Britain's biggest 'baby deserts': The truth about plunging birth rates amid growing threat of 'underpopulation' - find out how YOUR area fares
Laying bare the reality of Britain's 'baby bust', staggering analysis shows only 5,000 out of 36,000 communities are having enough babies.
Nationwide, fertility rates have sunk to their lowest levels since records began in the 1930s.
Women in England and Wales, on average, now only have 1.44 children.
Yet, in parts of the country, this is as low as 0.1 – the equivalent of one child for every ten women of childbearing age.
Experts fear the freefalling trend will leave the country reliant on immigration to prop up the economy, with Britain otherwise left with too few younger people to work, pay tax and look after the elderly.
MailOnline analysed fertility rates by lower layer super output areas (LSOAs) – home to around 2,000 people. Across England and Wales, there are 36,000 in total.
Full results of our probe – employing methodology backed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – can be viewed below in our postcode search tool below.
For a population to stay the same size without relying on immigration, nations must achieve a 'replacement' level fertility rate of 2.1.
Yet scientists studying the demographic phenomenon – dubbed the 'greatest risk to the future of civilisation' by Elon Musk – claim the real target should be upped to 2.7 to avoid extinction.
Only 679 LSOAs (1.9 per cent) recorded a total fertility rate above that threshold, our figures showed.
The fertility rate – calculated by comparing populations of birthing-aged women with the amount of babies born for each area – was below one in 6,000 LSOAs.
In seven neighbourhoods, no births were recorded at all in 2023 – the last year with available data.
Excluding LSOAs where no children were born, the area with the lowest fertility rate was in the Western quadrant of leafy Guildford (0.07).
Behind it in the league table came the south western corner of Darlington, inbetween Hummersknott and Skerne Park, (0.09) and the Paignton area of the Devon seaside town of Torbay (0.11).
At the other end of the spectrum was the Stamford Hill area of Hackney, where 76 babies were born to 354 women.
Four of the top five areas were located in that north London borough, with Shoreditch (5.54), Woodbury Wetlands (5.4) and the area next to South Tottenham (5.33) ranking third, fourth and fifth, respectively.
The second top spot belonged to a pocket of King's Lynn and West Norfolk, next to the village of Hockold cum Wilton (5.78).
Fertility replacement doesn't account for the impact of immigration, meaning overall population levels can still increase in a country despite a drop in fertility rates.
Yet becoming reliant on immigration to offset low birth rates would only fuel the fire, on what is already a hugely controversial topic in British society.
Immigration levels have spiralled to all-time highs over the past few years, with tens of thousands having arrived on small boats.
Experts also say the fertility rates of immigrants' descendants tend to converge with those of the native population over time as second and third generation immigrants are influenced by social norms of their birth country.
It means that to sustain population growth through immigration, a continuous influx of new migrants is required.
World-leading demographer Dr Paul Morland told MailOnline: 'We have been below replacement fertility levels for over 50 years now.
'That's why we've had mass migration, why our economy is in such a bad way and it's just decades of problems'.
'It's also a major lag that we'll be dealing with for many years'.
Oxford University-educated Dr Morland, the author of No One Left: Why the World Needs More Children, added: 'We are only now suffering the effects of our fertility rate in the 2000s.'
Women prioritising their education and careers, and couples waiting to have children until later in life have fuelled the freefalling trend.
Rising costs, especially the price of childcare and housing, is another factor thought to be putting people off starting families.
There is no evidence that Covid vaccines are to blame, with scientists insisting there is no proof they harm fertility.
Britain's fertility rate as a whole is forecasted to fall to 1.3 by 2100.
The US is on track for a similar downward trajectory, researchers warned last year in the respected medical journal The Lancet.
Sharing their shock findings, the University of Washington team warned 97 per cent of nations face the threat of underpopulation by 2100. By then, half of all babies may be born in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr Morland said that, as nations become more prosperous, fertility rates typically fall.
He said: 'The only western country with a birthrate above two is Israel and there is a countervailing religious ideology to that - if you don't have that then Western countries fall behind.'
Last week, Keir Starmer refused to align with his Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson's line that she harboured 'worrying repercussions for society in the future' if the UK's birth rate didn't improve.
A No10 spokesperson said that the Prime Minister would not 'tell people how to live their lives'.
The move comes as comparable Western countries with similar birth issues such as France and Italy have taken steps in recent years to right the ship.
Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron brought in free fertility checks for those aged 18 to 25.
And Giorgia Meloni, Italy's Prime Minister, set a target of 500,000 births annually.
Asked why Sir Keir would not weigh in on the debate in the way Mr Macron and Ms Meloni have in France and Italy respectively, the No10 spokesman said: 'It's for the members of the French and Italian government to speak for their policies.'
Last year, the Office for Budget Responsibility warned that Britain's falling birth rate could see the national debt soar over the next 50 years.
It said the country would have to become reliant on migration to boost the population as deaths will outnumber births in Britain from the middle of the next decade.
A waning population could mean there are not enough workers to care for the ageing members of society and to pay taxes to keep funding public services.
Immigration remains a hot button voter issue in Keir Starmer's premiership.
In May, the PM announced plans to 'significantly' reduce net migration over the next four years, with the Home Office suggesting his eight core policy areas could lead to a 100,000 per year drop by 2029.
In his recent meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer said that a 'one in, one out' policy was scheduled to come into force within weeks.
Our search tool also lays bare the rising average age of mothers across the nation.
Nationally, the average age of mums now stands at 30.9 years old. This is an all-time high. During the 1970s, it was closer to 26.
The oldest mothers in the country, on average, live in the City of London (38.2) and Kensington and Chelsea (35). Westminster (34.8), Camden, and Islington (both 34.7) followed closely behind.
At the other end of the spectrum was the Nottinghamshire town of Mansfield and the region of North East Lincolnshire, both with an average age of 28.2.
Methodology
MailOnline analysed fertility rates by lower layer super output areas (LSOAs) – home to around 2,000 people.
Across England and Wales, there are 36,000 LSOAs in total.
We used the 2022 female population estimates for each LSOA from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – the most up-to-date figures available.
These were broken down into age brackets of 15-24, 25-34 and 35-44. This is how the ONS separates women of childbearing age in its statistics.
We then pulled the number of births that occurred in 2023 for each age group in every LSOA and calculated age-specific fertility rates.
Finally, to calculate the total fertility rate figure for each area, we summed the age-specific rates and multiplied the result by ten – representing the age gap in each bracket.
The final figure was then divided by 1,000 to give us a total fertility rate.
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