Latest news with #reproduction
Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Times
Why punish mothers for staying with children?
Everyone loves babies, don't they? Not enough, it seems. Or at least not across the developed world, where reproduction is well below the so-called replacement rate of 2.1. In the UK the rate is 1.4 children per woman (sorry to be basic). That is about the European average. In South Korea and Taiwan it has fallen well below 1, a population implosion driven by individual choice rather than the historic causes of famine or war. For coves like Sir David Attenborough, who see human population growth as a planetary catastrophe, this is wonderful; for governments facing the consequences of an ever smaller proportion of people of working age, it is terrifying. Enter, stage right, Nigel Farage. Last week the Reform UK leader said he wanted to encourage 'young, working British people … to have more children'. To that end he proposed an end to the cap that limits universal credit to covering two children per household. And he promised (if he became PM) to allow married couples to transfer between each other up to £5,000 of their annual tax-free personal allowance. Farage was not clear about how a Reform administration would fund these latest proposals, on top of his earlier commitments, which The Economist worked out would add £200 billion a year to the public sector borrowing requirement, but, as I wrote last month, his approach makes Liz Truss seem a fiscal puritan. So-called natalist policies have already been tried across the world, as governments have confronted the 'baby bust'. They have been almost entirely ineffectual. The Japanese quadrupled state expenditure on encouraging family formation through childcare provisions and tax credits; the fertility rate fell further. Similarly in South Korea, which spent more than $200 billion on its own version. Even in Hungary, whose government has, in its own boast, 'structured its entire state and economy around family', the birth rate has fallen since 2019, from 1.55 to 1.38. The forces driving down fertility — above all, individual choice by women, who understandably want to defer motherhood while their work career is being established — are greater than any government can counter. And in the UK the cost, including that of the additional housing space required, of bringing up a child to the age of 18 has been estimated at almost a quarter of a million pounds. Even Farage is not promising that as a handout. However, the British system is actually antinatalist. That is, we have had a tax system which, in contrast to those of other European countries, actively penalises families in which one of the parents wants to stay at home and look after the children. This was something my father, Nigel Lawson, tried to deal with as chancellor, but he was thwarted by Margaret Thatcher (as she had every right to do, being, she would remind him, 'first lord of the Treasury'). • Kemi Badenoch: 'Parenting is a two-person job. Where are the dads?' A bit of history. In 1986 my father published a green paper, 'The Reform of Personal Taxation'. Until then, married women were essentially treated as chattels in fiscal terms — all allowances were in law given against the husband's income, which in tax returns included any income contributed by his wife. My father set up a new system of independent taxation, which he saw as providing a better deal for families. This was because he also proposed that a spouse who did not have sufficient income to use up his or her own tax allowance could transfer the balance to the marital partner. As the think tank Tax and the Family put it, the idea was that 'the tax system should not discriminate against families where one spouse wished to remain at home to care for young children'. But Mrs T consistently blocked this element, which led to the situation in which today, when a household's income is £70,000, if it is earned entirely by one of the couple, that family will pay over £10,000 more in income tax than one in which the two partners are earning £35,000 each. This even gives couples an incentive to live apart, which is hardly ideal for children. As my father remarked many years later: 'I was only able to get half the job done. Margaret jibbed at the transferable allowances … her sympathies were always with women 'who go out to work'. But I never considered married women who stayed at home to look after their children as not working. They were working much harder, very often, than their husbands who went out to work.' In fact he succeeded in setting up a married couples allowance, but it was gradually whittled down under the coalition government, to his great disappointment, not least because David Cameron had promised a 'family test' under which 'every single domestic policy that the government comes up with will be examined for its impact on the family … Nothing matters more than family.' But then, on calculations by Tax and the Family, it would cost the exchequer about £6 billion a year to have fully transferable tax allowances between couples; the Cameron government had taken over when, in the words of the note to his successor from the outgoing Labour chief secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne, 'There is no money.' The true extent of — and reason for — Margaret Thatcher's opposition to transferable tax allowances within marriage came out most clearly in the wonderfully written memoir, Cold Cream, by her former head of the No 10 policy unit, Ferdinand Mount. At that time Geoffrey Howe was chancellor. He too had tried to persuade the PM of the merits of making the tax allowance fully transferable, as it is in most other countries. Mount recalled the extraordinary exchange between his boss and Howe, which he personally witnessed. 'It's much too expensive, Geoffrey. I simply can't let the mill girls of Bolton down.' 'I don't quite follow you, Margaret.' 'Well, there are these girls getting up at dawn and working all the hours God gives, and then they see these women in the home counties playing bridge and getting the same tax allowance. I can't have it.' Mount then records, as Mrs T became 'unrelentingly rude' to the dolefully persistent Howe: 'It was too late to point out that there weren't any mill girls in Bolton because there weren't any mills. I began to feel the depths not only of Mrs Thatcher's loathing of sloth and privilege but of her indifference to family life.' Anyway, when my father made a similarly doomed attempt to persuade Thatcher, it was not in the spirit of the modern-day natalists determined to increase the size of families. This was not the state intruding into the bedroom. It was just meant to be fair, rather than discriminate against households in which only one of the couple is working. Not such a bad idea, really.
Times
17-05-2025
- General
- Times
Giving toads a hand is vital for their fragile world
Each day in this remarkably dry spring, I have eagerly checked the progress of the toads in our deepest garden pond. This morning small fat tadpoles, now with markedly visible back legs, were animatedly swimming in the clear, cool water. Nature is all about reproduction: productivity is the key for species that need to replace the population. For toads, the cycle entails females laying long strings of spawn among aquatic weeds in water deep enough to remain cool and oxygen-rich as the tadpoles develop. The annual migration of toads from the countryside to suitable ponds and lakes has fascinated me since first studying their population ecology in mid Wales nearly half a century ago. This year I joined local toad enthusiast Andrew Hodgson in protecting
Health Line
10-05-2025
- Health
- Health Line
How Do Cholesterol and Progesterone Affect Fertility and Pregnancy?
Cholesterol and progesterone play vital roles in the human body. One major role is reproduction. Both are hormones that may affect fertility, pregnancy, and miscarriage. Cholesterol and progesterone are important hormones that have multiple effects on the body. Though they work through different mechanisms, each is involved in reproduction. Your levels of cholesterol and progesterone can affect both fertility and pregnancy. What is cholesterol? Cholesterol is an important part of cell membranes and is also used to produce steroid hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone. Cholesterol is made in the liver. The liver also produces lipoproteins that transport cholesterol in the blood. These lipoproteins are LDL and HDL. LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) is cholesterol that LDLs carry, and HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) is carried by HDLs. The body typically has higher levels of LDL cholesterol than HDL cholesterol. LDL cholesterol, along with other types of non-HDL cholesterol, is the type of cholesterol doctors are typically referring to when they say 'high cholesterol.' It's rare to have too much HDL cholesterol, but it can happen. What is progesterone? Progesterone is an important hormone with many functions in the body, particularly those related to the reproductive system. Progesterone is a type of hormone called a steroid hormone. All steroid hormones are derived from cholesterol. The body uses cholesterol as a building block to create progesterone. This process involves enzymes. First, cholesterol is converted into pregnenolone using the enzyme P450scc. Then the enzyme 3β-HSD turns this into progesterone. Progesterone can be produced in different parts of the body, such as the: It's also thought to be produced in the brain. How do cholesterol and progesterone affect fertility? In the middle of the menstrual cycle, the corpus luteum produces progesterone to help prepare the body for the implantation of a fertilized egg. Progesterone keeps the uterus lining thick and stimulates the development of new blood vessels ready for egg implantation. This means when the egg is fertilized, it can implant and will have a supply of blood vessels that nutrients can travel through. In males, the adrenal glands produce progesterone to aid sperm development. Imbalances in cholesterol can have a knock-on effect on progesterone, as cholesterol is required for the synthesis of this hormone. How are cholesterol and progesterone involved in pregnancy? During pregnancy, cholesterol levels increase to support fetal growth and development and enable the pregnant person to produce healthy breast milk. Maternal blood cholesterol may increase by 30% to 40%. Since cholesterol is used to produce progesterone, this rise is to allow more progesterone to be produced. If cholesterol levels get too high, however, hypercholesterolemia may occur. In pregnant people, this is known as gestational hypercholesterolemia or maternal hypercholesterolemia. An imbalance of blood lipids (dyslipidemia) can be dangerous for both the pregnant person and the unborn child and may cause cardiovascular effects. How do cholesterol and progesterone affect miscarriage? According to a 2019 study, the regulation of cholesterol and progesterone metabolism may have a role in miscarriage. During pregnancy, cells called extravillous trophoblasts (EVTs) create a blood supply to the fetus. Problems with this cell type have been linked to complications in both the pregnant person and the fetus. The 2019 study looked at human EVTs from first-trimester placental tissues. Researchers found that the way cholesterol levels are regulated is different in these cells, and the levels of cholesterol are higher. The study also shows that these EVTs can secrete progesterone. Lower levels of cholesterol were found to decrease the amount of progesterone produced by these cells. Additionally, an enzyme involved in producing progesterone was found to be lower in EVTs that had been associated with spontaneous abortions. This suggests that the issues with progesterone metabolism may have a role to play in early miscarriages.
South China Morning Post
09-05-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Rare New Zealand snail caught on camera laying egg from its neck for the first time
The strange reproductive habits of a large, carnivorous New Zealand snail were once shrouded in mystery. Now footage of the snail laying an egg from its neck has been captured for the first time, the country's conservation agency said on Wednesday. Advertisement What looks like a tiny hen's egg is seen emerging from an opening below the head of the Powelliphanta augusta snail, a threatened species endemic to New Zealand. The video was taken at a facility on the South Island's West Coast, where conservation rangers attempting to save the species from extinction have cared for a population of the snails in chilled containers for nearly two decades. The conditions in the containers mimic the alpine weather in their only former habitat – a remote mountain they were named for, on the West Coast of the South Island, that has been engulfed by mining. Lisa Flanagan from the Department of Conservation, who has worked with the creatures for 12 years, said the species still holds surprises. An egg laid by a Mount Augustus snail through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. Photo: New Zealand Department of Conservation/AFP 'It's remarkable that in all the time we've spent caring for the snails, this is the first time we've seen one lay an egg,' she said in a statement.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rare New Zealand snail is filmed for the first time laying an egg from its neck
The strange reproductive habits of a large, carnivorous New Zealand snail were once shrouded in mystery. Now footage of the snail laying an egg from its neck has been captured for the first time, the country's conservation agency said Wednesday.
