The UK saw around 695,000 live births in 2021. However, this is at a lower level of annual births which have fluctuated in peaks and toughs over the decades.¹

The last year in which more than 1 million UK babies were born was 1964. Since then, annual births have only peaked at around 800,000 in 1990 and 2012, while the years with the fewest births were 1977 with around 657,000, then 2002 (approximately 669,000) and 2020 (approximately 682,000).¹

The population has grown from around 54 million in 1964 to more than 67 million today, so the birth rate (the number of births per 1,000 general population) has therefore dropped. The fertility rate (the total number of births in a year per 1,000 women of reproductive age in a population) fell from a rate of 2.93 in 1964 to a minimum of 1.58 in 2020 in England and Wales. There was a slight increase to 1.61 in 2021.^2,3

The introduction of the steroid contraceptive pill is not considered to be related to the downturn in fertility rates. However, of the 825,000 conceptions in England, around 25% ended with abortion in 2021, up from 19% in 1993.^1,4