When desperate measures to persuade women to have children fail, it’s time to think differently about demographics

• Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

For the past 75 years in global public health, one of the major priorities has been exponential population growth and Malthusian concerns that the supply of food on the planet won’t be able to keep up. In 1951, the world’s population was 2.5 billion, which increased to 4 billion by 1975, 6.1 billion by 2000, and 8 billion by 2023. Governments in the two most populous countries, India and China, even implemented, respectively, draconian policies such as forced sterilisation and a one-child restriction.

It now seems that many nations have switched to worrying about the opposite problem. Findings published last month from the Global Burden of Disease study, which examines epidemiological trends across the world, notes that fertility rates are falling in most countries. This can be seen as a public health success: lower fertility rates tend to reflect fewer children dying in the first 10 years of life, and an environment that protects women’s bodily autonomy and access to birth control, as well as girls’ education. Having mainly planned pregnancies is seen as societal progress.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

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Fertility rate in England and Wales has fallen to lowest rate since records began in 1939

Elizabeth, 29, a sales executive from Surrey, would very much like to have children, but feels she is unable to do so for the time being.

“Simply – it’s money,” Elizabeth says. “I’ve been with my husband for 10 years, and we would have children already but for the cost of living.”

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IDF says it ‘completely rejects’ charge that its soldiers deliberately fired on any of the thousands of civilians killed in Israeli offensive

Dr Fozia Alvi was making her rounds of the intensive care unit on her final day at the battered European public hospital in southern Gaza when she stopped next to two young arrivals with facial injuries and breathing tubes in their windpipes.

“I asked the nurse, what’s the history? She said that they were brought in a couple of hours ago. They had sniper shots to the brain. They were seven or eight years old,” she said.

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Tech firms can do more, but it’s the government’s job to ensure children have safe places to play – and it’s not doing it

Three-quarters of children want to spend more time in nature. Having spent the Easter weekend trying to force four resistant teenagers off their phones and out for a nice walk over the Yorkshire Dales, admittedly I’ll have to take the National Trust’s word for this. But that’s what its survey of children aged between seven and 14 finds, anyway.

Kids don’t necessarily want to spend every waking minute hunched over a screen, however strongly they give that impression; even though retreating online satisfies the developmentally important desire to escape their annoying parents, even teenagers still want to run wild in the real world occasionally. Their relationship with phones is complex and maddening, but not a million miles off adults’ own love-hate relationship with social media; a greasy sugar-rush we crave but rarely feel better for indulging. Yet lately, longstanding parental unease over children’s screen habits has been hardening into something more like revolt.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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Nick Thomas-Symonds says party would not reduce number of hours of government-funded childcare in England

Labour would keep the government’s expanded childcare hours, a shadow minister has insisted, after suggestions the party would review the scheme.

Nick Thomas-Symonds said Labour would not reduce the number of hours of government-funded childcare that working parents would be entitled to in England.

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Charity publishes survey findings as it calls for youngsters to be no more than a 15-minute walk from green spaces

More than three-quarters of children want to spend more time in nature, the National Trust has found, as the conservation charity pushes ministers to ensure youngsters are no more than a 15-minute walk from green spaces.

Nearly two-thirds – 63% – of parents are able to take their children to nature spaces only once a week or less, citing accessibility as the main barrier, the survey of 1,000 children aged seven to 14 and 1,000 parents by the trust and the children’s newspaper First News found.

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Labour says places have fallen by almost 40,000 since the Tories came to power in 2010, forcing parents to leave the workforce

Childcare places in England have fallen by nearly 40,000 since the Tories came to power in 2010, Labour research has found.

This includes a drop of 1,000 places between March and December last year, at a time when demand was anticipated to rise before new entitlements became available.

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The Oscar-nominated actor and the boss of XL Recordings – now a synth-pop duo performing ghostly songs with lyrics rooted in childhood trauma – discuss the healing power of making art

Inside a rehearsal space scented with essential oils, a new, unlikely electro-art-pop duo are preparing for their live debut. Called Sam Morton, they are the collaborative pairing of the twice-Oscar-nominated actor, director and writer Samantha Morton and the celebrated producer, songwriter and boss of XL Recordings Richard Russell. Morton, wearing denim dungarees, is singing the fluty, jazzy, bassy, atmospheric Let’s Walk in the Night while Russell, in jeans and a graffitied white T-shirt, hunches over production consoles, alongside a keyboard player and a guitarist.

We are in the Copper House, Russell’s personal studio. It is characterised by an undeniable vibe : a lime-green artwork on a scarlet wall announces “RESIDENCE LA REVOLUTION”; the phrase “FATE IS DECIDED”, alongside descriptions of cloud formations, is chalked on black walls. The tiny bathroom is wallpapered in Buddhist texts and stocked with books, including The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

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Eva Tennent, whose operations were scheduled in Edinburgh, has Rett syndrome and advanced scoliosis

A 10-year-old girl’s spinal condition has become inoperable after her planned surgery was cancelled seven times in six months, her mother has claimed.

Eva Tennent suffers from Rett syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects brain development, and has advanced scoliosis that causes her spine to twist and curve to the side.

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