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Australian National University demographer Dr Liz Allen says: “Now we’re confronted with the very likely possibility in Australia that by the mid-2050s, Australia will have more deaths than births.”

With better nutrition and healthcare, people are living longer, and Australia faces a shrinking taxpayer base along with its ageing population. Those with no children, or just one or two, will probably spend their twilight years in nursing homes rather than receiving care from their family. Furthermore, couples who do have children will have fewer siblings or other family members for support.

A vicious circle will be created, as declining population results in low economic growth, further discouraging people from having babies.

Rawnsley relates: “If you look at the international data and you look at countries that have slipped below 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.

“There are 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.”

Dreams Dashed

Couples of childbearing age put off or abandon their dreams of starting a family due to the lack of job and housing stability, along with bleak views of the future because of climate-change alarmism.

Allen states: “Many young people are saying ‘we still want to have kids’ but the data really shows that they’re unlikely to achieve those intentions or desires, and that’s because life gets in the way.

“It is near impossible to break into the housing market, and historically, home ownership has been this stepping stone towards establishing a family.”

She says that state and federal governments need to focus on the areas affecting the creation of families. “Change the language, have leadership that really signals positivity for the future, but at the heart of it, … housing affordability, economic security, and that really comes down to job security.”

Rawnsley notes that Australia has managed to arrest declining fertility in the past. “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.

“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.”

Kuestenmacher avers: “In the long run, baby bonuses do not increase births. The uptick in the Australian birth rate around 2008 is not because of the Howard government’s handouts but due to a general sense of optimism in the country triggered by a juicy mining boom and favourable global trade conditions.

“To drive births up, we would need to change the macro-economic climate in favour of young families. … making housing much more affordable, we could stabilise or even increase the birth rate. Any meaningful attempt to increase the birth rate would certainly be expensive.”

That would entail reining in immigration and providing family-friendly taxation via income-splitting. Will our politicians act swiftly before we reach a point of no return?