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Chalmers wakes the baby debate the country needs
By Shane Wright
It wasn’t quite as catchy as Peter Costello’s “one for mum, one for dad and one for the country” baby-bonus-infused quip, but Jim Chalmers touched a nerve with his overt support for the right of people to have larger families.
Talking to this masthead’s podcast The Morning Edition this week, Chalmers said it would be “better if birth rates were higher” while noting there were several factors behind the drop in Australia’s fertility rate.
Jim Chalmers’ comments about Australian families have started a population debate that will continue for years.Credit: Getty Images
Pressed about his thoughts at a press conference on Friday morning, Chalmers said the government had spent a lot of money in areas such as childcare and paid parental leave to give couples a choice when it came to family size.
“I know that people will make their own choices and I don’t pretend for a moment that government should direct those choices, but we want to make it easier for people to have bigger families if they want to,” he said.
To make sure people didn’t get the idea that next week’s budget would fund a squad of fertility police officers, Chalmers doubled down on the notion of choice.
“Peter Costello talked about this a lot. A healthy birth rate is good for Australia and we want to make it easier for people to make that choice if they want to,” he said.
The issue nations are facing is that many young people are making the choice not to have a child.
Research published by The Lancet shows Australia’s fertility rate will tumble over the coming years (along with the rest of the world).
Our fertility rate fell to a record low of 1.59 during the early stages of COVID-19. While some predicted a post-pandemic baby boom, it was more a whimper than a bang. Fertility barely lifted and appears to have started easing again.
According to the research in The Lancet, it is forecast to drop to 1.45 by 2050, and 1.32 by 2100.
Some argue that Australia should shut off immigration. If that were to happen, Australia would quickly feel the pressures that countries such as China, South Korea and Japan are now experiencing, which is a fall in their total population.
Growing populations put strains on a country’s infrastructure and environment. A falling population puts a strain on the entire economic system.
According to Australian National University demographer Liz Allen, a country in which young people think the future’s too bleak to have one child or an extra baby is in dire trouble.
She says four issues – housing affordability, gender inequality, job security and climate change – are weighing on couples contemplating kids.
Demographer Liz Allen says young people face enormous hurdles when deciding whether to have just one child.
While Chalmers has done the right thing by talking about fertility, she says, governments have to think much more broadly than just about childcare or the old baby bonus because they have to change societal norms.
“They have to go big. Much bigger. We’re now fighting changed social norms which may be insurmountable. We’re not even talking about bigger families, we’re talking about having one child or one extra child,” she says.
“There are people who don’t want to have children, and that’s their choice. But for those young people who do want to have a family, we’ve made it almost impossible.”
Fellow demographer Peter McDonald cautions that while the fertility rate is below replacement level, it has edged down only over recent years. Young migrants were helping to offset the decline in the proportion of births.
He says governments can make the biggest difference by reducing the cost of childcare and increasing its accessibility. Australia also benefits from a workplace culture in which many new parents can negotiate with their employers.
But McDonald acknowledges the delay in child-bearing – the median age for Australian mothers is at a record high of 31.9 years – is a factor.
“People are becoming accustomed to a child-free lifestyle. I think that’s a bigger issue than the physiological one of people having children at older ages,” he says.
When Costello urged people to have kids back in 2004, the fertility rate was 1.78 and slightly climbing. It was a demographic echo from Generation X that would dissipate through the 2010s.
By openly talking about fertility, Chalmers has put back on the political agenda an issue that this country – and almost all others – will have to wrestle with over the coming years and decades.
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