a very, very different playing field. Which is why I think it’ll be when people are really going to be like this is a crisis.”
Most antinatalists oppose state intervention in reproduction, Benatar believes you should have the “legal freedom to make these choices”. They view their philosophy as a personal choice, an unlikely ideal, the world they envision appears rather dismal, marked by extended working ages, higher taxes to sustain citizens, and a fundamental conflict with evolution.
“No way I will ever bring a child into a world like this.”
Anna, 23
Like everything, the growth of antinatalism can be traced to increased internet access and social media. It’s now not just something you would study in a philosophy degree at university but there are advocates like Lawrence spreading the message online.
Concluding my conversation with Lawrence, I ask him if there is more to antinatalism’s growth than simply increased awareness. “Uncertainty plays a large part. [It’s] a super unusual and uncertain time for a few reasons. Climate change, instability of geopolitics, the rise of China, as well as wars in Palestine, Russia, Ukraine and now you’ve got Trump in the mix. So that’s probably providing a background level of anxiety, and then another big one, artificial intelligence.”
This makes sense, birthrates through history show the trend of decreased births through uncertain times such as wars. A significant baby boom tends to follow this. However, experts are not expecting a major comeback with estimations falling over time.
This is echoed by the young people I speak to. Anna, a 23- year-old master’s student tells me that even though she used to spend hours playing ‘mummy’ to her dolls as a child now she is older and understands more there is “No way I will ever bring a child into a world like this.”
While she hadn’t heard of antinatalism and wasn’t keen on labelling herself as one, her reasons for staying childless were in line with those of an antinatalist: “Apart from the obvious money and career stagnation problems there’s also other reasons, like what if I mess this child up somehow, or they inherit some mental illness? It just doesn’t seem fair. They never asked for any of it.”
While birthrates continue to fall David Benatar emphasises the unlikelihood of a true antinatalist future: “There’s a difference between a mere reduction in the birth rate and the reduction to zero, as it were. It’s not likely that the human race is going to cease to exist because fewer people are having children, just likely that you’re going to have fewer children, and this will lead to societal change.”
In a world where anxiety about the future is palpable and birthrates continue to fall, antinatalism serves as both a reflection of individual concerns and a challenge to societal norms. While it may remain a fringe philosophy, its resonance with younger generations suggests a broader shift in how we approach procreation, ethics, and responsibility.
Yet, as we grapple with these ideas, we must ask ourselves: can humanity navigate its uncertain future while maintaining hope and the drive to create new life — or will the weight of these anxieties lead us down an entirely different path?
Featured image by Aditya Romansa via Unsplash