Australia’s birth rate has plummeted to levels not seen in 17 years.
The nation’s fertility rate for 2023 hit a record low of 286,998 births – down 4.6 per cent or around 14,000 births from last year – the worst since 2006.
In 2004, then-Treasurer Peter Costello urged Australians to have more babies, issuing a plea for parents to “have one for Mum, one for dad and one for the country”.
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But it seems those calls went unheard as the fertility trajectory continued to take a plunge.
Fresh ABS data found the current birth rate now sits at 1.5 births per woman.
In Australia, a steady birth rate of 2.1 births per woman is needed to keep a natural population balance without counting immigration.
The last time the birth rate sat above 2.0 per woman was in 2008.
The only states where the birth rate increased were Western Australia and Tasmania, with 553 and 69 more babies born than the previous year, respectively.
Meanwhile, the average age for a new mother in 2023 was 31.9, while fathers had a median age of 33.8.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers, a father of three, said Labor was keenly aware of the financial challenge having kids posed for Australians.
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“That has been a long-term trend and there are reasons for that, including good reasons for it, as I said before, it can be expensive to have kids,” he told media today.
“People make their own decisions for their own reasons, my job is to make sure people can have the choice… of whether to have more kids or not.”
Chalmers said the federal government was committed to “making it easier for people to have more kids if they want to”.
“But we know affordability is a big part of that challenge,” he added.
The Treasurer said the federal government was prioritising issues such as affordable early childhood education to help combat the declining fertility rate.
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