The growth of people has to go on forever and the reason why is we're not having enough children. It is forecasted that in 10 years time deaths will likely outweigh births and then the population won't grow at all without immigration.
If people don't have children then the average demographic over time weighs towards the elderly and less productive. Who is going to pay the tax needed to resource for everything and who is physically going to wipe the arses when there is nobody around to do it?
We could prioritise having more children but who is making that argument? Do you reckon Reform have improved maternity rights or better pay in mind? Of course not, look at their reaction to the removal of the two-child benefit cap. There is the old "don't have children that you can't afford" and well the fact is that people are taking that advice.
You only have to look at a country like Japan, aging population, restrictive immigration and an incoming population collapse. They have their own wildfire to contend with but it is caused by their restrictive immigration policies and cultural issues towards having less or no children at all. When most of your workforce are pensioners the below is the result.
This is why I believe that anybody who supports these Reform policies must just be stupid or more likely just ignorant because really they don't care about the population, they just want to get rid of certain kinds of people.