Bridget Phillipson wants you to have more kids. Well, maybe not you specifically – it’s more of a general, collective “you”. The French “vous”, if you will.
The education secretary has said that too many of us are put off having families by the crippling financial costs associated with procreation.
“A generation of young people have been thinking twice about starting a family; worried not only about rising mortgage and rent repayments, wary not only of the price of fuel and food, but also put off by a childcare system simultaneously lacking in places and ruinously expensive,” she said, writing in The Telegraph.
“I have always believed that politics is about giving everyone, particularly the most disadvantaged in our country, the freedom to choose their own path in life. It’s why I want more young people to have children, if they so choose; to realise the ordinary aspiration so many share, to create the moments and memories that make our lives fulfilling.”
Phillipson’s words come amid a global birthrate decline, including in England and Wales, where the rate has fallen to 1.49 babies per woman – well below the rate of 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population. She said the trend “has worrying repercussions for society in the future” and that it “tells a story, heartbreakingly, about the dashed dreams of many families”.
Any policy enabling people to have children, should they so choose, by easing the astronomical financial burden is hugely welcome at this stage; more than half of people said that economic issues were a barrier to having as many children as they wanted in the UN’s 2025 report on falling birthrates. But there are still massive hurdles to jump before one even gets to the childcare stage: namely, getting pregnant in the first place.
The use of fertility treatments has soared over the past 20 years, with the number of babies born via IVF increasing from approximately 8,700 in 2000 to more than 20,700 in 2023, according to figures from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. IVF births have doubled, accounting for over 3 per cent of all UK births compared with 1.5 per cent in 2020. It means that more people than ever are turning to artificial insemination in order to conceive; 52,500 people in the UK underwent IVF in 2023 alone.
One factor is that both men and women are waiting longer to have babies for all kinds of socioeconomic reasons. The average age of fathers is going up around the world, including in England and Wales, where it has increased to 33.7 years old; the number of babies born to fathers over the age of 60 went up by 14.2 per cent in 2024 compared with the previous year. For the first time since records began, more than half of women are now reaching the age of 30 without having had any children. The upshot is that couples’ fertility has often reduced by the time they do start trying, lowering the likelihood of natural conception.
But there is also some indication that environmental factors, including exposure to pollutants, chemicals and microplastics, may be affecting fecundity. Several studies have suggested that men’s sperm, for example, has been decreasing in quantity and quality since the 1970s, alongside a documented decrease in testosterone levels in men.
NHS data shows that infertility is far from a niche problem: around one in seven UK couples experience difficulties conceiving naturally.
The number of same-sex and LGBT+ couples pursuing parenthood via IVF has also increased over the past decade, as has the number of single women doing so. Between 2012 and 2022, the former group’s take-up of fertility treatment doubled, while the latter’s more than tripled from 1,400 to 4,800.
This is not just a private issue – it’s a workforce crisis hiding in plain sight
Becky Kearns, Fertility Matters at Work
And yet, despite being more prevalent and necessary than ever, IVF is bizarrely still classed as an “elective” procedure under UK employment law, thrown into the same category as having cosmetic surgery – with a lack of rights to match. Workers aren’t entitled to any time off work for appointments or treatment, at least not until an embryo has been successfully transferred, at which point the potential prospective mother has the same rights as any pregnant person.
“There’s no legal right for time off work for IVF treatment or related sickness,” says Acas, with the addendum: “But your employer should treat your IVF appointments and any sickness the same as any other medical appointment or sickness. You can check your contract for this.” With no cast-iron legal protections in place, though, there is zero guarantee that an employer will be either sympathetic or supportive.
Alice Macdonald, the Labour MP for Norwich North, has called it “frankly astonishing” that, under the Equality Act code of practice, “Fertility treatment is compared to cosmetic dental surgery, meaning that employers often refuse time off for fertility appointments.” She argues that “fertility treatment should be treated as a medical appointment”.
Her words were in response to a new report published by campaign group Fertility Matters at Work, based on a survey of more than 1,000 UK-based employees who have undergone fertility treatment. It found that 87 per cent of respondents reported anxiety or depression directly related to going through IVF; 68 per cent felt it had negatively affected their career trajectory; and 38 per cent had even left, or considered leaving, their job.
The stigma around IVF was found to take a huge toll. Nearly two-thirds (61 per cent) of respondents feared bringing it up at work because of possible repercussions, while just 35 per cent felt that their manager had been supportive. Aside from the appointments themselves, women frequently had to take time off because they felt unwell, or to hide the fact that they were having treatment in the first place.
And it’s not just the straightforward matter of time for appointments that needs to be taken into consideration. Undergoing IVF treatment comes with a whole range of established side effects impacting women’s health and their ability to work, including nausea and vomiting, headaches, cramps, and mood swings (and that’s before you get into the mental health ramifications should a round of IVF prove unsuccessful).
One teacher quoted in the report had to go on sick leave during IVF due to her profession’s total lack of flexibility; another said going through the process felt like a “full-time job”.
The emotional and physical impact is huge, says Kate*, a producer who went through several rounds of IVF. “The first time around, I didn’t want to tell anyone at work – essentially because of the shame around IVF, as a woman not being able to do the one thing I was supposed to do biologically,” she says. She was working long, stressful days, trying to organise injections around hectic hours, being on set and feeling completely overwhelmed. The treatment was unsuccessful.
It is frankly astonishing that fertility treatment is compared to cosmetic dental surgery
Alice Macdonald, MP
For the second course of treatment, she decided to take the plunge, tell her manager, and – crucially – request four weeks off to dedicate herself to the process. This time, it worked – in part, Kate believes, because she had the time and space to focus on her health. She was lucky; her manager actively facilitated this, combining annual leave, compassionate leave and some unpaid leave to give her the time off. Many women are not so fortunate.
In response to the report’s findings, Fertility Matters at Work is calling for IVF to be reclassified as a medical procedure, entitling those undergoing it to the legal right to take time off for appointments.
“This is not just a private issue – it’s a workforce crisis hiding in plain sight,” said Becky Kearns, FMAW’s co-founder. “We’re facing a global fertility decline, but failing to support those actively trying to start a family. It’s time for employers and policymakers to step up.”
It’s not the first time such a thing has been attempted. On 20 June 2022, Conservative MP Nickie Aiken introduced a private member’s bill called the Fertility Treatment (Employment Rights) Bill. It was described officially as “a bill to require employers to allow employees to take time off from work for appointments for fertility treatment; and for connected purposes”. Depressingly, it didn’t even receive a second reading.
Three years on, there’s hope that maybe the tide has turned. Although legislation hasn’t caught up, some companies and organisations, including the BBC, Monzo and Santander, have proactively built comprehensive fertility treatment into their employee benefit packages. In some cases, these policies include time off specifically for employees undergoing fertility treatment, outside of their annual leave allowance; in others, they provide financial support for treatments including IVF and egg, sperm or embryo freezing.
The government also seems finally to be prioritising policies aimed at families. Alongside Phillipson’s pledge to make things easier for prospective parents, on 1 July the government launched a full review of parental leave and pay “to better support working families and help children get the best start in life”. The review will look at the entire system – from maternity and paternity leave to shared parental leave – to see how it can be improved for both employees and employers.
A particular focus will be on how increased paternity leave provision can promote equality; research shows that better parental leave can help close the gender pay gap and boost the economy. Currently, new dads are only legally entitled to two weeks of paternity leave in the UK, and one in three don’t take any, because they can’t afford to.
“When the last Labour government introduced paternity leave, it was groundbreaking,” says George Gabriel, co-founder of campaign group The Dad Shift. “But that offer, unchanged since, is now the least generous in Europe. Our broken parental leave has been overlooked for years, and finally sorting it out would be good not only for parents and children but for businesses too.”
As deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said: “Supporting working parents isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s vital for our economy.” Perhaps a natural next step is to start supporting potential working parents, too, enabling them to benefit from these great strides forward by granting the basic employment rights necessary to pursue fertility treatment – and actually start a family in the first place.