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Australia's birth rate hits rock bottom with severe consequences for economic future
17 Oct 2024
ABC News
In short:
Australia's birth rate of 1.50 represents an all-time low.
Experts say younger Australians are increasingly concerned about their economic security and that's influencing their family planning decisions.
What's next?
Australia has bounced back from low fertility rates before in similar economic circumstances, and demographers say the nation can do it again.
There are warnings that Australia's birth rate — having hit a record low — is now at a critical level.
Bureau of Statistics figures show 286,998 births were registered in Australia in 2023, resulting in a total fertility rate of 1.50 babies per woman.
Australian National University demographer Liz Allen said the nation's birth rate is perilously low.
"We've hit rock bottom," she said.
Demographer Liz Allen says Australia is reaching the point of no return.
The Total Fertility Rate, or TFR, over the past 30 years has slowly dropped from 1.86 in 1993 to 1.5 in 2023.
The birth rate for girls and women aged 15 to 19 has fallen by more than two thirds over that period.
There's also been a large decline for women aged 20 to 24 years.
"We've got to a position where young people are saying now is inhospitable to having children," Dr Allen said.
"And young people are unlikely to achieve their desired family size.
"I'm not talking oodles and oodles of children — I'm talking a child, maybe a second one."
On the flipside, the fertility rate of women aged 40 to 44 years has almost doubled over the past 30 years.
Getting to the point of no return
Looking at the numbers overall, Dr Allen sees a big problem.
"What is so important about this particular number, 1.5, is that once we hit this figure we are basically staring down the barrel of no return," she said.
Dr Allen said the reason why dropping below a birth rate of 1.5 would make it so hard to come back up again was that having so few new babies coming through hampers economic growth, which in turn leads people to have even fewer babies.
Dr Allen says women are carefully considering how many children they have.
She described a "deep-seated attitudinal problem" facing millions of younger Australians.
Many, the demographer said, lack enthusiasm about the future, and that relates to their views on climate change, housing affordability and gender equality.
"Once we hit ultra-low fertility like say, for example, countries in our region, like South Korea, there is generally no return," Dr Allen said.
"We are not going to see a baby boom of the likes of Australia's post-World War II period because we don't have the necessary ingredients for a baby boom."
Affect on economic activity
Terry Rawnsley is an urban economist at accounting firm KPMG.
He agrees, and describes the fertility rate of 1.5 as a "dramatic number".
"If you look at the international data and you look at countries who have slipped below [a fertility rate of] 1.5 — places like Italy, South Korea, Japan — and in those countries you do start to have this demographic time bomb starting to go off," he said.
Terry Rawnsley says birth rates are an indicator of economic confidence.
"There's less and less workers being able to generate economic activity, people start to leave the country due to a lack of economic opportunities, and you do start to have a slippery slope towards a declining population.
"So the 1.5 is a place we want to start having some real firm conversations about how we try to turn this number around, because I don't think we want to be pushing much below this in the longer term."
As for solutions to a critically low fertility rate, Mr Rawnsley said Australia had dug itself out of fertility holes before.
"When you look at the drop-off in the number of births, you have to go back to the early 1970s to find a drop of a similar size," he said.
"And that's during a period of very high inflation, an increasing unemployment rate during the 1970s, so there's a bit of a parallel towards that sort of 1970s drop-off and what we're seeing 50 years later."
Why women are choosing not to have babies
For decades, women in Australia have been told they should have more children for the good of the country, but there's many reasons why more are choosing to stay child free.
Dr Allen pointed the finger squarely at governments, both state and federal.
"Change the language, have leadership that really signals positivity for the future, but at the heart of it, four main areas: housing affordability, economic security, and that really comes down to job security, gender equality and climate change," she said.
"Invest in those four policies."
Official figures show the median birth age of mothers has also now risen to 32.
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