Where are Brighton's babies?

The Sunday Times heads to the LGBT capital of the UK to find out why its birth rate is so low

I write this as our two month old baby sleeps. So far he seems to be – touch wood! – a good sleeper, so I’m easing myself back into the writing routine. Thank you for all of the kind messages from readers and listeners. We’re both doing well, although we had a difficult and extended stay in hospital (which I may well write about on another occasion). 

I’m currently spending a good 6-8 hours a day breastfeeding. Which is to say that I’m currently spending a good 6-8 hours a day either watching TV or amusing myself on my phone (Substack is a great friend during the 3am feeds). Yesterday, my phone offered me this gem: a long read in The Sunday Times titled ‘What Brighton tells us about Britain’s tumbling birth rate’, or the alternative (and funnier) version: ‘Brighton has one of Britain’s lowest birth rates. We went to find out why.’ 

As The Sunday Times reports: 

Last week, official birthrate figures from the Office for National Statistics highlighted the growing fertility crisis. There are 1.44 children per woman, the lowest on record, and down from nearly three in the 1960s.

In Brighton and Hove, the rate is 0.98, one of the lowest in Britain. Brighton is more similar to South Korea (0.72), which has the lowest rate in the world, than the rest of the country.

The headline made me laugh because it invites such an obvious answer. For non-Brits who may not know, Brighton is famously gay. In fact, it is “officially the queer capital of the UK”, as Brighton and Hove News reported last year when the latest census data was released.¹

“Could it be that Brighton being the gay capital of the UK has something to do with it?” asks one of the top comments below the line. “This article could have been one sentence” reads another. 

And yet Brighton’s gayness goes almost entirely unmentioned in the piece. Instead, the author reaches the same conclusion that almost every article on the birth rates issue inevitably reaches, confidently asserting that the sole culprit must surely be the cost of housing and childcare. And ok yes, Brighton property is expensive – though not as expensive as many other parts of the UK – and yes, childcare is expensive too. Most people assume (quite reasonably!) that expensive housing and childcare will discourage people from having children, so these articles keep being churned out week after week in the British press. I have every sympathy for the – typically childless and propertyless – young journalists who see this as an opportunity to complain about the impact of house prices on their generation. I stand in solidarity with Nicholas, 30 ans. 

The problem is that there isn’t any evidence for this thesis. In fact, we see almost the exact opposite effect in the real world data.