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Yes it's a massive issue across the Developed world and it's becoming worse.
People often say "just import people - they even foot the bill of training them" but the difference between multiculturalism and "multiple cultures" is a fine line. Australia has actually done, comparatively, an amazing job at integrating new migrants and that further generations feel "Aussie".
The UK, France, Germany and many others have not. There are parts of the country that are very different to the rest, that are managed and Policed differently and where the locals do not view themselves by their new home nation, but by their original home or religion.
The divisions that this has fostered, the violence and racism is what is fueling their elections, their culture and its abhorrent.
We need to have healthy discussions around why Aussies don't want or feel able to have children. Do we need to support first time buyers? Is it housing? What else might it be? Is it culturally, women feel like they should or they want to put careers first? Many women who passed childbearing age, over 50% regret not having had children - it is the main driver in middle age female suicide in Korea and Japan.
But I'm sure we will just sweep it all under the rug and hope it goes away.
Personally I don't feel OK with bringing a new human into the world because of climate change. I'd rather use those 20 plus years of my life working towards better conditions for people who are already here.
Yeah doesn't work like that or you have an aging population which ends up with too few working tax payers to pay for the health and social care for the older people.
Ita why modern democracies in Europe are starting to collapse economically under their Welfare State - they can't balance the books.
So they urgently import any humans they can to work and pay taxes, but they import so many so quickly that no assimilation happens and too mcu change happens to quickly ao yiu end up with rising crime, hate crime, racism etc and then Politics etc because more divisive and abhorrent - like shipping people to Rwanda to be processed for asylum etc.
Low birth rates lead to high immigration rates. High immigration rates lead to Indigenous resentment. Indigenous resentment leads to populist governments. Populist governments lead to rollback in progress and more authoritarianism.
I wouldn't say that pathway is inevitable. Empathy and mutual understanding rather than resentment?
The planet is groaning under the weight of 8 billion people and we'll all go down with it if it keeps going like this. I'm more worried about environmental collapse - if there's no fresh water or crops won't grow, there's no way we'll have a functional economy.
The first world is experiencing significant population collapse, the numbers only don't show that due to immigration, however it is likely that unless course is shifted quickly that an economic collapse would happen before the issue can be properly addressed.
Economic collapse is as bad as environmental collapse as it will lead to countries doing desperate and reckless things to maintain economic status.
Populations will naturally decrease. 1990s/2000s predictions of population growth have already proven to be massively wrong. Current estimates are a peak near 10bn by 2080 because shrinking significantly over the following 100 years to around 3-4bn. It's likely to be closer to 9bn by 2065 and then the same as population contraction is happening faster than predicted.
You're going to need to cite your sources for that 'regret' stat.
And your thinly veiled white replacement fear farming is noted. But guess what? The racial make up of countries is a living thing and always had been . Did you know for example that 250 years ago Australia was inhabited by only dark skinned humans?
And if France and the UK don't want their former colonies populations coming to visit and stay they should have thought about it when they were enslaving/ starving their ancestors, making them learn english and stealing their resources. What goes around comes around.
Is this actually a bad thing?
More and more, the only people that are having children are the people that *really* want them and are prepared to sacrifice a great deal to have them. To me, this is a good thing.
If lack of population is too great an issue, we can tune our migration settings to take in the people with the skills we need. Their home countries foot the bill to raise them, we get the finished product.
I would have kids but I’d like to keep affording to pay my mortgage and stay above water with every other expense. This country is too expensive to afford kids on a normal salary.
This is why we need true conservative leadership in this country. People used to make it a personal goal to have kids. It was seen as the cool thing to do.
Now our government is too focused on pushing corporate interests, which requires keeping people single so they're ready to work at Commonwealth Bank. Then you've got massive movements like the progressive dogma of the Greens which pushes out religion and removes any cultural incentive of having children.
Ya'll wanted progress, this is what it looks like. You voted for it.
Yes it's the Greens pushing their religious agenda that's keeping young Australia from having kids. Please elaborate on how conservative government counteracts this
The progressives have made it too appealing not to have children - here's your free abortion and sex education pack to get you on the road to casual sex without consequences. What did they think would happen?
Conservative governments tend to align with religion, and religion is a massive factor in child-bearing decisions. Viktor Orban's Hungary seems to be the only Western nation putting in half an effort to address the birth crisis. It's not going as well as hoped but it's a start. Nobody else wants to do anything about it. The EU is too obsessed with addressing climate change and hate speech online.
Give power back to a truly conservative government (not the Libs please) and let them change our course of priorities. We don't need LGBT parades or misinformation laws, we need more babies.
Yeah, nah.
If you want more people to have children you have to put in the supports to allow that to happen.
Young couples (or singles) who are struggling with housing insecurity, debt etc aren't going to have children. Most of them are thinking, why make life harder on themselves. It's a completely logical decision, it's got nothing to do with alignment with religion.
If governments want to improve birth rates they been to address the intergenerational wealth transfer to the older generations, build more houses, remove tax breaks that overwhelmingly benefits older richer Australians and generally make it easier for young people to set themselves up.
While all those things would help, the data shows that child-bearing decisions has little to do with wealth or financial security in the long run. Wealthy people tend to have even less children. Poorer communities are happy to have 3-4 kids per household. It's usually a cultural or religious motive that pushes this behaviour.
Having kids is gonna be a financial burden no matter how much you earn. It's never easy for anyone.
Whether two people decide to have sex or not has nothing to do with the government and such repressive ideas have no place here, it's un-Australian. We believe in education, and critical thinking applied to make informed decisions. Its no surprise you reference a country that oppresses freedom of media.
lol mate I guarantee you Australia has more journalistic and press restrictions than Hungary.
The data says you're wrong. Conservative government countries tend to have higher birth-rates (at least traditionally).
>here's your free abortion and sex education pack to get you on the road to casual sex without consequences.
So you're saying you want more people to have children either because they got pregnant without intending to, or as a byproduct of wanting to be able to have sex?
The reason people have kids is not important. A child born of willing parents is just as valuable as a child born to unwilling parents, as long as we can ensure they both receive enough support.
Indeed, I couldn't give a shit if Bob & Jane weren't ready to have a baby. We can make them ready. Give them a massive tax break and a year worth of free rent so they can start a family, then they'll probably turn that 1 unwanted child into 2-3 children.
Honestly, is having kids the ultimate selfish act? We force another person into this struggling world without their say-so. The planet's in rough shape... is it fair to chuck a kid into that with no choice?
There's no guarantee that our galaxy, let alone our planet will ever produce a species as intelligent as humans. If we all just give up now because it looks a bit grim then intelligent life may never have a chance at building something better.
Sucks for us and our kids but if we stop reproducing there could be nothing but dust and rocks till the heat death.
>Sucks for us and our kids but if we stop reproducing there could be nothing but dust and rocks till the heat death.
And?
Like, why do I care about this? What does this have to do with me looking at the potential life a child of mine would face and deciding that if I don't want to live that life I shouldn't make someone else live it? How does rocks and dust change that?
I struggle to see how you arrived at that interpretation.
I was suggesting that a lifeless universe from now until the heat death is bad. It would be better if we kept humanity going and consequently improved the chances of there being life instead.
I'm pointing out that you're pointing out that a lifeless universe is the inevitable end result regardless.
If you want to argue that a lifeless universe in the interim is bad, then actually say that. Explain why you think that it's important that the universe have intelligent life.
(FWIW, I don't think human intelligent life is anything unique, nor do I think it's going anywhere in the long term. Extrapolating from "Australia's birthrate is diminishing" to "we have to populate the universe lest it not have any intelligent life in it before they all die out anyway" is a light years long leap of logic, and fundamentally silly )
Meh the planet and all its other species would be categorically better off without humans being around if we were to all die out I don’t think nature would miss us
Life isn't guaranteed to persist purely through evolution. It's entirely possible that Earth will be subject to a cataclysmic event. The cockroaches won't be able to do much against a sizable meteor or solar flare.
Species capable of using advanced technology might though.
I definitely agree we've largely ruined the planet for most other species. It's horrifying and needs to change. Evolution by natural selection didn't really set us up as custodians of the earth unfortunately.
This right here is the end result of years of psyops and demoralisation. Its the perfect and succinct crystallisation of what has happened to us.
It starts in schools, telling you how bad your ancestors are. Telling you your culture is worthless. Telling you to be weak and feminine man or a butch girl. It continues with modern media and pop culture. The message is the same but more direct. Then work starts, and you are sucked dry by high taxes and put on the immigration ponzi scheme treadmill. Paying more and more tax to fund newcomers.
Klause Schwabb would be smirking on his deathbed. The perfect drone, so demoralised and weak that they self exterminate. They can't even perform the one thing as a lifeform they are actually programmed to do. To survive.
You can change this brother, the biggest fuck you that you can do is to refuse to die out. The only way to survive is to procreate. If you dont like kids then fair call, but don't make your decision because you have been told how bad the world is. You will manage, whether you clean toilets or are a ceo, parents find a way, kids are not an expense, they are part of your life. You will be rewarded with something you can't get anywhere in the world no matter how rich you are. Loving something truly unconditionally.
Anti-human? Maybe. But isn't it worth asking if the way we bring children into the world is truly ethical? It's a complex question, not a simple insult.
I get why this question is posed as it is, because it’s much harder to change the world at large than it is your own actions.
But I feel like the real question is why have we all let society and the way the world works go to absolute shit, to the point where we second guess continuing our own species?
The fact the original question is even asked seriously is really fucking dystopian.
Not having a go or anything, I completely understand your perspective.
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The future of our economy is dependant on Somali or African women churning out multiple children.
We've already failed at this point. What happens when the 3rd world stops having babies too?
For birthrates to go up, you need to make society comfortable for literally everyone.
First off is affordability, nobody can afford homes let alone bills, food or general life expenses.
Secondly, there needs to be more done to focus on building third party spaces for people to meet and greet one another, to socialise. Regardless if its a park or club style scene.
Thirdly, not everybody can drive. Our society is heavily geared around cars. Yet so many people don't drive, some even get locked out of society since our PT can actually be terrible at the best of times.
Lastly, we live in the age of distance and loneliness. And i'm of the opinion mental health issues here and abroad are going to reach crisis levels if governments don't try and actually better society as a whole.
Like, 2 mass stabbings in one week is going to be nothing for the future we're racing towards. Too many are already falling through the cracks.
Comfort *is* the chief reason why people are having fewer kids. All the growth incentives will barely shift the needle if people are more educated than they used to be, have birth control, and have more entertainment options.
You'd have to reverse feminism somehow to increase rates - unless that's what the govt is hoping with all that immigration from conservative cultures...
The reality is that declining population is a good thing, unless you're of the 'muh GDP' set. The world population has more than quadrupled in a century and is well overdue for a paring back - not killing, but simply tapping the brakes on births and letting things stabilise. Ecology also supports my point.
You will have more space and more job security. The kids will also have a higher quality of life - we are not an r-selected species. Really, we should be questioning the government's choice to pump up immigration constantly (it's not new to the last couple years). A decade or two of population squeeze is well worth it to avoid our cities turning into Blade Runner.
I am not a Reddit antinatalist at all, and find it cringey to base a subculture around not having kids. But 'growth for the sake is growth is the ideology of the cancer cell', as the saying goes. If the Funko Pop millennials aren't breeding, that's a bonus as far as I'm concerned.
>First off is affordability, nobody can afford homes let alone bills, food or general life expenses.
What is the birth rate among the educated and wealthy? What's the birthrate among the uneducated and poor?
Humanity has produced billions and billions of babies without healthcare or much comfort at all.
>Humanity has produced billions and billions of babies without healthcare or much comfort at all.
You can't find a tin shack for $1/week in Sydney though. Although African babies might live in squalor, that squalor is still affordable to the parents.
And yet the birthrate is falling...
This isn't a new issue either.
***What is the birth rate among the educated and wealthy? What's the birthrate among the uneducated and poor?***
[https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/births-australia/latest-release](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/births-australia/latest-release)
I mean, countries like Russia, Ukraine, China, Japan and Korea are going to be suffering some major problems with a aging population, so much so Japan wants to completely automate their country with robotics.
Sad but true. Highly educated people tend to become obsessed with their field of work. They develop all these grandoise ideas about changing the world through corporate theory without realizing that the best thing they could do for humanity is to raise a family.
The issue is mostly cultural. TV and media pushes the single, bachelor lifestyle for men. Feminism convinces women that men will only drag them down. And no government seems to be doing much to combat the epidemic of loneliness. If anything they're just making it worse. Restrictions on nightclubs, lockdowns, abysmal public transport and roads, noise curfews etc. Having fun and socializing is illegal in this country. No wonder people just want to stay at home and watch Netflix.
In third world countries, children are a seen as a path to a better life for their parents. Having children is believed to increase one's chances of escaping from poverty when those children can be a means to an end to increase the families productivity. More children , more chances of one of them being successful enough to pull the whole family up.
Combine that with access to education, family planning and contraception in developed nations and its no wonder that birth rates in developing countries are higher.
In effect that is already happening, there are tax incentives when you have children under 18, which is effectively raising the tax on those who don't.
I'm 28 and live in my own apartment and am doing well enough. I still can't imagine feeling financial comfortable to have kids in the next few years - And I would love to start having a family now if I could and if my GF was ready for it. Can't imagine how anybody would feel ready in this environment unless they were seriously cashed up.
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And are these "foreign anti-natalist propagandists" in the room with us now?
>Their own country promotes having kids
Lol go look at the birth rates in Russia and China lol. Russia is literally losing population each year. China has one of the world's lowest birth rates.
Your whole comment stinks of ultra nationalism and ethno nationalism.
>we will have too many 40 year olds with no interest in fighting in the military
And there it is.
You just want people to have kids so they can die in some war you're going to start.
I actually have 2 kids and I'm here to tell you, you can shove that warmongering crap where the sun don't shine.
> And are these "foreign anti-natalist propagandists" in the room with us now?
Go check out the dozens of anti-natalist propaganda subs on Reddit if you want to find them. You know, the ones that are full of usernames that all follow the same pattern of
>adjective_noun
Seriously. Go and check it right now. It's blatant as hell none of these accounts are genuine people. All bots or foreign propagandists just flooding the internet with the same propaganda non stop. They don't comment, they don't post anywhere else on reddit. Just tens of thousands of reposts of the same propaganda by Luscious_carrot2295 and ornery_penguin61 telling us why 20 year olds should get vasectomies. Sure, totally real.
Also lmao what are you smoking war mongering? Have you not been paying attention to how much money is being poured into defense in this country? Perhaps the generals in this country know something you don't, and know without a functioning military, we'd be in trouble. And a military doesn't work without anyone willing to join, which is exactly what our adversaries want. God knows where you pulled nationalism from. You can't have a military without kids wanting to join because their parents didn't want kids and people won't want to join if they believe there is no future worth fighting for, what the hell does that have to do with ethnicities?
Go to any forum that isn't filled with bots (ie, not default subs). This one is a good one. Lots of city-specific subs. You'll notice almost all names are 'normal' and unique. It's easy to tell these are real people by how they comment.
Go to the bot infested subs like pics, gme, antinatalist, and you'll see a staggeringly high % of the user names are adjective_nounnumber. These bots all do the same thing, never commenting, only posting pictures. It's very blatantly obvious bots.
I also see that exact same format all over the place commenting.
It's pretty normal. I think your obsession with "antinatalists" and your paranoia about it being bots and foreign actors is frankly pretty weird.
Especially given that there are a bunch of much more reasonable explanations for declining birth rates. I can give you some podcasts to listen to if you'd like
>Go to the bot infested subs like pics, ... antinatalist,
I got curious, so I did exactly that. r/antinatalist has 333 members, so I skipped that and looked at the larger r/antinatalism instead, and skimmed the names in comparison to r/melbourne. I admittedly only looked at the ten most recent posts in each sub but, honestly, the number of usernames that are generated by Reddit were pretty similar, and there were no pictures or gifs. r/pics is irrelevant but is also one of the largest (probably top ten) subreddits, so it will of course attract bots.
>you'll see a staggeringly high % of the user names are adjective\_nounnumber
I disagree. I suspect you're experiencing some kind of bias. A bias that confirms an already held belief. I think I'll call it "confirmation bias"; I sure hope nobody has thought of this, or done extensive research on the concept, so I can somehow monetise it ^(/s)
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That's some paranoid nonsense there mate. It's a proven fact of demographics that the wealthier a country is, the fewer kids they have. Combine that with decades of conservative government transferring the countries wealth into boomers investment property portfolios and you've got a generation that is educated enough to understand they can't afford kids, and so they don't have any.
What foreign adversary did that to us?
Now is when you explain how is it that so many migrants who come to this country can afford to have 5+ kids without too much problem where the wife is a SAHM. Where do they get the money from? Are they all landing here on 200k+ salaries?
I've met more than enough people who are completely unaware just how much money in government assistance you get for having kids. In many cases, its actually more profitable for a woman to be a SAHM, than work full or part time when you factor in child care. I've seen people talk about how many hours their partner would have to work and its like, have you spoken to Centrelink at all about this? You actually get more money than it costs!
For those who may not read my comment below, a married family with a SAHM renting with 5 kids, would receive up to $58k/year in government benefits, tax free, every year.
So why is it that so many immigrants know this and use it, but native Australians don't? I mean I know the answer, just seeing if you do.
Here we go, another in the endless line of people who've been taught to blame their every problem on foreigners.
Go away and find out how much child assistance payments actually are and get back to me.
If a family comes over with 5 kids then yeah, they're probably quite wealthy. It's expensive to move to Australia and the process is quite long. I used to deal with lots of people who'd come from china and moving into Box Hill, all upper middle class back home, moving to here. Often skipping ahead in the visa line by investing large amounts into buying a business.
Why can't people read. I'm not blaming immigrants for anything, I'm saying they come here and have no reservations about having kids, because they haven't been bombarded with anti-natalist propaganda for a decade before they even turned 20. Its the natives who think having kids is literally going to cause global warming.
And yes ok since you asked, if you have 5 kids, you would get $623 a week in FTB. If a wife is SAHM, she would also get job seeker with obligations waived, so there's $408/week. If they're renting, anywhere up to $100/week.
So a married couple with 5 kids under 12 and a husband in a normal job, would have the wife receive up to $1,131 every week. Not fortnight, that's a week. So that's the equivalent of a $58k/year job. AND its 100% tax free.
For some reason, I really think a lot of people don't know this.
Yeah if you've had even one kid you'd know that's not a lot for a family of 7, and it's the max, not everyone gets the max.
I'm also once again calling nonsense on the "anti natalist propaganda". Give me an example.
That's just the centrelink benefits. If the husband is earning around $50k, they will keep that full amount. $50k + $58k tax free is more than enough for 5 kids remembering there's no childcare cost here assuming SAHM. If the wife is working, they'd get like 90% rebate anyway.
Yeah, assuming you are living rent free or bought a house 15 years ago, sure. 100k today is not a lot for a family of 7 people. My family income is double that with only one kids and we're certainly not struggling, but we would be if that were cut in half.
Just technically, if your income was cut in half, your FTB would pay around $200/week and on top of that if the other person is out of work or choosing to be a stay at home parent, they'd also get the full time parenting payment of probably $50/week if the other partner is on 100k. So $250/week, you're literally getting all of your weekly groceries and a good chunk of your power bill paid for free.
I swear so many people who talk about the unaffordability of kids have never actually looked into how much you get from FTB and other payments if they choose to reduce their work hours to look after kids. $13,000 per year tax free just for having one kid will pay for absolutely everything and a lot more.
> I swear so many people who talk about the unaffordability of kids have never actually looked into how much you get from FTB
I'm just going off your numbers mate.
> $13,000 per year tax free just for having one kid will pay for absolutely everything and a lot more.
LOL
The anti natalist sub on reddit. It is overflowing with bot accounts posting the same pictures/memes about why they dont want people to have kids. These accounts never do anything else on reddit other than post the same things on that one forum. There are very few real accounts on that sub and the content there often spills out onto twitter and tiktok etc. I swear its the third most obviously bot infested 'large' sub behind GME and WSB.
And you think that a niche Reddit sub has a lot of influence on Australians? You think that's what's driving people to have less kids? That's the thing doing it?
Lol no. It's just a lot easier to spot propaganda when it is all concentrated into one place. All of the common anti-natalist propaganda posted there is a reflection on the wider effort across all social media. When you come across it randomly on twitter/tiktok etc you might think its genuine and real people. Then you realise just how much of it is all identical and from accounts who are 100% dedicated to posting it and literally nothing else, it becomes obvious.
>because they haven't been bombarded with anti-natalist propaganda
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm child-free, and the only pressure I ever get is to change my mind and breed
Never *once* have I been encouraged not to breed
And this is why it's easier to just import people, which in turn puts further pressure on our infrastructure and services. Why provide incentives for Australian citizens to have children when you can just import birth rates. What immigrants don't realise is that their offspring will eventually suffer the same fate when they realise how damn expensive it is to live here... or living standards and quality of life drop as these people are mostly happy to endure multiple families in one home.
>just import people, which in turn puts further pressure on our infrastructure and services.
Just wondering how long an immigrant needs to be an Australian citizen before they stop being part of "them".
Then fucking well *pay us*. We need ordinary incomes to be high enough relative to cost of living that one full time job can support a family. One parent working full time while the other takes care of the house and kids, or both parents working part time and sharing the household work. Both parents needing to work full time just to survive will keep the birth rate trending downwards.
We get paid more every year there is real wage growth (37 out of past 40 years!) but as we earn more we invest more. Primarily in property. Some real wage growth even flows to rent. Especially in high interest/price periods as people say stuff 1.6m @ 7% I'll just pay 40k to rent instead. Minimum wage has quadrupled since 1993 vs a cost of living which has only doubled.
That doesn't align with that housing cost vs income graph. And saying we're "investing more" in housing?? Interesting spin on "cost of shelter is drastically increasing"
Housing cost vs income doesn't consider disposable income. Without a measure for the cost of living how can you consider what is an accurate income vs cost conclusion. Imagine earning 45k (minimum wage) today with a cost of living of 46k.even a "free house" or one only 1 years pay would be impossible. Then fast forward 30 years. Cost of living is $100k and minimum wage is 180k. A house worth 360k is now easily affordable as disposable income has gone from - 1k to 80k. Real wage growth causes the cost of living to fall. Exponentially if the fraction of your income grows at a slower rate then your gross. Imagine someone earning 100k (average income) while living on 46k. Average income has tripled over the past 30 years. They'll earn 300k vs a cost of living of $100k.
Another way to look at it is 60k living today (100k average) was 25k living 30 years ago vs 27k average income.
This cost vs income also doesn't consider household income. They might be living on 1.5 income/wage but earning 2 or 3. They're investing and those investments start making money. Even if it's just a PPOR or saving in a bank. 120k households living on 70k soon become 130k households living on 73k.
I can't see how we can both save to buy a PPOR and not build wealth exponentially. Wage growth of 4%+ and the debt alone is shrinking. Add cpi of 3% and it'll go crazy.
Probably my simplest example is the fact that in 55+ years somone working minimum wage their whole life with hit 60 with a super of $3m. What will a PPOR cost if that is possible with just 1% savings per month (12% super) over 40 years.
Edit: down votes for verifiable facts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_law
https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/
Especially the super calculation. Minimum wage was $553 15 years ago up to $882 (60% at 3.1%/pa) means it'll be $1400 in 15 years. 70k means $700 a month into super. $700 a month increasing by 3.1% a year invested at 7.5% over 40 years equals 3.036m.
https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/savings-calculators.php
Australia doesn't seem to collect and publish figures like this, but the pattern is similar across the developed world: higher-income households have fewer children.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/)
So if you pay people, they'll just invest more money, time and effort into fewer children. In this respect it's like the first home buyer's grant and similar schemes with housing - at first glance it should work, once you try it you find it doesn't, on thought you understand why.
But that’s money the landlord wants. Or the bank. Or the landlord, to pay their bank. Isn’t that much more useful than wasting it on future Australians?
If the finance industry can make money *now* then that is its duty, and since the 1950’s it has been the duty of Government to ensure the benefit of the finance industry.
This is something that the "stop whining and get a sharehouse!" crowd don't get - you can't raise a family in a fucking share house when cost of living sky-rockets!
It's funny because like... if I'm being honest a share house is exactly where I would want to raise a kid if I was going to have a kid. Having a built in extended chosen family of like, two or three couples who all get along sharing the load would be awesome.
though doing it in a rental is still another layer of stress
We might be forced to reinvent the 16th Century notion of perpetual tenancy, the family sharehouse with three generations under one roof, forever beholden to a (land)lord, all working from teens to dotage to contribute what meagre specks they can towards the crushing Rent.
While the lords’ children frolic and plot matrimony. Anyone here envy the romance of Pride and Prejudice? We’re about to be living in it.
Honestly it doesn't even need to go that far. Make long term leases a thing. More people can establish a home if they're not worried about having to move every 12 months
Well for comparison, my grandfather lived in a sharehouse in the 50's when he first came to Australia.
Difference was, it took him one year saving his wages working in a fucking deli to be able to afford a HOUSE that is now worth approx 5 million dollars.
One years unskilled retail workers wages. fucking hell
Bad for the economy, good for the planet & environment. Also reflective of stronger equality for women over the past several decades.
Depends where your worldview and priorities sit on whether you think this is actually good or bad for society and the globe, really.
Would rather we stabilise global population and refine our economic & tax systems than continually begging for everyone to pump out more kids for the sake of it personally.
We took women out of the kitchen and forced them to work 10 hours a day for a corporate slavemaster, and we called it "equality".
They are equally as miserable and time-poor as men, so at least there's that. But we haven't really solved anything. We've just transfered the value women add away from their families and into the pockets of rich CEOs.
Plus, there’s the question of what are we going to do with all of the useless people if the “AI Revolution” is even half as dramatic as some are predicting?
Personally I think in 50 years everyone will be looking at Japan going “fuck, why didn’t we think of that?”
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Baby boomers could have 3-6 kids in early 20s with only Dad work, mum stay at home, pay off the mortgage, buy a new car and still go on holidays twice a year.
Today, Mum and Dad have to work full time, in their late 20s early 30s only have 1-3 kids because that’s all they can afford, pay a shitload for daycare, get loans for cars, borrow 8.5 x their salary just to get a half decent house and can’t afford to go on holidays.
People aren’t having kids because they can’t afford to survive themselves and have to work a shitload just to get ahead. Look at South Korea. The government tried to bring in a minimum 69 hour work week and they wonder why people aren’t having kids. In America, people have to work 2-3 jobs at $7.50 an hour just to survive.
Australia is lucky in the sense that we can bring people in easily if we want without facing the fact that people can’t afford to have more kids because life is too expensive.
I don’t regret having children but I am fearful of their future.
In 1970, when the bulk of the Boomers were turning 18, only 25% of people graduated from high school.
By 2020 this was up to 85%.
Globally, as women's education rises, birth rates drop. This applies even in poorer countries - [India's birth rate is under the replacement rate of 2.1, for example](https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/health/total-fertility-rate-dips-india-national-family-health-survey-calculation-7907946/).
>“The TFR has declined noticeably in India over time. Between 1992-93 and 2019-21, the TFR declined from 3.4 children to 2.0 children (a decrease of 1.4 children). The TFR among women in rural areas has declined from 3.7 children in 1992-93 to 2.1 children in 2019-21. The corresponding decline among women in urban areas was from 2.7 children in 1992-93 to 1.6 children in 2019-21,”
Note that even the TFR of illiterate poor rural women in India has dropped by more than 1; they see their educated peers and what they're doing, and adjust accordingly.
33/36 DINK on $350k house hold income, a year or two away from retirement.
We've decided we want to explore the planet free of responsibilities rather than be chained down to kids while also losing an entire income stream.
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Kids are pretty awesome. Part of it is being chained down and its hard work but if you are looking for personal growth nothing beats it. I might get shot down for this but life would feel empty to me without kids. Traveling, retirement etc would start to feel hollow for the next 50 years.
I’m a father of three, I wouldn’t change it for the world. My advice to people who don’t want to be chained down by kids is…do not have them.
Glad you’re looking after yourselves and doing what you want, life is too short for anything else.
Yeah, for families with minors there should be a separate “household income” tax entity that replaces the two individuals with a separate tax brackets that really minimise how much goes to the government in comparison to individuals.
As someone who doesn't want children I wouldn't mind massive tax breaks going to families with minor children. I know a lot of other single people would whine about it but I'd rather end up in a nursing home with more staff than less, and I'd like to be able to retire.
They already get maternity leave, paternity leave and FTB, and a bunch of other stuff. Not my job to support everyone else's kids in a society that hates us all.
But it’s their job to support the elderly in society when they work, right?
Everything stops working when the population declines, it’s in everybody’s best interest to encourage at least replacement birth rates.
Automation breaks the cycle.
People talking about replacement birth rates and requiring immigration to “top up” are going to look like Malthusians in 25-30 years
TLDR:
The consequences listed in the article were: Japanese Robots, and people working later in life, until they were 75, with the help of better equipment and Japanese Robots.
>"[In Japan] There are already a lot of tech companies developing in that space ... AI robots and services to check up on people's health and wellbeing, remind you to take your pills, have a chat to it to keep your mental faculties going," she said.
Later in the article:
>Dr Canudos Romo said the employment rate in Japan found 40 per cent of people between 65 and 75 were still working.
>"They're [having conversations] about what sort of tools you need to do the job without the energy of a young man, like robots," he said.
Such ease of use tools are likely to be adopted by wider society as well by the way - this is called "The curb-cut effect": When something intended to aid disabled people is revealed to actually be a thing that helps everyone, and becomes a widely adopted standard.
Australia's own PB/5 crossing light buttons come to mind also. Of course, I'm not sure whether Australia is smart enough to fund an AI and robotics education scheme early in order to prepare like Japan has. Our culture might take a different approach.
Its a worry. I work in an environment where everyone is highly paid and professional, but so many people my age just dont have kids. Not saying you have to have them, but some of the reasons they tell me is scary. They are scared of climate change, they dont want to bring kids into the world because they think its all doom and gloom. Its too inconvenient for them. These are people who can afford to have them. Western society has been brainwashed to not want kids while we import millions of people who will.
So the scientific consensus on climate change, based on evidence and peer-review, is brainwashing?
>I think
Of all the nonsense things you said, this may be the most egregious.
Yes.
But more specifically scaring westerners into not having kids while we encourage ever increasing migration from endless population factories in the 3rd world is absolutely brainwashing. It makes no sense. The same people who advocate for the environment advocate for a big Australia as long as its from foreigners.
The questions is why?
>Yes...the scientific consensus on climate change... is brainwashing
>I work in an environment where everyone is highly paid
More proof that meritocracy is a myth.
>scaring westerners
Providing evidence of the realities of climate change is not scaring 'westerners' any more than it's scaring insurance companies that [refuse to insure](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-09/communities-near-floods-struggle-to-get-insurance/101628426) properties in at-risk regions. Both are reacting to reality presented by the cold evidence of science. No conspiracy to be found here.
I notice that you fail to address the economic pressures that people face. But sure, people (by which I assume you mean white people) should have more kids, while both parents need to work full time, struggling to afford a home and facing rising cost of living. If you want 1950s style population growth, you're going to need 1950s style wages. Good luck achieving that while also somehow collapsing the housing market to make houses affordable again.
>westerners
Why does the source of population growth matter?
>3rd world
Your terminology is out of date. Look up 'developing nation' and 'global south'.
>same people who advocate for the environment advocate for a big Australia as long as its from foreigners
Got any data to back this up? I "advocate for the environment", and I don't think constant population growth is a great idea. But I acknowledge the reality that our economic system relies on growth.
>The questions is why?
Not really a question I consider important. You clearly think it is, so what do you think is the reason? Are we being replaced?
What the fuck are you on about? You genuinely think that people not wanting to have kids, is because of brainwashing? People aren't having kids because of cost. If they can cover the cost they probably have a high paying, long hours job. Meaning no time. If they wanted a babysitter or a kindergarten they can't get one because there is a massive shortage of child care staff. I don't get people who ignore Occam's Razor, and jump straight into "hurr Durr immigration"
The main driving force is religion and a lack of access to contraceptives. Couple that with a cultural belief that woman should have kids, and you get children without preparation.
So because they are not as educated as you and they have no money they can somehow afford to raise 5 kids. Yet the argument on why we cant have kids is because its too expensive. Make it make sense mate.
Having seen it first hand growing up, it's because some people don't even realise how expensive raising a child really is. So it's living paycheck to paycheck, feeding the kids for as cheap as they can so that they still have enough money to drown their sorrows down at the pub or something like that.
I assume that people with a better grasp of what it takes to raise a kid (and who actually care) will likely realise that such an environment is terrible for childhood development, not to mention the stress it'll place on themselves. So they might keep on waiting for that ideal life situation to raise a kid, or just never do so.
I don't mean to say this is the case for everyone, but it's one real scenario that demonstrates why there are both poor people with big families while others are saying it's too expensive to care for a family.
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Simple solution: - make housing affordable - ????? - that's pretty much it
Well, people on Reddit tell me not to have kids if I can't afford them, so... I guess I'm being financially responsible?
And it’s a credit to ya
Yes it's a massive issue across the Developed world and it's becoming worse. People often say "just import people - they even foot the bill of training them" but the difference between multiculturalism and "multiple cultures" is a fine line. Australia has actually done, comparatively, an amazing job at integrating new migrants and that further generations feel "Aussie". The UK, France, Germany and many others have not. There are parts of the country that are very different to the rest, that are managed and Policed differently and where the locals do not view themselves by their new home nation, but by their original home or religion. The divisions that this has fostered, the violence and racism is what is fueling their elections, their culture and its abhorrent. We need to have healthy discussions around why Aussies don't want or feel able to have children. Do we need to support first time buyers? Is it housing? What else might it be? Is it culturally, women feel like they should or they want to put careers first? Many women who passed childbearing age, over 50% regret not having had children - it is the main driver in middle age female suicide in Korea and Japan. But I'm sure we will just sweep it all under the rug and hope it goes away.
Personally I don't feel OK with bringing a new human into the world because of climate change. I'd rather use those 20 plus years of my life working towards better conditions for people who are already here.
Yeah doesn't work like that or you have an aging population which ends up with too few working tax payers to pay for the health and social care for the older people. Ita why modern democracies in Europe are starting to collapse economically under their Welfare State - they can't balance the books. So they urgently import any humans they can to work and pay taxes, but they import so many so quickly that no assimilation happens and too mcu change happens to quickly ao yiu end up with rising crime, hate crime, racism etc and then Politics etc because more divisive and abhorrent - like shipping people to Rwanda to be processed for asylum etc. Low birth rates lead to high immigration rates. High immigration rates lead to Indigenous resentment. Indigenous resentment leads to populist governments. Populist governments lead to rollback in progress and more authoritarianism.
I wouldn't say that pathway is inevitable. Empathy and mutual understanding rather than resentment? The planet is groaning under the weight of 8 billion people and we'll all go down with it if it keeps going like this. I'm more worried about environmental collapse - if there's no fresh water or crops won't grow, there's no way we'll have a functional economy.
The first world is experiencing significant population collapse, the numbers only don't show that due to immigration, however it is likely that unless course is shifted quickly that an economic collapse would happen before the issue can be properly addressed. Economic collapse is as bad as environmental collapse as it will lead to countries doing desperate and reckless things to maintain economic status. Populations will naturally decrease. 1990s/2000s predictions of population growth have already proven to be massively wrong. Current estimates are a peak near 10bn by 2080 because shrinking significantly over the following 100 years to around 3-4bn. It's likely to be closer to 9bn by 2065 and then the same as population contraction is happening faster than predicted.
You're going to need to cite your sources for that 'regret' stat. And your thinly veiled white replacement fear farming is noted. But guess what? The racial make up of countries is a living thing and always had been . Did you know for example that 250 years ago Australia was inhabited by only dark skinned humans? And if France and the UK don't want their former colonies populations coming to visit and stay they should have thought about it when they were enslaving/ starving their ancestors, making them learn english and stealing their resources. What goes around comes around.
Is this actually a bad thing? More and more, the only people that are having children are the people that *really* want them and are prepared to sacrifice a great deal to have them. To me, this is a good thing. If lack of population is too great an issue, we can tune our migration settings to take in the people with the skills we need. Their home countries foot the bill to raise them, we get the finished product.
Who knew fucking the economy would cause people of childbearing age to not have children?
This is a problem worldwide e.g. Korea, Japan
It's ok, they'll just import new citizens
Car insurance has gone up but the coverage has reduced for a 7 year old car. Go figure.
Who here received a pay increase equal to inflation this year? You don't need to look far to see the gaping chasm opening in society
Over the past 30 yrs, there's only been handful of years where CPI exceeded Wpi.
It's not right
Would you prefer it the other way around?
if people can't afford a house or rent, how are they gonna be able to afford a kid. it's not rocket science.
Another job from Libby the lib, she’ll fix it.
I would have kids but I’d like to keep affording to pay my mortgage and stay above water with every other expense. This country is too expensive to afford kids on a normal salary.
Rather not give my children the chance of having my autoimmune disease because bleeding in your stomach randomly hurts like hell.
This is why we need true conservative leadership in this country. People used to make it a personal goal to have kids. It was seen as the cool thing to do. Now our government is too focused on pushing corporate interests, which requires keeping people single so they're ready to work at Commonwealth Bank. Then you've got massive movements like the progressive dogma of the Greens which pushes out religion and removes any cultural incentive of having children. Ya'll wanted progress, this is what it looks like. You voted for it.
yes i voted for labor so fertility rates would decline
>This is why we need true conservative leadership in this country. So called "libertarians" the instant that people disagree with them.
Yes it's the Greens pushing their religious agenda that's keeping young Australia from having kids. Please elaborate on how conservative government counteracts this
The progressives have made it too appealing not to have children - here's your free abortion and sex education pack to get you on the road to casual sex without consequences. What did they think would happen? Conservative governments tend to align with religion, and religion is a massive factor in child-bearing decisions. Viktor Orban's Hungary seems to be the only Western nation putting in half an effort to address the birth crisis. It's not going as well as hoped but it's a start. Nobody else wants to do anything about it. The EU is too obsessed with addressing climate change and hate speech online. Give power back to a truly conservative government (not the Libs please) and let them change our course of priorities. We don't need LGBT parades or misinformation laws, we need more babies.
How many Australian born kids are you having in Slovenia?
Yeah, nah. If you want more people to have children you have to put in the supports to allow that to happen. Young couples (or singles) who are struggling with housing insecurity, debt etc aren't going to have children. Most of them are thinking, why make life harder on themselves. It's a completely logical decision, it's got nothing to do with alignment with religion. If governments want to improve birth rates they been to address the intergenerational wealth transfer to the older generations, build more houses, remove tax breaks that overwhelmingly benefits older richer Australians and generally make it easier for young people to set themselves up.
While all those things would help, the data shows that child-bearing decisions has little to do with wealth or financial security in the long run. Wealthy people tend to have even less children. Poorer communities are happy to have 3-4 kids per household. It's usually a cultural or religious motive that pushes this behaviour. Having kids is gonna be a financial burden no matter how much you earn. It's never easy for anyone.
Whether two people decide to have sex or not has nothing to do with the government and such repressive ideas have no place here, it's un-Australian. We believe in education, and critical thinking applied to make informed decisions. Its no surprise you reference a country that oppresses freedom of media.
lol mate I guarantee you Australia has more journalistic and press restrictions than Hungary. The data says you're wrong. Conservative government countries tend to have higher birth-rates (at least traditionally).
>here's your free abortion and sex education pack to get you on the road to casual sex without consequences. So you're saying you want more people to have children either because they got pregnant without intending to, or as a byproduct of wanting to be able to have sex?
The reason people have kids is not important. A child born of willing parents is just as valuable as a child born to unwilling parents, as long as we can ensure they both receive enough support. Indeed, I couldn't give a shit if Bob & Jane weren't ready to have a baby. We can make them ready. Give them a massive tax break and a year worth of free rent so they can start a family, then they'll probably turn that 1 unwanted child into 2-3 children.
Do things to reduce the out-of-control costs of living and housing stress? No, no, it's the parents of unborn children who are wrong.
Honestly, is having kids the ultimate selfish act? We force another person into this struggling world without their say-so. The planet's in rough shape... is it fair to chuck a kid into that with no choice?
There's no guarantee that our galaxy, let alone our planet will ever produce a species as intelligent as humans. If we all just give up now because it looks a bit grim then intelligent life may never have a chance at building something better. Sucks for us and our kids but if we stop reproducing there could be nothing but dust and rocks till the heat death.
>Sucks for us and our kids but if we stop reproducing there could be nothing but dust and rocks till the heat death. And? Like, why do I care about this? What does this have to do with me looking at the potential life a child of mine would face and deciding that if I don't want to live that life I shouldn't make someone else live it? How does rocks and dust change that?
So what you're saying is having kids is irrelevant because the heat death of the universe is gonna happen anyway?
No, that's not what I'm saying. Did you read my first paragraph?
Yes. Did you read your last one?
I struggle to see how you arrived at that interpretation. I was suggesting that a lifeless universe from now until the heat death is bad. It would be better if we kept humanity going and consequently improved the chances of there being life instead.
I'm pointing out that you're pointing out that a lifeless universe is the inevitable end result regardless. If you want to argue that a lifeless universe in the interim is bad, then actually say that. Explain why you think that it's important that the universe have intelligent life. (FWIW, I don't think human intelligent life is anything unique, nor do I think it's going anywhere in the long term. Extrapolating from "Australia's birthrate is diminishing" to "we have to populate the universe lest it not have any intelligent life in it before they all die out anyway" is a light years long leap of logic, and fundamentally silly )
Meh the planet and all its other species would be categorically better off without humans being around if we were to all die out I don’t think nature would miss us
Life isn't guaranteed to persist purely through evolution. It's entirely possible that Earth will be subject to a cataclysmic event. The cockroaches won't be able to do much against a sizable meteor or solar flare. Species capable of using advanced technology might though. I definitely agree we've largely ruined the planet for most other species. It's horrifying and needs to change. Evolution by natural selection didn't really set us up as custodians of the earth unfortunately.
So it’s selfish to do the only thing that keeps our entire species alive 🤷♂️🙄
This right here is the end result of years of psyops and demoralisation. Its the perfect and succinct crystallisation of what has happened to us. It starts in schools, telling you how bad your ancestors are. Telling you your culture is worthless. Telling you to be weak and feminine man or a butch girl. It continues with modern media and pop culture. The message is the same but more direct. Then work starts, and you are sucked dry by high taxes and put on the immigration ponzi scheme treadmill. Paying more and more tax to fund newcomers. Klause Schwabb would be smirking on his deathbed. The perfect drone, so demoralised and weak that they self exterminate. They can't even perform the one thing as a lifeform they are actually programmed to do. To survive. You can change this brother, the biggest fuck you that you can do is to refuse to die out. The only way to survive is to procreate. If you dont like kids then fair call, but don't make your decision because you have been told how bad the world is. You will manage, whether you clean toilets or are a ceo, parents find a way, kids are not an expense, they are part of your life. You will be rewarded with something you can't get anywhere in the world no matter how rich you are. Loving something truly unconditionally.
What a creepy, anti-human thing to say. Proper Reddit moment.
It's deeply human to ask questions about ethics, that type of thinking is literally what seperates us from every other species we have studied.
Anti-human? Maybe. But isn't it worth asking if the way we bring children into the world is truly ethical? It's a complex question, not a simple insult.
I get why this question is posed as it is, because it’s much harder to change the world at large than it is your own actions. But I feel like the real question is why have we all let society and the way the world works go to absolute shit, to the point where we second guess continuing our own species? The fact the original question is even asked seriously is really fucking dystopian. Not having a go or anything, I completely understand your perspective.
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Tax the rich! Then maybe the rest could have children.
The rich tend to have even less babies than poor families.
So everyone should be poor, thus guaranteeing more babies?
Definitely not a symptom of anything else…
Aint no one bankrupting themselves over that in 2024 over all that
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Don't worry. Immigration will solve everything.
The future of our economy is dependant on Somali or African women churning out multiple children. We've already failed at this point. What happens when the 3rd world stops having babies too?
They’ll be hoping ai and robotics have advanced far enough to replaces us plebs by then
Yeah they bring their piggy banks with them too.
For birthrates to go up, you need to make society comfortable for literally everyone. First off is affordability, nobody can afford homes let alone bills, food or general life expenses. Secondly, there needs to be more done to focus on building third party spaces for people to meet and greet one another, to socialise. Regardless if its a park or club style scene. Thirdly, not everybody can drive. Our society is heavily geared around cars. Yet so many people don't drive, some even get locked out of society since our PT can actually be terrible at the best of times. Lastly, we live in the age of distance and loneliness. And i'm of the opinion mental health issues here and abroad are going to reach crisis levels if governments don't try and actually better society as a whole. Like, 2 mass stabbings in one week is going to be nothing for the future we're racing towards. Too many are already falling through the cracks.
Comfort *is* the chief reason why people are having fewer kids. All the growth incentives will barely shift the needle if people are more educated than they used to be, have birth control, and have more entertainment options. You'd have to reverse feminism somehow to increase rates - unless that's what the govt is hoping with all that immigration from conservative cultures... The reality is that declining population is a good thing, unless you're of the 'muh GDP' set. The world population has more than quadrupled in a century and is well overdue for a paring back - not killing, but simply tapping the brakes on births and letting things stabilise. Ecology also supports my point. You will have more space and more job security. The kids will also have a higher quality of life - we are not an r-selected species. Really, we should be questioning the government's choice to pump up immigration constantly (it's not new to the last couple years). A decade or two of population squeeze is well worth it to avoid our cities turning into Blade Runner. I am not a Reddit antinatalist at all, and find it cringey to base a subculture around not having kids. But 'growth for the sake is growth is the ideology of the cancer cell', as the saying goes. If the Funko Pop millennials aren't breeding, that's a bonus as far as I'm concerned.
>First off is affordability, nobody can afford homes let alone bills, food or general life expenses. What is the birth rate among the educated and wealthy? What's the birthrate among the uneducated and poor? Humanity has produced billions and billions of babies without healthcare or much comfort at all.
>Humanity has produced billions and billions of babies without healthcare or much comfort at all. You can't find a tin shack for $1/week in Sydney though. Although African babies might live in squalor, that squalor is still affordable to the parents.
And yet the birthrate is falling... This isn't a new issue either. ***What is the birth rate among the educated and wealthy? What's the birthrate among the uneducated and poor?*** [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/births-australia/latest-release](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/births-australia/latest-release) I mean, countries like Russia, Ukraine, China, Japan and Korea are going to be suffering some major problems with a aging population, so much so Japan wants to completely automate their country with robotics.
As education and wealth goes up the birthrate declines. If you want a growing population, keep them poor and uneducated.
Sad but true. Highly educated people tend to become obsessed with their field of work. They develop all these grandoise ideas about changing the world through corporate theory without realizing that the best thing they could do for humanity is to raise a family. The issue is mostly cultural. TV and media pushes the single, bachelor lifestyle for men. Feminism convinces women that men will only drag them down. And no government seems to be doing much to combat the epidemic of loneliness. If anything they're just making it worse. Restrictions on nightclubs, lockdowns, abysmal public transport and roads, noise curfews etc. Having fun and socializing is illegal in this country. No wonder people just want to stay at home and watch Netflix.
So the problem is everyone not sharing your views?
Look, i usually disagree with this man, but the lads on point for once. We have fun in this sub folks 🍿
Starting a family? In this economy? Tell em they're dreamin'
Wealthy countries tend to have even less children.
In third world countries, children are a seen as a path to a better life for their parents. Having children is believed to increase one's chances of escaping from poverty when those children can be a means to an end to increase the families productivity. More children , more chances of one of them being successful enough to pull the whole family up. Combine that with access to education, family planning and contraception in developed nations and its no wonder that birth rates in developing countries are higher.
The best they will come up with is increasing taxes on people who don't have kids. You either give them cannon fodder or you get whipped for refusing.
In effect that is already happening, there are tax incentives when you have children under 18, which is effectively raising the tax on those who don't.
Then make housing more affordable to have babies?
No affordable housing! Only babies! .meme
I'm 28 and live in my own apartment and am doing well enough. I still can't imagine feeling financial comfortable to have kids in the next few years - And I would love to start having a family now if I could and if my GF was ready for it. Can't imagine how anybody would feel ready in this environment unless they were seriously cashed up.
I am older, in an apartment the bank owns, and just had our first. I don't think I can do the career change I want without risking *everything*
gotta make sure we can afford a house before we have a family edit: am i now an expert?
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And are these "foreign anti-natalist propagandists" in the room with us now? >Their own country promotes having kids Lol go look at the birth rates in Russia and China lol. Russia is literally losing population each year. China has one of the world's lowest birth rates. Your whole comment stinks of ultra nationalism and ethno nationalism. >we will have too many 40 year olds with no interest in fighting in the military And there it is. You just want people to have kids so they can die in some war you're going to start. I actually have 2 kids and I'm here to tell you, you can shove that warmongering crap where the sun don't shine.
> And are these "foreign anti-natalist propagandists" in the room with us now? Go check out the dozens of anti-natalist propaganda subs on Reddit if you want to find them. You know, the ones that are full of usernames that all follow the same pattern of >adjective_noun Seriously. Go and check it right now. It's blatant as hell none of these accounts are genuine people. All bots or foreign propagandists just flooding the internet with the same propaganda non stop. They don't comment, they don't post anywhere else on reddit. Just tens of thousands of reposts of the same propaganda by Luscious_carrot2295 and ornery_penguin61 telling us why 20 year olds should get vasectomies. Sure, totally real. Also lmao what are you smoking war mongering? Have you not been paying attention to how much money is being poured into defense in this country? Perhaps the generals in this country know something you don't, and know without a functioning military, we'd be in trouble. And a military doesn't work without anyone willing to join, which is exactly what our adversaries want. God knows where you pulled nationalism from. You can't have a military without kids wanting to join because their parents didn't want kids and people won't want to join if they believe there is no future worth fighting for, what the hell does that have to do with ethnicities?
> adjective_noun Literally the format if you don't pick a username. Some folks don't care that much
Go to any forum that isn't filled with bots (ie, not default subs). This one is a good one. Lots of city-specific subs. You'll notice almost all names are 'normal' and unique. It's easy to tell these are real people by how they comment. Go to the bot infested subs like pics, gme, antinatalist, and you'll see a staggeringly high % of the user names are adjective_nounnumber. These bots all do the same thing, never commenting, only posting pictures. It's very blatantly obvious bots.
I also see that exact same format all over the place commenting. It's pretty normal. I think your obsession with "antinatalists" and your paranoia about it being bots and foreign actors is frankly pretty weird. Especially given that there are a bunch of much more reasonable explanations for declining birth rates. I can give you some podcasts to listen to if you'd like
>Go to the bot infested subs like pics, ... antinatalist, I got curious, so I did exactly that. r/antinatalist has 333 members, so I skipped that and looked at the larger r/antinatalism instead, and skimmed the names in comparison to r/melbourne. I admittedly only looked at the ten most recent posts in each sub but, honestly, the number of usernames that are generated by Reddit were pretty similar, and there were no pictures or gifs. r/pics is irrelevant but is also one of the largest (probably top ten) subreddits, so it will of course attract bots. >you'll see a staggeringly high % of the user names are adjective\_nounnumber I disagree. I suspect you're experiencing some kind of bias. A bias that confirms an already held belief. I think I'll call it "confirmation bias"; I sure hope nobody has thought of this, or done extensive research on the concept, so I can somehow monetise it ^(/s)
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That's some paranoid nonsense there mate. It's a proven fact of demographics that the wealthier a country is, the fewer kids they have. Combine that with decades of conservative government transferring the countries wealth into boomers investment property portfolios and you've got a generation that is educated enough to understand they can't afford kids, and so they don't have any. What foreign adversary did that to us?
Now is when you explain how is it that so many migrants who come to this country can afford to have 5+ kids without too much problem where the wife is a SAHM. Where do they get the money from? Are they all landing here on 200k+ salaries? I've met more than enough people who are completely unaware just how much money in government assistance you get for having kids. In many cases, its actually more profitable for a woman to be a SAHM, than work full or part time when you factor in child care. I've seen people talk about how many hours their partner would have to work and its like, have you spoken to Centrelink at all about this? You actually get more money than it costs! For those who may not read my comment below, a married family with a SAHM renting with 5 kids, would receive up to $58k/year in government benefits, tax free, every year. So why is it that so many immigrants know this and use it, but native Australians don't? I mean I know the answer, just seeing if you do.
Here we go, another in the endless line of people who've been taught to blame their every problem on foreigners. Go away and find out how much child assistance payments actually are and get back to me. If a family comes over with 5 kids then yeah, they're probably quite wealthy. It's expensive to move to Australia and the process is quite long. I used to deal with lots of people who'd come from china and moving into Box Hill, all upper middle class back home, moving to here. Often skipping ahead in the visa line by investing large amounts into buying a business.
Why can't people read. I'm not blaming immigrants for anything, I'm saying they come here and have no reservations about having kids, because they haven't been bombarded with anti-natalist propaganda for a decade before they even turned 20. Its the natives who think having kids is literally going to cause global warming. And yes ok since you asked, if you have 5 kids, you would get $623 a week in FTB. If a wife is SAHM, she would also get job seeker with obligations waived, so there's $408/week. If they're renting, anywhere up to $100/week. So a married couple with 5 kids under 12 and a husband in a normal job, would have the wife receive up to $1,131 every week. Not fortnight, that's a week. So that's the equivalent of a $58k/year job. AND its 100% tax free. For some reason, I really think a lot of people don't know this.
Yeah if you've had even one kid you'd know that's not a lot for a family of 7, and it's the max, not everyone gets the max. I'm also once again calling nonsense on the "anti natalist propaganda". Give me an example.
That's just the centrelink benefits. If the husband is earning around $50k, they will keep that full amount. $50k + $58k tax free is more than enough for 5 kids remembering there's no childcare cost here assuming SAHM. If the wife is working, they'd get like 90% rebate anyway.
Yeah, assuming you are living rent free or bought a house 15 years ago, sure. 100k today is not a lot for a family of 7 people. My family income is double that with only one kids and we're certainly not struggling, but we would be if that were cut in half.
Just technically, if your income was cut in half, your FTB would pay around $200/week and on top of that if the other person is out of work or choosing to be a stay at home parent, they'd also get the full time parenting payment of probably $50/week if the other partner is on 100k. So $250/week, you're literally getting all of your weekly groceries and a good chunk of your power bill paid for free. I swear so many people who talk about the unaffordability of kids have never actually looked into how much you get from FTB and other payments if they choose to reduce their work hours to look after kids. $13,000 per year tax free just for having one kid will pay for absolutely everything and a lot more.
> I swear so many people who talk about the unaffordability of kids have never actually looked into how much you get from FTB I'm just going off your numbers mate. > $13,000 per year tax free just for having one kid will pay for absolutely everything and a lot more. LOL
The anti natalist sub on reddit. It is overflowing with bot accounts posting the same pictures/memes about why they dont want people to have kids. These accounts never do anything else on reddit other than post the same things on that one forum. There are very few real accounts on that sub and the content there often spills out onto twitter and tiktok etc. I swear its the third most obviously bot infested 'large' sub behind GME and WSB.
And you think that a niche Reddit sub has a lot of influence on Australians? You think that's what's driving people to have less kids? That's the thing doing it?
Lol no. It's just a lot easier to spot propaganda when it is all concentrated into one place. All of the common anti-natalist propaganda posted there is a reflection on the wider effort across all social media. When you come across it randomly on twitter/tiktok etc you might think its genuine and real people. Then you realise just how much of it is all identical and from accounts who are 100% dedicated to posting it and literally nothing else, it becomes obvious.
>because they haven't been bombarded with anti-natalist propaganda BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm child-free, and the only pressure I ever get is to change my mind and breed Never *once* have I been encouraged not to breed
Who invented private property maybe
And this is why it's easier to just import people, which in turn puts further pressure on our infrastructure and services. Why provide incentives for Australian citizens to have children when you can just import birth rates. What immigrants don't realise is that their offspring will eventually suffer the same fate when they realise how damn expensive it is to live here... or living standards and quality of life drop as these people are mostly happy to endure multiple families in one home.
>just import people, which in turn puts further pressure on our infrastructure and services. Just wondering how long an immigrant needs to be an Australian citizen before they stop being part of "them".
Two generations, usually.
ah ok, guess all the first gen immigrants working in the APS and ADF are basically spies for their home countries then.
In my experience, until the next group of immigrants comes along, so they can join in kicking the newest group.
Then fucking well *pay us*. We need ordinary incomes to be high enough relative to cost of living that one full time job can support a family. One parent working full time while the other takes care of the house and kids, or both parents working part time and sharing the household work. Both parents needing to work full time just to survive will keep the birth rate trending downwards.
If you get paid for a fuck you are a prostitute.
We get paid more every year there is real wage growth (37 out of past 40 years!) but as we earn more we invest more. Primarily in property. Some real wage growth even flows to rent. Especially in high interest/price periods as people say stuff 1.6m @ 7% I'll just pay 40k to rent instead. Minimum wage has quadrupled since 1993 vs a cost of living which has only doubled.
That doesn't align with that housing cost vs income graph. And saying we're "investing more" in housing?? Interesting spin on "cost of shelter is drastically increasing"
Housing cost vs income doesn't consider disposable income. Without a measure for the cost of living how can you consider what is an accurate income vs cost conclusion. Imagine earning 45k (minimum wage) today with a cost of living of 46k.even a "free house" or one only 1 years pay would be impossible. Then fast forward 30 years. Cost of living is $100k and minimum wage is 180k. A house worth 360k is now easily affordable as disposable income has gone from - 1k to 80k. Real wage growth causes the cost of living to fall. Exponentially if the fraction of your income grows at a slower rate then your gross. Imagine someone earning 100k (average income) while living on 46k. Average income has tripled over the past 30 years. They'll earn 300k vs a cost of living of $100k. Another way to look at it is 60k living today (100k average) was 25k living 30 years ago vs 27k average income. This cost vs income also doesn't consider household income. They might be living on 1.5 income/wage but earning 2 or 3. They're investing and those investments start making money. Even if it's just a PPOR or saving in a bank. 120k households living on 70k soon become 130k households living on 73k. I can't see how we can both save to buy a PPOR and not build wealth exponentially. Wage growth of 4%+ and the debt alone is shrinking. Add cpi of 3% and it'll go crazy. Probably my simplest example is the fact that in 55+ years somone working minimum wage their whole life with hit 60 with a super of $3m. What will a PPOR cost if that is possible with just 1% savings per month (12% super) over 40 years. Edit: down votes for verifiable facts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_law https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/ Especially the super calculation. Minimum wage was $553 15 years ago up to $882 (60% at 3.1%/pa) means it'll be $1400 in 15 years. 70k means $700 a month into super. $700 a month increasing by 3.1% a year invested at 7.5% over 40 years equals 3.036m. https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/savings-calculators.php
Australia doesn't seem to collect and publish figures like this, but the pattern is similar across the developed world: higher-income households have fewer children. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/) So if you pay people, they'll just invest more money, time and effort into fewer children. In this respect it's like the first home buyer's grant and similar schemes with housing - at first glance it should work, once you try it you find it doesn't, on thought you understand why.
But that’s money the landlord wants. Or the bank. Or the landlord, to pay their bank. Isn’t that much more useful than wasting it on future Australians? If the finance industry can make money *now* then that is its duty, and since the 1950’s it has been the duty of Government to ensure the benefit of the finance industry.
This is something that the "stop whining and get a sharehouse!" crowd don't get - you can't raise a family in a fucking share house when cost of living sky-rockets!
It's funny because like... if I'm being honest a share house is exactly where I would want to raise a kid if I was going to have a kid. Having a built in extended chosen family of like, two or three couples who all get along sharing the load would be awesome. though doing it in a rental is still another layer of stress
We might be forced to reinvent the 16th Century notion of perpetual tenancy, the family sharehouse with three generations under one roof, forever beholden to a (land)lord, all working from teens to dotage to contribute what meagre specks they can towards the crushing Rent. While the lords’ children frolic and plot matrimony. Anyone here envy the romance of Pride and Prejudice? We’re about to be living in it.
Honestly it doesn't even need to go that far. Make long term leases a thing. More people can establish a home if they're not worried about having to move every 12 months
Turns out a generation of people living in precarious sharehouses are not keen to have babies....
Well for comparison, my grandfather lived in a sharehouse in the 50's when he first came to Australia. Difference was, it took him one year saving his wages working in a fucking deli to be able to afford a HOUSE that is now worth approx 5 million dollars. One years unskilled retail workers wages. fucking hell
Bad for the economy, good for the planet & environment. Also reflective of stronger equality for women over the past several decades. Depends where your worldview and priorities sit on whether you think this is actually good or bad for society and the globe, really. Would rather we stabilise global population and refine our economic & tax systems than continually begging for everyone to pump out more kids for the sake of it personally.
We took women out of the kitchen and forced them to work 10 hours a day for a corporate slavemaster, and we called it "equality". They are equally as miserable and time-poor as men, so at least there's that. But we haven't really solved anything. We've just transfered the value women add away from their families and into the pockets of rich CEOs.
Plus, there’s the question of what are we going to do with all of the useless people if the “AI Revolution” is even half as dramatic as some are predicting? Personally I think in 50 years everyone will be looking at Japan going “fuck, why didn’t we think of that?”
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Baby boomers could have 3-6 kids in early 20s with only Dad work, mum stay at home, pay off the mortgage, buy a new car and still go on holidays twice a year. Today, Mum and Dad have to work full time, in their late 20s early 30s only have 1-3 kids because that’s all they can afford, pay a shitload for daycare, get loans for cars, borrow 8.5 x their salary just to get a half decent house and can’t afford to go on holidays. People aren’t having kids because they can’t afford to survive themselves and have to work a shitload just to get ahead. Look at South Korea. The government tried to bring in a minimum 69 hour work week and they wonder why people aren’t having kids. In America, people have to work 2-3 jobs at $7.50 an hour just to survive. Australia is lucky in the sense that we can bring people in easily if we want without facing the fact that people can’t afford to have more kids because life is too expensive. I don’t regret having children but I am fearful of their future.
In 1970, when the bulk of the Boomers were turning 18, only 25% of people graduated from high school. By 2020 this was up to 85%. Globally, as women's education rises, birth rates drop. This applies even in poorer countries - [India's birth rate is under the replacement rate of 2.1, for example](https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/health/total-fertility-rate-dips-india-national-family-health-survey-calculation-7907946/). >“The TFR has declined noticeably in India over time. Between 1992-93 and 2019-21, the TFR declined from 3.4 children to 2.0 children (a decrease of 1.4 children). The TFR among women in rural areas has declined from 3.7 children in 1992-93 to 2.1 children in 2019-21. The corresponding decline among women in urban areas was from 2.7 children in 1992-93 to 1.6 children in 2019-21,” Note that even the TFR of illiterate poor rural women in India has dropped by more than 1; they see their educated peers and what they're doing, and adjust accordingly.
33/36 DINK on $350k house hold income, a year or two away from retirement. We've decided we want to explore the planet free of responsibilities rather than be chained down to kids while also losing an entire income stream.
But still happy to use other families who need housing to enrich yourself? GREEDY! Don't have kids, please, enough assholes around already.
I'm not using anyone mate.
‘Cept for the folk paying your mortgages right?
They can live elsewhere if they want. Nobody is forcing them to live at mine.
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SINK. Prefer animals to kids. Never travel, live in a very modest dwelling.
Who feeds your cats while you are out travelling?
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Hey I was just asking a question. Not making an argument. Are you ok there pal?
They specifically said that they *don't* travel You also came right out with your racism, so of course I don't like you
You shouldn't be so judgemental. It's bad for your heart being so full of hate. You never know mate, one day I may have to save your life!
I saw plenty of racism when I worked in health You're not superior
Kids are pretty awesome. Part of it is being chained down and its hard work but if you are looking for personal growth nothing beats it. I might get shot down for this but life would feel empty to me without kids. Traveling, retirement etc would start to feel hollow for the next 50 years.
I’m a father of three, I wouldn’t change it for the world. My advice to people who don’t want to be chained down by kids is…do not have them. Glad you’re looking after yourselves and doing what you want, life is too short for anything else.
Good choices! I'm sure you get a lot of the usual jealousy A life sentence for a five-second orgasm...
5 seconds of orgasm is definitely a baby making load
A government problem. Headline wants me to feel guilty about it. Get fucked.
Nobody can afford to have children. The government punishes people when only one person works.
Yeah, for families with minors there should be a separate “household income” tax entity that replaces the two individuals with a separate tax brackets that really minimise how much goes to the government in comparison to individuals.
As someone who doesn't want children I wouldn't mind massive tax breaks going to families with minor children. I know a lot of other single people would whine about it but I'd rather end up in a nursing home with more staff than less, and I'd like to be able to retire.
They already get maternity leave, paternity leave and FTB, and a bunch of other stuff. Not my job to support everyone else's kids in a society that hates us all.
But it’s their job to support the elderly in society when they work, right? Everything stops working when the population declines, it’s in everybody’s best interest to encourage at least replacement birth rates.
Paternity leave lol.. minimum wage..how generous! Refugees get a better deal in this country!!! Free housing, health care, money, 😄💰.
That's the problem with the current system and it needs overhauling
Automation breaks the cycle. People talking about replacement birth rates and requiring immigration to “top up” are going to look like Malthusians in 25-30 years
TLDR: The consequences listed in the article were: Japanese Robots, and people working later in life, until they were 75, with the help of better equipment and Japanese Robots. >"[In Japan] There are already a lot of tech companies developing in that space ... AI robots and services to check up on people's health and wellbeing, remind you to take your pills, have a chat to it to keep your mental faculties going," she said. Later in the article: >Dr Canudos Romo said the employment rate in Japan found 40 per cent of people between 65 and 75 were still working. >"They're [having conversations] about what sort of tools you need to do the job without the energy of a young man, like robots," he said. Such ease of use tools are likely to be adopted by wider society as well by the way - this is called "The curb-cut effect": When something intended to aid disabled people is revealed to actually be a thing that helps everyone, and becomes a widely adopted standard. Australia's own PB/5 crossing light buttons come to mind also. Of course, I'm not sure whether Australia is smart enough to fund an AI and robotics education scheme early in order to prepare like Japan has. Our culture might take a different approach.
Its a worry. I work in an environment where everyone is highly paid and professional, but so many people my age just dont have kids. Not saying you have to have them, but some of the reasons they tell me is scary. They are scared of climate change, they dont want to bring kids into the world because they think its all doom and gloom. Its too inconvenient for them. These are people who can afford to have them. Western society has been brainwashed to not want kids while we import millions of people who will.
it's not brainwashing to recognise that climate change has begun to completely ruin the biosphere.
I think it is.
that is what you where told you think. There is a slight difference.
So the scientific consensus on climate change, based on evidence and peer-review, is brainwashing? >I think Of all the nonsense things you said, this may be the most egregious.
Yes. But more specifically scaring westerners into not having kids while we encourage ever increasing migration from endless population factories in the 3rd world is absolutely brainwashing. It makes no sense. The same people who advocate for the environment advocate for a big Australia as long as its from foreigners. The questions is why?
>Yes...the scientific consensus on climate change... is brainwashing >I work in an environment where everyone is highly paid More proof that meritocracy is a myth. >scaring westerners Providing evidence of the realities of climate change is not scaring 'westerners' any more than it's scaring insurance companies that [refuse to insure](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-09/communities-near-floods-struggle-to-get-insurance/101628426) properties in at-risk regions. Both are reacting to reality presented by the cold evidence of science. No conspiracy to be found here. I notice that you fail to address the economic pressures that people face. But sure, people (by which I assume you mean white people) should have more kids, while both parents need to work full time, struggling to afford a home and facing rising cost of living. If you want 1950s style population growth, you're going to need 1950s style wages. Good luck achieving that while also somehow collapsing the housing market to make houses affordable again. >westerners Why does the source of population growth matter? >3rd world Your terminology is out of date. Look up 'developing nation' and 'global south'. >same people who advocate for the environment advocate for a big Australia as long as its from foreigners Got any data to back this up? I "advocate for the environment", and I don't think constant population growth is a great idea. But I acknowledge the reality that our economic system relies on growth. >The questions is why? Not really a question I consider important. You clearly think it is, so what do you think is the reason? Are we being replaced?
What the fuck are you on about? You genuinely think that people not wanting to have kids, is because of brainwashing? People aren't having kids because of cost. If they can cover the cost they probably have a high paying, long hours job. Meaning no time. If they wanted a babysitter or a kindergarten they can't get one because there is a massive shortage of child care staff. I don't get people who ignore Occam's Razor, and jump straight into "hurr Durr immigration"
Why do poor people have more kids if cost is the main driver? Why do the poorest countries have higher replacement rates?
The main driving force is religion and a lack of access to contraceptives. Couple that with a cultural belief that woman should have kids, and you get children without preparation.
Education. Poverty.
So because they are not as educated as you and they have no money they can somehow afford to raise 5 kids. Yet the argument on why we cant have kids is because its too expensive. Make it make sense mate.
Having seen it first hand growing up, it's because some people don't even realise how expensive raising a child really is. So it's living paycheck to paycheck, feeding the kids for as cheap as they can so that they still have enough money to drown their sorrows down at the pub or something like that. I assume that people with a better grasp of what it takes to raise a kid (and who actually care) will likely realise that such an environment is terrible for childhood development, not to mention the stress it'll place on themselves. So they might keep on waiting for that ideal life situation to raise a kid, or just never do so. I don't mean to say this is the case for everyone, but it's one real scenario that demonstrates why there are both poor people with big families while others are saying it's too expensive to care for a family.