Since the war, women have now had the right to vote, opportunities to reach further education and are now being paid to work. There was a major change of attitude to the role of the women in the house after the war because more families were single parent due to the death of a husband in the war. It was easier to get a divorce out of a relationship that wasn’t working and women after 1967 had the choice to have a child or to abort. This gave women a lot more freedom and rights to do what they wanted to in life. For many women, a family was not at the top of the list; many women wanted to work and achieve what they wanted to do than settle down to have a family of a smaller size because the need for many children had decreased.
Infant mortality rate lowered a lot of births in the UK because more were successful and more children were surviving. This caused more parents to have fewer children so they can focus their love and attention on the children they have. When the IMR was high in the UK, the parent would have many children for work purposes and they would not care if the one child died because they had, for example, six more children to replace that one. Children were used as slaves to bring money to the family, but since the act that stopped children working under a certain age was in place, children were then becoming the centre of the home. The parents would see their child more and the child would then need the mother or father to help them when they were at home. This lead to lower IMR because of a breakthrough to stop infants’ death, not just for children, but to benefit the whole country. These were improved housing and better sanitation such as toilets and fresh water. This reduced the amount of disease and infection that would spread across the country. There was better nutrition for the child and mother so more children were surviving throughout childhood. There was better knowledge of hygiene and child welfare, which would spread in magazines. Since the 1950’s, infant immunisation has been introduced which has decreased IMR.
Throughout the country in the 19th century, children were becoming important to the country; they were the future, the ones who would bring in money for everyone, so laws were introduced to better the children. Child labour was banned and compulsory education was introduced. These lead the children to be dependant on the parent for longer. Also changing the norms of what children were expected to do were slowly changing and parents were expected to care and provide for their children. This lead to finical pressure, which would stop parents having so many children.
The final factor for the change of childbearing and childrearing is the total fertility rate. As there were more protection acts, more rights for women etc, the TFR was also increasing. Women were now able to choose when to have children instead of worrying if they were too old to have children. Women postpone having children to an average age of 29 and fertility rates for women in their 30s is increasing so many women can have children later in life.
Changes in the patterns of childbearing and childrearing in the UK since the 1970’s are that IMR, due to better hygiene and nutrient, has increased; the changes of the position of women has meant equality for both genders; the TFR has increased and allows women to choose when they want to have children; children are now the child centre of a family, and finally children have become an economic liability. All of these factors have dramatically changed the way children are raised and born in the UK and since 1970 this change compared to the old traditional way of childbearing and childrearing is dramatically different.