Baby boom in the Island
Thursday 24th February 2011, 2:58PM GMT.
Has the recession resulted in a baby boom?
THE number of babies being born in Jersey hit a 13-year high in 2010.
A total of 1,066 children were born last year – more than any year since 1998.
And experts believe that much of the increase, which was also seen across the UK, was caused by Islanders deciding to have babies while out of work.
Historical evidence shows that recessions often trigger mini baby booms. In 1979 – the year of the Winter of Discontent when much of Britain ground to a halt through strikes – the average number of children per woman jumped from 1.84 to 1.88.
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Probably due to all the Eastern bloc people coming over here when they are 8 months pregnant.
I spent a significant time in materity last year and was massively surprised at the amount of non- english speaking woman there. Now before everyone screams ‘racist’ I am merely pointing out a fact. Ask any materity nurse the same question.
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I think it has more to do with nowt on’t telly, or perhaps the increase in fuel bills leading to friction between couples.
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Congratulations to all the new parents – I look forward to paying for your child!
Regards,
- The taxpayer.
What…. too cynical?
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SO if people are out of a job, they get on the job.
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Produce a baby you cannot afford and get Welfare payments. I would imagine this is the case for the increase – and our tax goes ever up to pay for it.
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Everyone is so broke they have nothing else to do.
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Jobless people shouldnt be allowed to have children.
Having a child should be like getting a mortgage, you must be able to prove you can afford it and take insurances against the worst happening.
What i always find funny is if you try to get a foreign national into the island. The government want to make sure that it will not cost them a penny, you cant be on any benefits of any kind and must prove you have savings etc to afford to have to go on benefits in the near future etc etc
But if i want to have as many babies as u can, no one will stop you, you dont need to have a job, savings, security, or even the will to look after the thing.
Wheres the logic?
Just give birth and get more benefits! Thanks Jersey!
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Yet at ex-Senator Walker’s Imagine 2035 PR spin exercise he gave us statistics for a mere 5 years and told us that Jersey wasn’t producing enough babies v pensioners. Anyone with an ounce of commonsense knows that population growth figures need to be taken over as long a period as possible to be able to see how the trends go. Having personally studied the figures in Jersey since the 1950s it’s clear that within each 10 year span we get a period of low birthrates followed by a boom.
Anyone involved with statistics should be aware of this, therefore Mr Walker was knowingly “spinning” the information he was giving out to scare the attendees into agreeing to opening the floodgates of immigration into the Island and boosting Dandara’s coffers.
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Let the sweeping statements begin…
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How does a woman have 1.88 babies……?
LOL!
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Superman and Loco
firstly congratulations to all the new proud parents
Superman and loco what you do not seem to realise, according how old you are these baby boomers will be paying in a pension scheme when they start to work which in turn will fund your old age pensions, so look on the bright side. and as for the eastern block residents i think they enhance the island, i have not met a nasty one yet, and most speak the english language much better than most locals .
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Well if you can get massive hand outs and a states flat with kids then who can blame them? There is some truth in the situation with outsiders having children quickly after arriving here.
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the best things in life are free?
keep the heating bill down a bit of shared bodily warmth?
save heating the water twice bathe / shower with a friend.
too old for free contraception from brooke(doh!)
if unemployed making love is better than going to the pub.
what we do not know is how old the parents are or if they work or not or how they are housed.
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“..evidence shows that recessions often trigger mini baby booms”
But the CM said last year we were not in a recession.
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#3 Thanks for the giggle.
Would be worthwhile having a breakdown. How many were born to women who were pregnant before coming to Jersey? How many were to single, teenage mothers? How many were actually planned?
And while we’re at it, can we get the figures as to how many are going to be paid for by their parents and how many WE are going to have to fork out for? Regardless of what any of the “let’s make the island as full as possible and ignore the negative side effects” types think, the island would benefit from knowing WHO is paying for these children.
#6 Contraception may not be free but it’s pretty cheap (for women), and extremely dependable when used properly.
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Right if you have a child you get child care only for the first child – if you have any more you don’t, also, if you are out of work and have children they are your responsibility – NOT mine!!!
The only trouble is no-one in the States has the
gonads to grasp the nettle on this one!
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The increased fertility rate makes the governments projections for population growth and population profile – and hence the decision to grow the population by 150 households per year for the next 30 years – totally unreliable.
This is exactly the type of thing that I wrote about in letters to this paper and in submissions to the states consultation panel just prior to the population growth debate 1-2 years ago. This correspondence sought to highlight the fundamentally statistically flawed assumptions underlying the Council of Ministers net migration policy.
I didn’t even get a response which is unsurprising ‘cos they were not interested in anything which undermined their policy to grow the population … presumably to keep developers happy (amongst others)
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Let me assure you No 1 – there are an equal number of very young English/Jersey girls pushing prams.
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#15 Phil, this might change. The BBC have long been actively against any mention of curbing population growth or overpopulation, and for the first time ever they have actually commissioned a programme speaking to people who choose not to have children, and they are not approaching this from a negative point of view.
I can only think that the final straw for the BBC was that they couldn’t exactly refuse to cover the UN’s report on the need to curb population growth. They’d managed to ignore the most eminent scientists, but couldn’t ignore a very serious report from the UN.
If the BBC can start to show some reason there is hope for everyone else!
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We need a baby boom to pay for my pension in 20 years!
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of course there will be a baby boom as lazy locals (mainly single mothers)realise more babies = more money and better housing.
Our benefits system has to change!
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1.84 to 1.88….hardly historical evidence of a baby boom?
Why would people choose to have babies when/if we are in a recession?…doesn’t make sense.
My wife and I had a baby in 2010, we have never had a penny in benefits and always been fully employed.
What I did regularly notice at the ante-natal clinics was that out of 20 or so pregnant women
usually only 2 or 3 spoke English as their first language (FACT)
So I’m guessing the health care is much much better here than say in Poland/Latvia/Madeira, therefore I don’t blame anyone for wanting to have their baby in Jersey but a breakdown of nationality would be helpful.
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16.
Funny that, coming from an English/Jersey Island. I would have thought that there should be alot more English speaking. I rest my case.
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More ever open mouths to feed…so many cuckoos in the nest now…I fear for the tree.
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We have allowed a generation of freeloading fat lazy chavs who expect to be paid for as they lol on the couches we have paid for,watching the Jeremy Kyle show before toddling round the coffee houses of St.Helier what can you expect now…? oooh ! ! you can’t say that, it’s mean and will hurt their feelings…I don’t bloody well care.just wish they’d get off their asses and contribute.I resent working hard and having to pay for parasites.
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My wife and I also had a baby in 2010 (planned I should add) and have worked in well paid jobs since moving to Jersey from the UK a few years ago, although my wife’s employment was terminated by a bank (with a long history of discriminating against pregant women) shortly after she informed them she was pregnant!
We now can’t wait to get our child as far away from Jersey as possible so that he doesn’t grow up with the narrow minded views of many Jersey folk, particularly one who’s fellow directors and HR department sit back and let him bully pregnant women out of their jobs.
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24 another proud dad.
that is sad for your family, terminated employment for getting pregnant.
if they have such along history of this type of terrible behaviour, then why don’t the discriminated, go down to jacs and report them.
is it the fear of “you will never work in this town again”.
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I have enjoyed a good many of the comments on this thread.
For once it has been a pleasant change to see so many anti-freeloader comments on one page, but …….. Zoro you have just become my hero!
XXX ruddy excellent post.
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I’d like a breakdown of those figures
How many of those 1066 babies were born to an Eastern European mother?
I’m sorry to be so cynical, but I think you all know where I’m coming from.
There again, perhaps the States don’t want us to see the breakdown of those figures because they know what reaction they’d get!
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Brilliant letter Zoro. I know of a lady on benefits who is off on a 2 week hol to Egypt !! How lovely for her. I too am fed up working my ass off for all these people. It has to stop.
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#24 I feel bad for you on this one, but I feel that this is where society needs to change their expectations. Workplaces are for work to be done and replacing pregnant women and keeping their jobs open for them costs companies a lot of money, yet the company have no say in whether an employee gets pregnant, it is entirely the woman’s decision. Also, it’s all very well hoping for pregnancy discrimination laws but all that is happening in countries where they exist is that women like me who do not want to have children are now being discriminated against when it comes to applying for work. So instead of just pregnant women being ‘discriminated’ again, ALL women of a certain age (including those that want children) are being discriminated against.
There is no simple answer because removal of one ‘discrimination’ just creates another (often worse) one.
Governments need to get it through their thick skills that the workplace is for work to be done and find some other way to assist those that take time off to have children, maybe some sort of fund they can choose to contribute to from the moment they start their working life and benefit from when they take their time off? Equally, women who want to have children have to stop believing the idiotic ‘we can have it all’ mantra and accept that the choice to have a child will (it cannot help but) affect their career plans. The child should be worth it of course.
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Tut tut Beaumont @ 27
Still harping on about those evil East Europeans, I see. You really don’t like them much, do you.
I thought the fascists had left in 1945. Beaumont is living proof that there are still here.
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#30 Tobias
You have obviously have an ongoing feud with Beaumont. I have no idea what that’s about, but in all fairness, his question is a valid one. I used to work with a Polish girl, and she often suggested having a Jersey baby was her best chance of getting a quallies apartment. Now she might be in the minority, but to start calling a fellow poster a fascist for raising an obvious point, seems a little strong
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If you can`t feed em`, d`ont breed em`.
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No 31. She is misinformed then – only in a hadful of extreme cases is anyone been given quallies on compassionate grounds. Simply having a child does not significantly improve chances of getting quallies.
I spoke to a midwife recently and she estimates around one in eight births are to east europeans, which is roughly in line with their proportion of the population of child bearing age (18-45)
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Hi Carly
I do agree with you 100%, questions should be raised re outsiders giving birth to Jersey children in order to gain quallies. However, I personally feel that this should apply to everyone without quallies – be they from UK, Europe, Asia, wherever – they should all be treated the same.
The problem I have with Beaumont is that he regularly points the finger at one group in particular – the ‘East Europeans’ – whom he obviously strongly dislikes and indeed blames them for everything wrong with the island. Which equates to blatant racism.
Now normally, being the happy-go-lucky chap that I am, I would not bother to respond to him. However, during a similar debate recently about outsiders with no quallies using our free healthcare system, Beaumont took it upon himself to attack me and referred to me as a fascist. Pot calling the kettle black!
Apologies Carly, as I know my response here was a tad childish, but I do so love to point out the irony in Beaumont’s little rants. But yes you’re quite correct, to call fellow posters ‘fascists’ for making a valid point is not exactly in the spirit of healthy debate.
(Original post here should you feel inclined to read it:)
Beaumont Posted December 23, 2010 at 6:04 pm
I was born here, so the quallies issue isn’t eating away at me.
However, the attitude of Tobias is typical of the right-wing individuals who infest this island
I was led to believe the fascists left in 1945, Tobias is living proof they are still here”
(original link here) http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/12/20/move-to-end-outsiders-using-island-healthcare/
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#25 small money – Went down the JACS route and even spent a couple of £’000 on lawyers fees, all my wife got as part of a “compromise agreement” was what she would have got if we had gone to the Jersey Employment Tribunal (JET).
As JET can not award legal costs and will only award a set amount for each year of service, companies that want to know that they can pay staff off cheaply to avoid going near a tribunal. You also have to wait 6 months for a hearing so would have to wait 6 months for a penny! The whole process is a joke and JACS didn’t tell us anything that we didn’t know already.
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I really hope those with jobs and kids don’t find themselves out of work such as has happened with post office workers as they will have a long way to fall! The mighty tax payers who are probably fortunate enough to have had mummy and daddy leave them a house and look after their kids while they work!Small minded doesn’t cut it! although I do agree we could do without bringing other countries problems to our door when we have ou own!
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I agree with Mona lot. My husband and i decided we did not want children i asked to be streilised but was told i was too young to make this decision ? So i took my contraceptive pill it,s not rocket science! We are both still in our forties and i finally was able to have op only because my blood pressure went through the roof. If you cannot afford children don,t keep having them and before anyone makes a comment about single parent families my parents split up when i was 6yrs old and my father brought me up with no handouts and while still working and paying his mortgage.
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Well we al know what this is about ! Anyone arriving on the island is entitled to income support after 5 years. When it pays more than Jersey’s minimum wage its a no brainer really……..
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Virtually everyone coming in from Poland and Portugal are Roman-Catholics. Rather than say the 3+ reproductive rate of these RCs, we should hope to get the 1.7 reproductive rate of the Italians and French. There’s no excuse these days for breeding at more than the replacement rate in the West. In fact given man-made global warming, it is something that should be the subject of shame. Its no-longer relevant to use the excuse that you can afford to bring up big families.
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Well here we go again. More kids mean more schools ,more hospitals ,more teachers,more nurses etc.. My god, dandara and the other developers must be having multiple orgasms at the prospects..
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If the figure had continued to go down it would have been because “all the immigrants are forcing out the locals – it’s no longer a nice place to live and bring up kids, it’s too expensive etc”
Because they’re going up it’s “because of the immigrants”
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37 Another Proud Dad – from what you’ve said, the process seems to be working rather well given the laws that exist, and it should be pleasing that the Compromise Agreement pretty much matched what the Employment Tribunal would have granted under the law. I would also say that it is right that settlements take into account years of service – many benefits of employment do.
No, it is not the process, it is the law that is behind the times,and that is where you should aim your scorn. There is a hole in Jersey’s legislation that needs to be filled with regard to discrimination, be it race, age, gender or disability. The law makers need to attend to this.
I note also references in various posts to the pregnancy rates of East Europeans? Statistics are often for liars, but I would say that if there is a high rate it is hardly surprising, given that so many of the girls are really good looking.
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Totally agree re comment girls from outside Jersey having babies as they are been given income support and getting house and the local are being brushed aside….I was out of work last year for 8mths and got NOTHING AND I MEAN NOTHING…But the amount of non locals and non qualified that got income support and housed was a disgrace…one rule for one and another rule for another…Jersey is a law onto itself and forget that homeless need help and the elderly need support instead they are supporting those who have litterally arrived on the island….
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Everyone cannot be tarrred with the same brush. I’m a local girl, young and i have a 7 year old. I work full time and get no help. we don’t all sponge!
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It would be intereting to know the nationality of the parents. I would expect most be born to foreign nationals. Jersey family numbers have been shinking since the middle of last century. Gone are the days of the common practice of half a dozen or more offspring in western societies.
Catholic countries tend to encourage people to have more children than protestant countries.
Africa and the Far East are the ones with a young demographic compared to the more elderly one of western countries. Due to this I expect to see many more foreign nationals coming to the likes of the UK and Jersey to help fill the shortage in the working age population which will only get worse without this happening.
However any government going down this route will have to balance this need without alientating the local population. The right wing is gaining ground in many European countries as immigration levels rise.
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(37) another proud dad.
getting any redress against any employer is a minefeild . (guess who gets blown up)
and when they hide under their lawyers coat tails, unless you have deep pockets , its game over.
hopelife is looking up..
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Its not just people coming into the island and having children, even though i do know 5 polish 2 english and 3 portuguese women who gave birth in the last 3 months, they all worked in the hotel industry, So its not just eastern europeans, Its everyone, The ammount of young local girls walking around town with prams is on the increase as well, When i mean young i mean 15 to 18, you can tell this by the tracksuits and ugg boots.
A family member of mine got pregnant all for the fact she will get a States flat! for free and the benifits involved, She is now on her second child, different father and has never worked a day in her life, shes 25! the partner doesn’t work either, hes 29. It disgusts me were paying for them to do nothing yet they still sit there and complain its not fair, they should get more money. If you can’t afford a child, don’t have one and don’t just have a child to get benifits, its not fair on the tax payers who are paying for your kids! or the kids themselves.
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The train is coming off its tracks, the argument that kids in later are going to look after the old is frankly a dead and buried argument, why are the pensioners not able to afford heating now.
The social security benefits is a wonderful provider of work, with many departmental managers and ever more departments. Yep it keeps the civil service well employed, do you think they want to shrink it.
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