‘Childless elderly women set to treble, as ONS warns baby boomers will not have children to care for them,’ one headline from The Telegraph read this morning. ‘Number of elderly women without children rising - and “we risk sleepwalking into a crisis”,’ another from Sky News stated.
These are the reports based on new research from the Office of National Statistics which said that because there will be more older people without children in future, the demand on paid-for social care is likely to rise. The research focused on women, stating that the point was to compare childbearing patterns over the past 100 years to ‘explore the potential implications of childlessness among … for future social care demand and provision.’
And now, as reports surface that scream at women the disasters to come if they don’t choose to have children, the scaremongering has begun. Because, as the research states, ‘High levels of childlessness among the 1960s baby boomers combined with increases in life expectancy mean there will be many older people in the future who do not have adult children. Adult children are the most common providers of informal social care to their parents at older ages when care needs are greatest.’
So, as the study says, ‘those without adult children are more likely to be in receipt of formal (paid-for) care than those with children.’
Ok so... we'll have to pay for it then? Because just like we plan for our pensions and retirement, women too are capable of thinking ahead to the days they might need social care and making adequate plans to ensure that is achieved comfortably.
And for those who don't think they'll be able to pay for their own care? Perhaps rather than scaremongering them into having children with ridiculously framed headlines, we petition the government to respond to the research with a plan of action to help childless people as they age.
But that’s not how the large majority have chosen to react to this, is it? Instead, they choose to single out women as the sole arbiters of this supposed problem, like there aren’t also childless men that will also require formal care. And beyond that, they choose to scare women into conforming to societies expectations of them by having children by making them feel as if they’ll be burdens if they don’t.
Because, it’s not like women without children don’t contribute to society in countless other ways, is it? ‘When you think of how much “childless women” save the country, not to mention the planet, this makes me want to scream,’ one Twitter user responded to the news. ‘We are also the ones who spend our working livers offering up the pick of holiday dates, and covering for colleagues when kids are ill.’
Ultimately, this is yet another occasion where women can’t do right for doing wrong. We’re the ones who statistically take on the burden of social care for our parents, and yet when we choose not to have children and contribute to society in other ways – putting less demand on all the other government-sponsored services, I might add – we’re told that to expect anyone else to look after us when we’re old is too much.
If we have children, but can’t afford to pay for middle-class lifestyles for them, we’re a burden on the state. If we don’t have children, but can’t afford to buy our own social care when we’re old, we’re a burden on the state. Seemingly then, it’s not just a tirade against women, it’s a tirade against working class women. And frankly, we’ve had enough.
Even the ONS conclusion notably uses the phrase ‘childless people’, not just women, in their summary. So instead of choosing to shame childless women, or childless people even, how about we reframe this ludicrous story and stop blaming women for choosing another life than what’s expected of them.
Read More:
Can We Stop Making Motherhood The Defining Feature Of A Woman’s Existence?
Things You Only Know If You're Childless - And Not By Choice