Australia becomes the latest country to suffer a birth rate crisis

The birth rate in Australia has fallen to a record low, far below the replacement rate needed to maintain the population.

Key Takeaways:

• The e61 Institute, a not-for-profit, non-partisan economic research institute, found that Australia is facing a drastic fertility decline.

• Since the 1960s, the birth rate has fallen to a record low of 1.5 births per woman.

• The replacement rate, or the number of babies needed to be born to maintain a current population, is 2.1 per woman.

• Birth rates across the globe are falling, and it can have serious repercussions.

The Details:

In a new research paper, the e61 Institute found that — as with many other countries around the world — the fertility rate in Australia has drastically decreased. Between  2006 and 2021, roughly two-thirds of women were having fewer children, with one-third having no children at all.

And while there have been policies put in place to encourage more childbearing, they typically aren't successful.

“Our research finds the main cause of the declining fertility rate is parents having fewer children, leading to smaller family sizes,” Pelin Akyol, the research manager for the e61 Institute, said in a statement to news.com.au. “There is no silver bullet solution to Australia’s record-low fertility. Financial incentives can be effective but cannot fully counter broader demographic trends. In fact, there are no simple solutions. Policies that support fertility while maintaining or enhancing workforce participation will become increasingly critical.”

Dr. Bob Birrell, president of the Australian Population Research Institute, said the declining population puts Australia in danger and urged that action needs to be taken:

This very low fertility level indicates that we have not succeeded in Australia in creating the conditions, as with the availability of housing, which would prompt couples to have children.

They are very unlikely to do so if they can’t get family friendly housing to live in to bring up young children. For most young people entering the housing market now, the likelihood of being able to access family friendly housing is very limited.

The nation’s ability to reproduce itself is seen as a very important element of our national identity, having to rely on migration is seen as a serious failure. The government claims that it has a solution inside with its supply policies. I, like many people, don’t think these are good.

Low fertility is noted in government circles, but there’s no serious attempt to come to grips with it and come up with policies which might drive the situation.

Why It Matters:

Across the globe, younger generations are spurning marriage and parenthood, prioritizing financial stability and career over family. And there are few regions in which this is not the case.

From Asia to the Caribbean, from the United States to Europe, and even in South America, young adults are having fewer children — if they are choosing to become parents at all. Smaller family size has become so widespread that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) called it a crisis (though not serious enough to stop promoting abortion).

Many people say they feel they cannot have children due to financial instability, war, and pandemics, with a decent number saying these concerns prevent them from having as many children as they would like to have. “I want children, but it’s becoming more difficult as time passes by,” an anonymous 29-year-old woman from Mexico said. “It is impossible to buy or have affordable rent in my city. I also would not like to give birth to a child in war times and worsened planetary conditions, if that means the baby would suffer because of it.”

The UNFPA said:

[There is] a very real crisis taking place — a crisis that requires urgent action, but often different actions than those currently being implemented. It is a crisis in reproductive agency — in the ability of individuals to make their own free, informed and unfettered choices about everything from having sex to using contraception to starting a family.

Of course, often unacknowledged is the constant propaganda in recent decades about overpopulation, and the need for population control. Multiple generations have been raised to believe having more than one or two children would be harmful to the environment and drain the Earth of its resources. This is patently false, but those fears continue nonetheless.

The Pro Life Reply to: "Abortion Will Stop Overpopulation"

And even as global birth rates are falling, young adults are still admitting they plan to have fewer children than in decades past.

In many countries, a falling birth rate can lead to a disproportionate number of elderly citizens, often straining the government's health care and pension systems, as there are not enough young adults entering the workforce to replace them and care for them.

Zoom Out:

One of the only exceptions is in Israel, where the birth rate is growing even though abortion is legal and largely unrestricted there. It is believed that the increasing birth rate is due to cultural differences surrounding marriage and family, where children are welcomed and cherished as opposed to dreaded and feared.

“This norm of childbearing reflects a consensus among Israel’s communities. Collective beliefs about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness inform each citizen’s personal choices, and inevitably affect the nation’s demography. Nations that don’t recognize children as central to a good life will face serious economic consequences,” pediatrician Robert C. Hamilton wrote in 2018 about Israel, adding, “Despite the political challenges Israel faces, I’m bullish on its future. It celebrates life… As a Jewish sage once put it, ‘A child without parents is an orphan, but a nation without children is an orphan people.'”

Elsewhere, the exact opposite can be found, as Anna Rotkirch, research director at the Family Federation of Finland’s Population Research Institute, pointed out:

In most societies, having children was a cornerstone of adulthood. Now it’s something you have if you already have everything else. It becomes the capstone... [T]hose who are well-off in many ways — [who] have a partner, have support from their parents, are employed, are not lonely — want to have more children … 

This is quite a new thing in many countries, including England. [The idea was:] my career isn’t going well, my relationships are a bit here and there, but at least I have a child… You just don’t see that way of thinking any more.

For millennials, uncertainty reduction is not to have children.

The Bottom Line:

The cultural view of children, marriage, family, and parenthood needs to drastically change. After decades of being told pregnancy and parenthood will ruin a person's life, is it any surprise that people are choosing to have fewer children?