Rising housing costs have been linked to Australia's "baby recession" and declining fertility rate. or signup to continue reading The number of births in 2023 dropped to 289,100 which was the lowest annual total since 2006, revealed. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has not yet released final birth numbers for 2023 but a preliminary report landed on a similar figure.
The overall fertility rate has dropped in recent decades, falling from two babies per woman in 2008 to 1.63 in 2022. The declining birth rate was hard to pin on a single issue but housing was the biggest factor, University of Melbourne business and economics professor Mark Wooden said.
"When you're thinking about kids, I don't think you're really that worried about whether the cost of bananas or apples went up that month," Professor Wooden told AAP. "But when house prices are high, you don't say 'oh well they'll fall next week', no they don't." Australia's fertility rate spiked in 2021 but has otherwise trended downwards since the global financial crisis in 2008 and the situation was similar in most countries, Prof Wooden said.
The pandemic baby boom is well and truly over, with an estimated 26,000 fewer births last year compared to 2021 and an overall 4.6 per cent year-on-year decline, according to the analysis. Economic uncertainty following the height of the pandemic, along with stretched household budgets in a cost-of-living crisis, meant many families delayed having children, KPMG urban economist Terry Ra.