Fertility rates: Pessimism among the young blamed for Australia’s record-low birth numbers

A leading demographer has blamed online dating and pessimism among young Australians for the nation’s record-low fertility rate.

Simon Kuestenmacher, a director of The Demographics Group, said unaffordable housing was making millennials reluctant to have children if they were unable to afford a home with separate bedrooms for each child.

“That’s very, very much ingrained in the Australian mindset is that each kid, once they are of school age must have their own bedroom,” he told The Nightly.

“The millennials that are now parents of school-age kids: that’s how they grew up in the households of baby boomers.”

Australia’s fertility rate, or the average number of babies per woman during the childbearing years, last year fell to a new record-low of 1.481, new Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed.

Parents are also getting older with the median age of mothers now at 32.1 compared with 33.9 for fathers.

Since a brief uptick in the late 2000s, during the China-led mining boom, Australia’s fertility rate has consistently been below the “replacement level” - the average number of children per woman required for a population to remain stable from one generation to the next - of two.

This has also coincided with the rise of dating apps like Tinder and typical house prices in the capital cities now being above $1 million, which Mr Kuestenmacher said was making millennials in particular less upbeat about wanting to have children if they couldn’t get a mortgage.

“Millennials will be the first generation that on average will be poorer than their parental generation,” he said. “We also stay single for longer: it’s the tyranny of choice. You can blame online dating for it but a big reason why we have fewer kids is a lack of optimism.”

Baby States

NSW had an even lower fertility rate of 1.46. Sydney’s median house price is $1.5 million. By comparison, Victoria and Queensland had higher fertility rates of 1.521 and 1.505, and house prices that are not as expensive as Sydney’s.

The Northern Territory, Australia’s most affordable place to buy a house, had the highest fertility rate of 1.629, owing to increased childbirth rates among the Indigenous population.

Intriguingly, Western Australia had the lowest fertility out of the states - at 1.434 - compared with South Australia’s 1.458 and Tasmania’s 1.485, with house prices in Perth and Adelaide outpacing wage increases.

The Australian Capital Territory, which covers Canberra, had the nation’s lowest fertility rate of 1.273, meaning couples there are now typically having just one child on average.

While the nation’s capital is more transient than other parts of Australia, its low fertility rate is emblematic of women with more degrees ultimately putting off having children, even if they earned higher salaries.

“The more educated the female population gets, the shorter the window usually tends to be in which you have kids, which automatically leads to lower births,” Mr Kuestenmacher said.

“You get out of university in your mid-twenties. You then want to establish a career for a decade or so and then you only have a handful of years to grow a family. So you can squeeze in two babies at best.”

Immigration

A low fertility rate means fewer future workers, leading to Australian governments from both sides of politics importing more skilled migrants to ensure there’s a labour force to underpin economic activity and provide income tax revenue.

This immigration-fuelled population boom is also leading to a housing supply crisis.

During the last financial year, construction began on 179,038 new homes, covering both detached houses and apartments.

This was well below the 240,000 annual target needed to meet the National Housing Accord’s goal of 1.2 million homes over five years, agreed to by the Federal and State governments.

Former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, who more than doubled immigration during the 2000s, said overseas population growth was now too high.

“If the migrant intake is so big, that it’s putting an unreasonable strain on our infrastructure, then we should slow it down,” he told podcaster and home loan entrepreneur Mark Bouris.

A new poll from the Institute of Public Affairs think tank found that even younger Australians regarded immigration levels as being too high.

A slight majority from generation Z, or 52 per cent of those aged 18 to 24, regarded immigration as excessive.

IPA deputy executive director Daniel Wild said unaffordable housing was making younger people even less supportive of high immigration levels.

“Too many young Australians are being deprived of an opportunity to own their own home, in part because of mass migration pressures on the housing market,” he said.

“That generation Z voters have turned sharply against Australia’s migration program should be a stark warning to our leaders.”

The 25 to 34 age group, covering millennials, was the only one where a minority, or 46 per cent, regarded immigration as being too high, despite being the age group most likely to be having children of their own.

Those aged 55 to 64, including generation X and baby boomers, were the most opposed to high immigration, with 72 per cent expressing concern.

Across all age groups, 60 per cent of respondents in the survey of 1007 people, conducted by Dynata, said immigration was too high.

Just 33 per cent believed it was about right with 7 per cent saying it was too low.

In the year to March, 315,900 overseas migrants moved to Australia, on a net basis factoring in departures.

This covered permanent skilled migrants along with international students, who are classified as long-term arrivals.

Preliminary data for the year to August showed 467,410 net arrivals, but these ABS figures can overcount those on student visas exiting and returning to Australia multiple times.