What does Gen Z have against motherhood?

On Monday supermodel Naomi Campbell was pictured posing with her new baby daughter for the first time on the cover of British Vogue. Having become a mother in her 50s, she described having a child as ‘the biggest joy I could ever imagine.’

And yet it’s a ‘joy’ few members of the younger generation want to share. New statistics reveal that half of women in England and Wales are now childless by their 30th birthday. In 1971, just 18 per cent of 30-year-olds had no children – now that figure has risen to a record 50 per cent.

This phenomenon is by no means unique to Britain; fertility rates are collapsing across the developed world. There are all kinds of reasons for this: financial insecurity, feminism, loss of religious faith, rising infertility, and even fear of a coming climate apocalypse.

Perhaps fear of motherhood is inevitable in a generation more accustomed to comfort than any other throughout history, and conditioned to think that life should always be carefree

Whatever the cause of the plummeting birth rate, there’s certainly been a palpable shift in the way young women think about motherhood. Increasingly,