Falling fertility What will the UK be like with fewer babies?

"We happen to be alive at this really transitional moment," said Prof Jane Falkingham, director of the Centre for Population Change at the University of Southampton.

- Jessica Murray

"We're moving from a world with high fertility and high mortality to a world of low mortality and low fertility. We have to get our heads around how we're going to make that transition from the old world to the new world."

This week, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed the fertility rate for England and Wales had fallen for the third year in a row to a record low of 1.41 per woman on average.

It is part of a long-term trend of declining fertility rates across much of the world - and experts are still working out exactly what the repercussions will be for our society and economy.

"We're going to have an ageing population, so we need to think about the ages we start work, the ages we finish work, and how we organise the life course," said Falkingham. "These are a lot of big think through what the solutions will be."

Some of the effects are already being felt, with schools in some parts of the country closing or merging because of declining pupil numbers, and the sector expected to lose £1bn in funding by 2030.