The national birthrate has sharply declined since a post-lockdown baby boom in 2021 when there were 315,200 births. In 2023 the figure was just 289,100, marking the lowest annual number since 2006.

Urban economist Terry Rawnsley attributes the "baby recession" to financial pressures and housing costs. Policies aimed at boosting the birthrate, such as flexible parental leave and childcare subsidies, have had little impact.

"We haven't seen such a sharp drop in births in Australia since the period of economic stagflation in the 1970s which coincided with the initial widespread adoption of the contraceptive pill" Rawnsley said.

Birthrates in Melbourne and Perth are also plummeting, with only Tasmania and Canberra bucking the trend.

Rawnsley noted a long-term downward trend in the birthrate, from 2.0 babies per woman in 2008 to 1.6 in 2023.

The Covid-19 pandemic caused volatility in birth rates.

"Following the uncertainty of pandemic lockdowns, people who had held off having children decided to start families" Rawnsley said.

"The record-low unemployment rate and the stimulus money that flowed into the economy had provided encouragement for people to start having children again."

However optimism has faded and the reality of economic pressures is now affecting young couples.

Capital cities' birth rates down

The drop in births is more pronounced in the capital cities:

• Sydney births dropped to 60,860, down 8.6 per cent from 2019
• Melbourne 56,270 births, down 7.3 per cent
• Perth 25,020 births, down 6.0 per cent
• Brisbane 30,250 births, down 4.3 per cent

Canberra was the only capital to see no fall in births since 2019, holding steady at 5,530 in 2019 and 2023.

Rawnsley explains: "CPI growth in Canberra has been slightly subdued compared to that in other major cities, and the economic outlook has remained strong. This means families have not been hurting as much as those in other capital cities and, in turn, we've seen a stabilisation of births in the ACT."

Rawnsley emphasised the economic and social consequences of a falling birth rate.

"Housing affordability has a big impact on fertility" he said. "If a young couple can't afford a two-bedroom apartment, that limits the number of children they will have."

He also pointed to the long-term reliance on international migration to supplement the workforce due to a fertility rate below 2.0 for the past 15-20 years. This trend is expected to continue as babies become the next generation of workers.

Sources

The Australian

KPMG Australia

CathNews New Zealand

Some countries are likely to experience a spike in births, while others are likely to see fewer births.

Few women want to have a child in a time of uncertainty.

In the rich world many are delaying starting a family or adding to it. But in the poorest places, where women often have less choice, a baby boom may be on its way.

The lockdowns, people looking for "lockdown partners" and reduced access to contraception is resulting in unplanned pregnancies in Uganda, says a resident.

Shops to buy condoms weren't open. A delivery service doled out free condoms. Unplanned pregnancies occurred anyway.

In contrast, in wealthy Singapore, contraception is easily available. People reluctant to start a family before the pandemic are even more so during a global recession.

Singapore's government is offering couples one-off grants of about AUD $3000 for having a child in the next two years - on top of pre-existing payments and savings schemes.

It will be a few months before the effect COVID-19 is having on global fertility rates can be measured.

In Japan, the prime minister is calling for health insurance to cover in vitro fertility treatment. The government says there has been an 11 per cent fall in new pregnancies in the three months from May relative to last year.

In poor countries mass displacement is adding to sexual activity. In refugee camps informal work disappeared up during lockdowns. Transactional sex is expected to rise.

In India millions of urban workers lost their jobs and fled to their home villages across the country, in Nepal, Bangladesh and beyond. They were reunited with lovers they usually see just a few times a year.

More sex doesn't necessarily mean more babies. But COVID-19 has disrupted supply chains for contraception.

Poor people rarely have stores of contraceptives. Data from health facilities in India show between December and March the contraceptive pill distribution fell by 15 percent, condoms by 23 per cent.

The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice think-tank, estimates 50 million more women will not get the contraceptives they need this year, leading to 15 million unintended pregnancies.

The Institute estimates 28,000 mothers and 170,000 newborns will die, and there will be an extra 3.3 million unsafe abortions.

At the same time, rich-world women have greater control over family planning, but pandemic anxiety is likely to cause a sharp decline in birth rates.

The Institute's survey of American women aged 18 to 34 in families earning less than AUD $106,701 found a third want to get pregnant later or have fewer children because of COVID-19.

A 15 percent drop in America's monthly births between November and February is predicted by one research group. This is 50 percent larger than the decline following the 2007-09 financial crisis.

A reduction in birth rates seems likely, says a fertility clinic director.

"You're not going to see a bunch of people being born in December and January because (people) were home and bored and having sex," he says. "They were home and bored and scared."

Source

• The Australian
• Image: Twitter

And developments in fertility medicine have helped this trend.

In New Zealand, women give birth to the most children between 30 and 34, but this was not always the case. Continue reading

Couple-without-children families account for more than half the projected growth of all families, increasing from 513,000 in 2013 to 757,000 in 2038 (up 244,000).

While this figure includes "empty nesters", there is also an increasing proportion of New Zealand women remaining childless.

In 2006, 16 percent of women aged 40-44 years were childless. The proportion in 1981 was 9 percent. A similar increase was found in the next age group women aged 45-49 years.

For women born in 1975, indications are that around 1 in 4 may remain childless. As childlessness increases, the remaining women will need to have more children if New Zealand is to achieve current levels of fertility.

For example, if one in five women remain childless, the remaining women would have to average 2.6 children for New Zealand to achieve a total fertility rate of 2.1 births (the accepted replacement level fertility for a developed country).

This data was revised 5 September 2016 and is based on information previously published on 22 June 2012 and 5 June 2008.

There are a number of reasons for childlessness.

• Infertile people cannot have children
• Some people choose not to have children
• Others who would like to have children have not done so because of their circumstances, for example, not having a partner or not feeling they have enough money.

Two years ago, Statistics NZ demographer Dr Robert Didham told the Population Association's biennial conference in Hamilton that more New Zealanders are ending up unintentionally childless because they are focusing on their careers and leaving children until it's too late.

Didham said the figures pointed to a high and rising rate of "involuntary" childlessness where people planned to have children but, owing to educational and career priorities, did not get around to trying until too late.

Source

• Scoop
• stuff.co.nz
• New Zealand Statistics
• New Zealand Herald
• Te Ara
• Image: Huffington Post

Citing a report from the UN's secretary general, the Vatican mission to the UN stated that "no fewer than 80 countries now register a fertility rate below replacement level".

That trend is dangerous, the Vatican statement observed: "Support systems for the ageing can only be sustained by a larger, not smaller, next generation."

Continue reading

More than half the world's population—now lives in societies where the fertility rate has been dropping, like a stone in some places, for decades. Among demographers, the prevailing narrative for this sea change in human affairs talks of economic development finished off by cultural change. As countries grow wealthier and more urban, with higher levels of education for women, as well as men, women naturally wish to have fewer children; add in access to safe and effective means to that end—contraception and abortion—and that's precisely what they do.

True enough, but not the whole truth, argues Harvard demographer Michael Teitelbaum, co-author (with Yale historian Jay Winter) of The Global Spread of Fertility Decline. At the core of the change, Teitelbaum believes, lies the rational belief of young adults—especially the highly educated, those most aware of the weak points in their society's institutions—that they live in "risk societies." The risks they see can reach to the apocalyptic (will there be another Chernobyl, another 9/11, how many more Lac-Mégantics?) to macroeconomic pessimism (can today's social welfare entitlements last?) to individual concerns(will we ever be able to own a house?). Marriage- and child-aversion are among their risk-management strategies. Continue reading

Sources

• MacLean's
• Image: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand