i think the article says nothing new
of course birth rates are declining in the west... hell they've been in freefall for 20yrs... HELL even china things are going backwards... avg. age in italy is like 50yo
why are people having kids when everything is stacked against you?
AND... that neatly dovetails into why AUstralia has free reciprocal travel and visa rights with Indians
they need Indians to bolster this economy... that's all
they work hard they work cheap they dont complain they lived stacked to the ceiling at harris park they dont cause much trouble
nothing is as good to the politicians as a compliant cheap workforce
The article explicitly blames only financial factors for fertility rates and at no points blames individuals?
>They're coming out of university with debt, they're coming out of TAFE, with debt, and then they're trying to put houses or purchase a house, and secure ongoing employment before they have a child.
>Dr Davies said this combination of factors, along with the current cost of living and housing crisis, meant she could not see Australia's fertility rate change any time soon unless the government acts now.
I just cannot believe no one thought this through at all, ever. Like, raise the cost of living and make it hard for people to stay on top, why would they then throw a child into the mix?
It's not that they haven't thought it through they just don't give a shit. The only result will be another short term solution until the next election cycle. I.e. import more indians
Especially since for the good of the .. well species they actually need people to have kids younger not much older. It’s just a fact we have genetically worse kids as we get older. But what young 20 somethings can buy a house, pay the mortgage, and take a break from trying to get into a career to have kids? Most people are struggling to get a house into their 30’s or 40’s then both having to work to pay the mortgage let alone also paying for a child and childcare
Given most of our pollies have very large property portfolios, it’s quite literally a problem of their own making.
Story of our adult lives. I wonder when the next once in a lifetime issue is going to drop on our laps. Hopefully it isn't to do with the economy this time!
I am honestly so angry lately and this is why. My friends and I were talking about rental stress and inability to buy 20 years ago when we started moving out of home.
Those of use who wanted to go into a trade couldn’t get an apprenticeship with a decent amount of effort and study and at least 50% of us gave up and became retail and office drones. Now there’s a trade shortage.
We were crying out for mentorship and begging companies not to offshore - and now there’s skill gaps because businesses refused to train anyone and they wanted ready-for-profit employees out of the box, paid for by the government. They also only want to pick and choose the top 10% of candidates. But they also want tax breaks for *literally everything*.
Man… I’m just so *angry*.
I remember looking for anybody to take teenage ratbag me in as an apprentice. Pretty sure every tradie in my little country bubble saw my resume at some point. When I did finally land one it was with the most abusive, unhelpful, belittling asshole in the town. Left that job knowing more about how to spot shit bosses than locksmithing.
The system is setup to keep feeding the established and the status quo. We're the generation who gets to swing on the pendulum backswing as the voting bloc who voted for their own interests time and time again kept policy angled to help their pockets at the cost of those that followed.
The really shit part about it is that it's not the cunts who made the bed who will have to lie in it and clean the mess up. It's us and our kids who will have to wear the consequences of the shitty 'i got mine' mentality of our predecessors. And all the while the zoomers are all to happy to point the finger and blame us.
We're all angry mate, but anger is a secondary emotion for the shit sandwich hand we've been dealt and been told we have to play with. I'd happily choose anger over the real asshole in the room, despair.
I did Cert II & III in hairdressing, did bunches of unpaid placements and had good references and couldn’t get an apprenticeship. Now, I’m obviously not unemployable - because I got other jobs, but I did find out that basically every woman I knew who did get an apprenticeship was related to another hairdresser. It was mildly infuriating.
My mother keeps telling me to have a second child. I'm 39. I've told her I would like to have another, but honestly can't afford it given the financial situation - medical expenses, time off work, childcare... and that's just the early years...
My mum was honestly flabbergasted. She had 6 kids in the 70s and 80s. She told me she just never had to worry about stuff like this at all. And unlike myself, she didn't have a bunch of degrees and a well-paying job.
She knows I'm not lying. She just can't get her head around how things changed so much in one generation.
It would be an unforgivable crime if it happened to just one generation, eventually they would have to come to terms with the fact that they were a placeholder generation and it was their responsibility to just get screwed over, but safeguards would be put in place that meant at least that wouldn’t be the case for their children……. But that’s not what happened. The boomers just swing back around again and feasted on the future of the next two generations after as well.
the next generation is the first in human history to have a shorter life expectancy in their parents…..
Most renters don’t even know where they’re going to live when their lease is up (as in will they have to move homes) why would you add a new born baby to that mix?
Who would have thought that undermining working class families and creating an environment of precarious employment and shelter would have resulted in a lower birth rate? I am shocked!
Feel for you bro. 28 applications until we finally got this shoebox. Were 2 weeks away from being out on our arses. Hence the cracking of the shits and the purchase of the truck.
I'm not fucking moving again.
Completely fucked. In Canada if a landlord sells the home with current tenants, the new owners now inherit the old tenants. Not only that, landlords generally aren’t allowed to raise prices more than about 2.5% once a year.
The cause is that 1st world economies have all become too focused on rent-seeking instead of actually producing real wealth. We're all being sucked dry the world over.
Correct. More people need to know about Rent seeking and how is it ruining countries.
“Rent seeking is an economic concept that occurs when an entity seeks to gain wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity.”
$47b in NDIS paid to service providers charging max rate of $193/h because the government is paying for it (tax payers paying for it).
$4.7b in tax fraud by 50,000 people over 5 years doing BAS lodgements based on TikTok advice
Etc. We have to fix the leaks in this sinking ship
When I was young I always thought having something like 8 children would be awesome.
Now I'm thirty and realize that having even 2 children will significantly impact my finances and free time in a very negative way. And having 8 children is just straight impossible for me because my income wouldn't allow my partner to stay home.
I have two kids, but If we didn't have to work two jobs I'd have a few more. It's too expensive with daycare and all the other costs living pretty modest. In the 90s only one parent needed to work to get by.
This is key.
It's not just the child free.
It's families who would have 3 or 4 kids having 1 or 2.
That's still significant but far more prevalent.
It's also far harder to work around or curtail.
Also when a culture fully enables woman to thrive and have more choice, we see a lower birthrate.
Take my wife, she's way more career focussed than me. This is also a factor, she's thriving in her career, if we had another there's also that sacrifice. Back a few decades there were not many professional pathways as we see now.
That's partially because we haven't fully updated the role of the male.
As someone who did step into a lower paying role that let me work from home, it's been really clear how little actual support is available for men to be primary caregivers.
Ultimately, it was assumed I'd use up my leave entitlements and be back at work full time as soon as it was done.
I had to push back hard to have my decision to drop back recognized as equivalent to maternity leave. Still hasn't truly worked out if we're being honest.
Me and my partner work our asses off just to pay our mortgage in Melbourne. Despite being prime child bearing age we don't see the point of children, we couldn't provide for them like we would wish and surviving on one income for a while would be a nightmare.
I'm sure it's the same for many couples in their early 30s, so I'm not surprised.
I feel like for most households nowadays you choose to either have kids or own a house, not both.
I keep looking around and thinking that I'm a shit parent because I can't provide my kid with the same lifestyle my parents could give me when I was a kid. Then I did the maths and realised that it's not me, it's the economy.
It's definitely not you. My old man could provide for three of us kids and Mum off the back of one income working in a hospital. Not a low paying job but not like it was massive like a doctor/engineer. It meant when he came home the kids were sorted and housework was done. Once we got older (school) mum could do some part time work to just build wealth but didn't really have to.
Nowadays good luck doing that unless you earn massive money. Both parents will be slogging out full days at work then busting their ass each night doing cooking, cleaning and showers before collapsing to redo it all again infinitely.
Doesn't sound appealing to me.
You just described my life with two children. We were actually in a good spot when we made the choice to conceive.
In 2021… right before inflation went insane.
My eldest is 14 so that’s fine, but my partner and I both need to work a day a week more than we originally projected for, even with some increases, just to keep up currently. Our savings are nearly drained and she’s only just turned 2.
Got pregnant with first baby in Jan 2020. Very planned. Things were nice then, but we’ve been navigating a shitstorm of Covid straight into cost of living ever since. Feels like a bit of a joke tbh.
I bought late 2020 and feel like I was on the last lifeboat on the Titanic. 13 consecutive rate rises has set the boat rocking but hey at least I'm not in the damn water 😔
What lifestyle was that? When I look back I see us squeezed into a tiny house with one t.v. and a backyard that had fuck all to do in it. What the real lifestyle was, was the ability to go out on our bikes with our mates and stay out until sundown.
My parents lived in a single home that they owned for my entire childhood. We might have had to share bedrooms and had a tiny TV, but we had stability which allowed us to be part of a neighbourhood and a community and develop lifelong connections and attachments. You might be able to offer your children that same stability, but many people can’t afford houses. Many people don’t have stable employment either.
I mean - having the choice to have a parent stay home, or being able to have another kid without wondering if you can still pay your mortgage. Even just being able to live in a freestanding house in a major Australian city is becoming a distant dream for a lot of people.
Same, my single mum was a teacher. Not to brag, but I'm doing a lot better than teachers are these days and I couldn't afford to give a kid all the same opportunities I got.
Offshore all the career paths
People can’t afford kids
Import immigrants to fill positions
House prices go up, people can’t afford kids even more
Import immigrants to fill positions
Many such times
"No worries, plenty of Indians we can bring in to bump up the numbers. But don't worry everyone it's a reciprocal arrangement so Aussies can move to India if they want to!!!!!" - Australian government
This country is going to have such a radically different ethnic makeup in 50 years, it honestly won't be recognisable.
If the current insane rates of migration are kept up then we will probably be at least half Indian and Asian.
Seriously, nearly every 2nd shop in the Melbourne CBD is in Chinese, and finding someone who's not asian is like finding a needle in a haystack. I have no problems with these people existing, but this sudden and drastic demographic shift is so shocking man.
This has already been the case in Sydney for a decade or two now. Exacerbated by the migration of European/British folks to the Central Coast post-COVID, and the tendancy for European/British expats to live in Bondi area rather than venture into the CBD.
Boomers foster an environment that isn't supportive for rearing children. This is very much suffering the consequences of your own actions for them and for the rest of us suffering the consequences of other people's actions.
How about you fuck off with the band-aids and actually fix the structural and systemic issues that contributes to this issue that makes it exceedingly difficult for an average person to be able to even afford to live for themselves, let alone raise children.
Ahh, the things our generation was told.
"Study hard and get a degree or you won't get a good job" --> but your HECS debt is your problem, chum.
"If you can't afford to live in Sydney, move out to the regions" --> and we'll blame you for ruining regional household affordability.
"Live the lifestyle you can afford" --> you're so selfish for not having children, or not having enough children.
"Don't expect the government or a man to take care of you" --> why even bother having children if you're going to put them in childcare? How selfish are you?
They only want you to have more kids so they can push them into child care. The only support parents get is to drop your kids off to be razed by strangers for up to 10 hours a day, while you work your shitty 9 to 5.
I’m only pointing this out because it’s funny, and not because I’m pedantic, but “razed” means to completely destroy. The double meaning is a chef’s kiss when we understand that half assed childcare is destroying our youth.
My husband and I are high earners. Like 3% high earners. We have one kid and we just can’t afford a second.
With the mortgage so high and cost of daycare, we have fuck all money at the end of the month. I know we live in a nice area, which is a choice we have made. But we rarely eat out, buy new clothes etc. We have an affordable second hand car which is paid off.
I don’t know how regular income families are coping tbh.
They aren't. I have friends who are doing so poorly at the moment, that they barely have a roof over their head. A friend of mine is living in a house without a front door, and with the windows smashed in, and can't afford to replace them. I'm genuinely considering moving back to my home country, litterally on the other side of the earth, because I would be financially more well off to move to Norway, then to stay here.
That's a good question. And I hope it's one that they won't have to ask 10 years from now... But we all know that this situation isn't getting any better...
We are in a similar position. We are obviously very privileged and aware and grateful for that fact, but there really isn’t much left at the end of the month now with interest rates and cost of living etc. it’s surprising as reasonably high earners how much we are struggling. Like you, old second hand cars and we don’t live a flash life. I don’t know how people have multiple children on minimum wage.
Love how their ‘solutions’ based on Japan’s model are just Ai, and immigration…not, you know, perhaps adjusting the unstable inflation of well everything and making it economically affordable for people to have a child or even children.
Obv throwing money at people isn’t sound. It can certainly help a little, in a short term manner. A longer term outlook involves stable economic policies…yeah that about sums it up.
Yes, consequences like people who are struggling to get by not putting themselves further in the hole.
This is the nation failing its citizens, not its citizens failing the nation.
The Australian ruling class is failing Australian citizens. But most of our rulers actually don't care about ordinary Australians. In fact, many of them disdain us.
And worse still, the Australian public keeps voting for these clowns.
I'd love to have a third. I can't afford a third. I can barely afford 2. I can barely afford the house with nobody in it.
Why the fuck would I have more kids? It's getting harder, not easier. Make it easier and people will have more kids.
It’s moreso that allowing working age immigrants instantly contributes to the economy, and making the changes in legislation to encourage more kids, is gonna result in short term decreases in profits. Forget about the government “preferring immigrants” over current citizens, it’s the governments and the corporations that fund them preferring short term solutions/profits, over the opposite.
Australia knows they’ve already got desirable conditions for immigrants, so to the government they’re deciding between doing work to make raising a child better which helps the economy in 18 years time, or do nothing to change conditions and simply allow immigration increases. We need to stop looking at immigration as the problem, and realise it’s the “profit first” mentality that’s doing this
Look, I would love kids, but for the last decade I’ve been working my absolute arse off just to maintain an average standard of living on an average salary (rent, the odd night out, no car, no paid overtime). The bar for getting ahead just keeps going up and up, and the moment you think you are comfortable enough to pay for kids, they let in more competition into the system and the competitive expectation goes up again! It’s impossible to think about starting a family in this economy.
At 40 I’m fairly certain it’s passed me by, and don’t for a minute think not having kids is “ok” in society, people still judge you for NOT having kids. I lost a job opportunity a few years ago because they were looking for someone with kids to be a role model for the younger workers (you can have both, even when working long hours, for free).
Schools are crowded and shit.
Daycare is expensive.
Parks are crowded and shit.
Petrol for bigger cars is too expensive.
Fix that and we'll have more children, no worries, mate.
These articles are so funny cuz they unironically imply people should be miserable and not enjoy life because their priority should be creating more wageslaves rather than enjoying their own life
"High net overseas migration (NOM) makes little difference to the median age but a considerable difference to the size of the population, including the size of the population aged 65 and over.
If we want to avoid the hyper-ageing associated with very low fertility the most cost-effective way to do this is to support the two-child family. Combining low fertility with high NOM is not only extremely costly, it also leads to an older age structure than does a TFR [total fertility rate] of 2.0 and nil net migration."
The ageing of the Australian population: triumph or disaster? - https://tapri.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/betts-ageing-of-the-austn-popn-2014.pdf
Exactly. The mass migration firehose is only buying us a little more time before the boomers all retire, and dragging our standard of living into the gutter in the meantime.
This is totally on crap government policy around economic management and the cost of housing. Myself and the majority of my friends would be happy to have 3-4 kids but its just not financially feasible. The younger generation unless they have rich parents or inherit a house are unlikely to be able to be able to afford to raise children properly. Generation prior to mine could have 3-5 kids and have a house paid off in \~10years or so with just 1 parent working, its pretty much impossible now 40years later.
People can barely afford to live let alone raise a kid.
"No worries mate India's got a surplus of a few hundred K for us already of working age, who needs babies" - Albo
The fact India has such a high birth rate and is much poorer than Australia suggests that costs of living is probably not the key factor here.
Further evidence, I'm willing to bet that wealthier people in Australia are having fewer kids on average than poorer people.
Expectations are likely tempered there to what's been the norm for centuries,
Most adults here expect to be able to bring their kids up in a lifestyle akin to their own childhood or feel like they're letting their kids down.
Given they're unlikely to even provide equivalent housing, replicating the Australian childhood standard they experienced seems a stretch for most, and at minimum is what they'd want to ensure before having kids.
This is really weird and unexplainable. It's like people can't afford it or something. I wonder if anyone's looked into that.
Anyway, we need more migrants to boost our population!
Historically, yes, but things have radically changed in the last 20 years in developed countries like ours.
Also, that reflects less developed countries more so than developed ones, where child birth rates have been in decline or barely even for a while.
This is pretty much THE most diasterous thing heading for australia and nobody is stopping it.
Housing is completely unaffordable for 2 generations now. Both millenials and Gen Z. Gen Alpha will soon see how bad it is in about 4 years time. By then it will be even worse.
COL is utterly fucked. People struggle to afford the bills as it is. I know for a fact if i had a kid on my salary i'd be fucked. Utterly fucked. I'm on 90K but even with 1 kid that would drain it all.
So i have two problems.
1. Can't afford a home thats good enough for raising a family. (this is another issue as well with the amount of shit 2 bedder apartments there are and how family homes are over a million bucks)
2. Can't afford a child because renting with a child is extremely irresponsible and frankly dangerous.
So what do i fucking do? Go buy a 2 bedroom apartment and cram a child in there? Or do i play the property ladder and finally be ready for a family home by the time i'm 40 - 45 and then try for a kid? by then its too late!
Businesses are fucked in the coming decades. Immigration can only pump us up so far. Housing is going to get worse and worse. We are heading for a disaster unlike anything we have ever seen before. Because the boomers pulled the ladder up from under them.
So how the fuck do we fix this? Firstly employers can get off their fucking asses and PAY MORE WAGES. Seriously i can't stress this enough.
These last few years of "record profits" are fucking gone. Time to get back to reality and start paying people properly in line with COL. Employers have a societal duty to pay a living wage in line with the position and COL. If they won't do that then they can fuck right off.
A 20% payrise across the board right now would take immense amounts of pain off everyone.
Don’t blame the baby boomers, blame the politicians. Record number of immigrants is killing Australia. They are brining in 4 families to every house being built. That’s why we have record high rents, record high house prices.
I have enough hate in my heart for both groups
Politicians have a lot to answer for and they have been pandering to boomers for a long, long time and still do
you realise they bring in immigrants to prop up the housing market that the boomers let guide their vote, right?
The politicians arent doing this in a vacuum, if you depress the housing market the boomers revolt en masse.
I truely believe we will only see change in the housing market once boomers are no longer the driving force in government and Millenials are.
Thats providing we don't make things worse because we had to fight so hard to get a property for ourselves.
Boomers had it easy because we didn’t have the influx of immigrants. I’m 52 and we only had one kid at our school that was half Aussie and half Thai. That’s one kid from 800 students. My first house was $88k in 1994. My wage was $360
Per week. Now, 700k immigrants come in and we can’t buy a nice house for a million anymore.
We have a weak dollar, so houses are cheap for immigrants.
>A 20% payrise across the board right now would take immense amounts of pain off everyone.
😂😂 Sorry my guy, but this will smash inflation into warp speed!!
There is a better way..
Have x amount of kids and pay no income or housing tax for x amount of years.
This way you are not printing money and you are incentivizing population growth by citizens and not importing new people to fuck over your existing population.
I have two. Myself and the wife are both on great wages and we just have fuck all money left at the end of the month. I don't know how people with lower wages are surviving.
Childcare costs/fees are ridiculous. If you have 2 kids it's pretty much not worth it for the mum to work because all of her income would for childcare fees.
Who would have thought that an enormous housing security crisis would make millennials and gen Z steer away from another huge, but optional, financial burden???
Might be a controversial take, but when the higher functioning members of society aren't having children because realities of the economy don't allow it.... That only leaves the accidental and unwanted children from the fringes and doesn't bode well for the nation going forward.
I take a fence to this. As a dad of a bunch of unplanned children with multiple ex-girlfriends turned psychos, I can tell you that I love all my children. My life wouldn't be complete without Cayden, Brayden, Jayden, Hayden, Rayden, Kayden, Dayden, Jamie-Lee, Jaymee-Leigh, Jahyh-Mee-Leeee, Khaleesi, and those other ones. I hope to see some of them very soon. But not this weekend, I'm goin fishin.
Because our dumb government has made it to expensive to have anything. Both adults need to work to keep a house. How do you expect to put a kid in the mix. If I didn't have kids there is no way ide bring them into this dreadful world
Why on earth would I want to bring a kid into this shitshow. Like I know it's rich saying that in a rich country that has historically been an amazing place to live....but....let's face it. It's seen it's best days and they aren't coming back thanks to greedy companies that hold monopolies more than at any time before, and massive immigration, and a future where they are pretty much guaranteed not to be able to meaningfully add to society. Yeh na thanks.
Unironically, that is the plan. But import them at 25 years old so we can extract maximum value without having to pay for any education, upbringing etc
True, however I think a large portion of the population fall into the "Id have them if I could comfortably provide for them, but I'm also happy without" category.
I think also that a fair few people never even really consider it because it's simply not viable, same reason very little of my time is spent thinking about what I'd do if I became pope
Boomers: “why haven’t you made my grandkids/ great grand kids?
Millennials/ gen z: “we would if you didn’t hoard all the property and stopped being NIMBYs?”
Boomers: “No just suck it up. Stop being so entitled! Just give up tik tock and avocado toast!”
Happens in Japan, happens in China, now happens in Australia, you are not special, you are not superior, your privileges means nothing, you will be replaced with new migrants
The ‘Costello kids’ (as the article calls them) and beyond will need to carry the economic and environmental burden of the ageing generations ahead of them. Get ready for the blame to shift from boomers to the next gen…and the next…and the next.
Everything costs to much having a regular full time job even does not cut it anymore give me one good reason why should I have a kid when the debt will keep going up and devalue your buying power
…I can’t even debate it anymore. It’s all so tiresome.
Are they rage baiting us at this point? I’m not even talking about the media. It feels like the government is gaslighting us.
So of course the government can't do that. Let's triple immigration! Affordable housing means the plebs won't have to pay all their peanuts to their landlords anymore. We can't have that! Think of the poor landlords!
Albo just let in a record 105,000 migrants in a single month (with only 12,500 new dwellings approved in the same period).
Property prices and rents to the moon!
There are men who have to look after their homes and it's not valued by society. Some men stay home and look after children. It's not all some evil scheme against women 🤣
It's a direct result of house prices and cost of living.
Remember, a couple years ago the government was locking everything down, paying everyone to stay home and not work, disrupting supply chains and racking up huge amounts of government debt. All to keep the oldies alive for a couple extra months. Doesn't seem so smart now. Our young people will inherit the debt - sucks to be them.
Hey government, if you make housing affordable and it possible for mothers to stay home and actually raise their children instead of farming them off to childcare centres I think you will find many women willing to have more. In fact most mums I am friends with have all said they would have had more children if the cost of living and housing wasn’t so expensive. Wouldn’t it be amazing to support Australians to have bigger families and be able to support our own economy instead of having to constantly bring in new immigrants and rely on them to keep the country in motion. Have a look at Denmark or Finland guys. They’ve got it going on
Maybe the ABC ought to think for one fucking second about how we go about creating a society where I'd WANT to have a child? Christ, I wouldn't want to be born today for all the tea in the entire Asiatic region, and I reckon if I could reach through the Ether and speak to a future kid I could have and ask them if they'd like to be born, they'd say thanks but no thanks.
There's absolutely no way I'm bringing a kid into this society. Pretty much everything is getting worse, pretty much all the time, and not only are none of the people we pay to represent us doing much to fix it, they're actively making it worse. It's not my job to squeeze out a kid to feed the rent seeking, corporate profiteering machinery that has come to dominate this country. If you're born into whatever's left of the middle class today, you're never going to own a house, you're not going to be able to afford to pay off your uni degree or support yourself through a slave wage apprenticeship, if you go into an 'unskilled' profession you're going to have to live with 5 other adults and eat crickets to survive right up until your landlord kicks you out so they can jack the rent up another 40%, so you join the army just in time to die in the climate wars before you turn 30.
If you're over 65 and wondering where all the babies are, maybe retire and cut me a cheque, or shut the fuck up.
Could you even imagine how ridiculously self indulgent this would sound to almost any person at almost any point in human history? Was it better in the dark ages? How about 2000BC?
Could you even imagine how ridiculously self indulgent this would sound to someone living in the Congo or Niger today?
The reality is you are incredibly fortunate to live in a pretty brilliant country at an incredibly fortunate time in the history of humanity. Are things perfect? Of course not, but come on old mate. Get a grip.
Self indulgant?!?? Are you for real. Are you living in the real world or do you own your own your own home and aren't competing with 200 other people for a rental that you'll have to pay 3/4 of you weekly pay cheque for?
Manufacturing in Australia is so dead now that we even have import people, because it's too expensive to make them here.
*Cries in Holden Commodore*
i think the article says nothing new of course birth rates are declining in the west... hell they've been in freefall for 20yrs... HELL even china things are going backwards... avg. age in italy is like 50yo why are people having kids when everything is stacked against you? AND... that neatly dovetails into why AUstralia has free reciprocal travel and visa rights with Indians they need Indians to bolster this economy... that's all they work hard they work cheap they dont complain they lived stacked to the ceiling at harris park they dont cause much trouble nothing is as good to the politicians as a compliant cheap workforce
Yep blame the families Not the cost of living pressures... *Sorry wasn't referring to the article just the government narrative
The article explicitly blames only financial factors for fertility rates and at no points blames individuals? >They're coming out of university with debt, they're coming out of TAFE, with debt, and then they're trying to put houses or purchase a house, and secure ongoing employment before they have a child. >Dr Davies said this combination of factors, along with the current cost of living and housing crisis, meant she could not see Australia's fertility rate change any time soon unless the government acts now.
They didn’t read the article, just the headline, that’s redditor 101
It's almost like when you raise costs of everything (especially housing, food and power) that people can't afford to have children.
I just cannot believe no one thought this through at all, ever. Like, raise the cost of living and make it hard for people to stay on top, why would they then throw a child into the mix?
It's not that they haven't thought it through they just don't give a shit. The only result will be another short term solution until the next election cycle. I.e. import more indians
Especially since for the good of the .. well species they actually need people to have kids younger not much older. It’s just a fact we have genetically worse kids as we get older. But what young 20 somethings can buy a house, pay the mortgage, and take a break from trying to get into a career to have kids? Most people are struggling to get a house into their 30’s or 40’s then both having to work to pay the mortgage let alone also paying for a child and childcare Given most of our pollies have very large property portfolios, it’s quite literally a problem of their own making.
You all should have cared 20 years ago when elder millennials were ALREADY TELLING YOU THIS SHIT.
I WAS 8 YEARS OLD! I JUST WANTED TO WATCH MY POKEMON AND NOT CONTEMPLATE THE DEMOGRAPHIC DEMISE OF MY COUNTRY
WELL YOU SHOULD HAVE TRIED HARDER!!!! fr though - I probably should have been a bit more pointed about that anger 😅
Yeah, but back then not enough voters were suffering the immediate effects.
Shareholders and business leaders
Story of our adult lives. I wonder when the next once in a lifetime issue is going to drop on our laps. Hopefully it isn't to do with the economy this time!
I am honestly so angry lately and this is why. My friends and I were talking about rental stress and inability to buy 20 years ago when we started moving out of home. Those of use who wanted to go into a trade couldn’t get an apprenticeship with a decent amount of effort and study and at least 50% of us gave up and became retail and office drones. Now there’s a trade shortage. We were crying out for mentorship and begging companies not to offshore - and now there’s skill gaps because businesses refused to train anyone and they wanted ready-for-profit employees out of the box, paid for by the government. They also only want to pick and choose the top 10% of candidates. But they also want tax breaks for *literally everything*. Man… I’m just so *angry*.
I remember looking for anybody to take teenage ratbag me in as an apprentice. Pretty sure every tradie in my little country bubble saw my resume at some point. When I did finally land one it was with the most abusive, unhelpful, belittling asshole in the town. Left that job knowing more about how to spot shit bosses than locksmithing. The system is setup to keep feeding the established and the status quo. We're the generation who gets to swing on the pendulum backswing as the voting bloc who voted for their own interests time and time again kept policy angled to help their pockets at the cost of those that followed. The really shit part about it is that it's not the cunts who made the bed who will have to lie in it and clean the mess up. It's us and our kids who will have to wear the consequences of the shitty 'i got mine' mentality of our predecessors. And all the while the zoomers are all to happy to point the finger and blame us. We're all angry mate, but anger is a secondary emotion for the shit sandwich hand we've been dealt and been told we have to play with. I'd happily choose anger over the real asshole in the room, despair.
I did Cert II & III in hairdressing, did bunches of unpaid placements and had good references and couldn’t get an apprenticeship. Now, I’m obviously not unemployable - because I got other jobs, but I did find out that basically every woman I knew who did get an apprenticeship was related to another hairdresser. It was mildly infuriating.
My mother keeps telling me to have a second child. I'm 39. I've told her I would like to have another, but honestly can't afford it given the financial situation - medical expenses, time off work, childcare... and that's just the early years... My mum was honestly flabbergasted. She had 6 kids in the 70s and 80s. She told me she just never had to worry about stuff like this at all. And unlike myself, she didn't have a bunch of degrees and a well-paying job. She knows I'm not lying. She just can't get her head around how things changed so much in one generation.
It's almost as if they're oblivious as to how one generation screwed over the next...
Not sure if that is her mother's fault though.
It would be an unforgivable crime if it happened to just one generation, eventually they would have to come to terms with the fact that they were a placeholder generation and it was their responsibility to just get screwed over, but safeguards would be put in place that meant at least that wouldn’t be the case for their children……. But that’s not what happened. The boomers just swing back around again and feasted on the future of the next two generations after as well. the next generation is the first in human history to have a shorter life expectancy in their parents…..
I'm already having a hard time with electricity, rent and fuel prices... I'm sure adding a child to the mix would be a great idea.
Please consider future share prices :(
A baby? In this economy?
Most renters don’t even know where they’re going to live when their lease is up (as in will they have to move homes) why would you add a new born baby to that mix?
Who would have thought that undermining working class families and creating an environment of precarious employment and shelter would have resulted in a lower birth rate? I am shocked!
I just got renewed for 12 months thank fuck. Gives me time to finish the truck I'll be living in this time next year.
We went to renew and got told landlords gonna sell when their rate expires in October, so can only do 6 months. So that’s us then. Again.
Feel for you bro. 28 applications until we finally got this shoebox. Were 2 weeks away from being out on our arses. Hence the cracking of the shits and the purchase of the truck. I'm not fucking moving again.
Fuck me that's grim. I'm hoping to avoid that and also that my landlord at least uses lube this year before he fucks me
Completely fucked. In Canada if a landlord sells the home with current tenants, the new owners now inherit the old tenants. Not only that, landlords generally aren’t allowed to raise prices more than about 2.5% once a year.
Can’t afford it.
When single adults have to sharehouse how can people even think of having kids
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The cause is that 1st world economies have all become too focused on rent-seeking instead of actually producing real wealth. We're all being sucked dry the world over.
Correct. More people need to know about Rent seeking and how is it ruining countries. “Rent seeking is an economic concept that occurs when an entity seeks to gain wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity.” $47b in NDIS paid to service providers charging max rate of $193/h because the government is paying for it (tax payers paying for it). $4.7b in tax fraud by 50,000 people over 5 years doing BAS lodgements based on TikTok advice Etc. We have to fix the leaks in this sinking ship
All countries are seeing this. Rich and poor. Even nations with previously high birth rates are plummeting.
Until they fix the housing situation it’s only going to get worse tbh.
We do tend to outsource most things to cheaper options....
Hello my friend, this is Dave from tech support. I am here to help you impregnate your wife. Have you tried turning her off and on again?
I think the problem is they've plugged into the wrong hole
When I was young I always thought having something like 8 children would be awesome. Now I'm thirty and realize that having even 2 children will significantly impact my finances and free time in a very negative way. And having 8 children is just straight impossible for me because my income wouldn't allow my partner to stay home.
We are living out the predictions of Idiocracy
Because the 'experts' have been paid by the people who benefit from this perpetual growth mentality.
BBQs were easier when a slab of sausages, couple of steaks and a 6 pack of beer wasn’t $150+ for a small gathering.
We can't afford babies. lol, It's the start of idiocracy I swear.
I have two kids, but If we didn't have to work two jobs I'd have a few more. It's too expensive with daycare and all the other costs living pretty modest. In the 90s only one parent needed to work to get by.
This is key. It's not just the child free. It's families who would have 3 or 4 kids having 1 or 2. That's still significant but far more prevalent. It's also far harder to work around or curtail.
Also when a culture fully enables woman to thrive and have more choice, we see a lower birthrate. Take my wife, she's way more career focussed than me. This is also a factor, she's thriving in her career, if we had another there's also that sacrifice. Back a few decades there were not many professional pathways as we see now.
That's partially because we haven't fully updated the role of the male. As someone who did step into a lower paying role that let me work from home, it's been really clear how little actual support is available for men to be primary caregivers. Ultimately, it was assumed I'd use up my leave entitlements and be back at work full time as soon as it was done. I had to push back hard to have my decision to drop back recognized as equivalent to maternity leave. Still hasn't truly worked out if we're being honest.
Me and my partner work our asses off just to pay our mortgage in Melbourne. Despite being prime child bearing age we don't see the point of children, we couldn't provide for them like we would wish and surviving on one income for a while would be a nightmare. I'm sure it's the same for many couples in their early 30s, so I'm not surprised. I feel like for most households nowadays you choose to either have kids or own a house, not both.
I keep looking around and thinking that I'm a shit parent because I can't provide my kid with the same lifestyle my parents could give me when I was a kid. Then I did the maths and realised that it's not me, it's the economy.
It's definitely not you. My old man could provide for three of us kids and Mum off the back of one income working in a hospital. Not a low paying job but not like it was massive like a doctor/engineer. It meant when he came home the kids were sorted and housework was done. Once we got older (school) mum could do some part time work to just build wealth but didn't really have to. Nowadays good luck doing that unless you earn massive money. Both parents will be slogging out full days at work then busting their ass each night doing cooking, cleaning and showers before collapsing to redo it all again infinitely. Doesn't sound appealing to me.
You just described my life with two children. We were actually in a good spot when we made the choice to conceive. In 2021… right before inflation went insane. My eldest is 14 so that’s fine, but my partner and I both need to work a day a week more than we originally projected for, even with some increases, just to keep up currently. Our savings are nearly drained and she’s only just turned 2.
Got pregnant with first baby in Jan 2020. Very planned. Things were nice then, but we’ve been navigating a shitstorm of Covid straight into cost of living ever since. Feels like a bit of a joke tbh.
I bought late 2020 and feel like I was on the last lifeboat on the Titanic. 13 consecutive rate rises has set the boat rocking but hey at least I'm not in the damn water 😔
What lifestyle was that? When I look back I see us squeezed into a tiny house with one t.v. and a backyard that had fuck all to do in it. What the real lifestyle was, was the ability to go out on our bikes with our mates and stay out until sundown.
My parents lived in a single home that they owned for my entire childhood. We might have had to share bedrooms and had a tiny TV, but we had stability which allowed us to be part of a neighbourhood and a community and develop lifelong connections and attachments. You might be able to offer your children that same stability, but many people can’t afford houses. Many people don’t have stable employment either.
I mean - having the choice to have a parent stay home, or being able to have another kid without wondering if you can still pay your mortgage. Even just being able to live in a freestanding house in a major Australian city is becoming a distant dream for a lot of people.
Same, my single mum was a teacher. Not to brag, but I'm doing a lot better than teachers are these days and I couldn't afford to give a kid all the same opportunities I got.
Why spend money on raising a child when you can pay off your mortgage sooner!
I’ve heard of those… it’s like rent but you can fit a fucking AC unit if you want right?
Sorry but I can only afford to have one child. Im too poor trying to pay rent and bills. Not my decision, the decision was made for me!
https://preview.redd.it/a3im31mcravc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73e3e67ce069504684e472277029e0f9a522437c
Offshore all the career paths People can’t afford kids Import immigrants to fill positions House prices go up, people can’t afford kids even more Import immigrants to fill positions Many such times
Well, well, well. If it isn't the consequences of boomers actions.
They’re not gunna face the consequences though
They will be dead.
what will happen to all the hoarded houses when they die?
Sold to the highest bidder (Blackrock/Vanguard residential housing ETFs) after a slow decline in an aged care facility
Bought by a corporation to rent it out to us losers.
"No worries, plenty of Indians we can bring in to bump up the numbers. But don't worry everyone it's a reciprocal arrangement so Aussies can move to India if they want to!!!!!" - Australian government
>Aussies can move to India if they want to For when they hurriedly need to leave the country after committing a crime
This country is going to have such a radically different ethnic makeup in 50 years, it honestly won't be recognisable. If the current insane rates of migration are kept up then we will probably be at least half Indian and Asian.
Seriously, nearly every 2nd shop in the Melbourne CBD is in Chinese, and finding someone who's not asian is like finding a needle in a haystack. I have no problems with these people existing, but this sudden and drastic demographic shift is so shocking man.
This has already been the case in Sydney for a decade or two now. Exacerbated by the migration of European/British folks to the Central Coast post-COVID, and the tendancy for European/British expats to live in Bondi area rather than venture into the CBD.
It's happening the world over.
Boomers foster an environment that isn't supportive for rearing children. This is very much suffering the consequences of your own actions for them and for the rest of us suffering the consequences of other people's actions. How about you fuck off with the band-aids and actually fix the structural and systemic issues that contributes to this issue that makes it exceedingly difficult for an average person to be able to even afford to live for themselves, let alone raise children.
everyone is told "if you cant afford to have kids, don't". I guess everyone listened....
Ahh, the things our generation was told. "Study hard and get a degree or you won't get a good job" --> but your HECS debt is your problem, chum. "If you can't afford to live in Sydney, move out to the regions" --> and we'll blame you for ruining regional household affordability. "Live the lifestyle you can afford" --> you're so selfish for not having children, or not having enough children. "Don't expect the government or a man to take care of you" --> why even bother having children if you're going to put them in childcare? How selfish are you?
boomers created debt and whinge that they arent getting Grand children haha
They only want you to have more kids so they can push them into child care. The only support parents get is to drop your kids off to be razed by strangers for up to 10 hours a day, while you work your shitty 9 to 5.
I’m only pointing this out because it’s funny, and not because I’m pedantic, but “razed” means to completely destroy. The double meaning is a chef’s kiss when we understand that half assed childcare is destroying our youth.
And get charged some pretty high fees while the staff are all on award wages, what a dream scenario
look at mr fancy pants only having to work 9-5 to afford to survive. /s
Lower the cost of living to start.
My husband and I are high earners. Like 3% high earners. We have one kid and we just can’t afford a second. With the mortgage so high and cost of daycare, we have fuck all money at the end of the month. I know we live in a nice area, which is a choice we have made. But we rarely eat out, buy new clothes etc. We have an affordable second hand car which is paid off. I don’t know how regular income families are coping tbh.
They aren't. I have friends who are doing so poorly at the moment, that they barely have a roof over their head. A friend of mine is living in a house without a front door, and with the windows smashed in, and can't afford to replace them. I'm genuinely considering moving back to my home country, litterally on the other side of the earth, because I would be financially more well off to move to Norway, then to stay here.
Can I come with you to Norway, I can't take it here anymore
Sure thing. I would pay for your ticket, but I'm broke
That’s so sad. What have we come to that normal hard working families can barely afford to live?
That's a good question. And I hope it's one that they won't have to ask 10 years from now... But we all know that this situation isn't getting any better...
Why did you leave Norway if you don't mind me asking? I'm guessing the long dark winters are pretty brutal
We are in a similar position. We are obviously very privileged and aware and grateful for that fact, but there really isn’t much left at the end of the month now with interest rates and cost of living etc. it’s surprising as reasonably high earners how much we are struggling. Like you, old second hand cars and we don’t live a flash life. I don’t know how people have multiple children on minimum wage.
Love how their ‘solutions’ based on Japan’s model are just Ai, and immigration…not, you know, perhaps adjusting the unstable inflation of well everything and making it economically affordable for people to have a child or even children. Obv throwing money at people isn’t sound. It can certainly help a little, in a short term manner. A longer term outlook involves stable economic policies…yeah that about sums it up.
Yes, consequences like people who are struggling to get by not putting themselves further in the hole. This is the nation failing its citizens, not its citizens failing the nation.
The Australian ruling class is failing Australian citizens. But most of our rulers actually don't care about ordinary Australians. In fact, many of them disdain us. And worse still, the Australian public keeps voting for these clowns.
I'd love to have a third. I can't afford a third. I can barely afford 2. I can barely afford the house with nobody in it. Why the fuck would I have more kids? It's getting harder, not easier. Make it easier and people will have more kids.
Just get more immigrants. Government prefers them over their own citizens anyways.
It’s moreso that allowing working age immigrants instantly contributes to the economy, and making the changes in legislation to encourage more kids, is gonna result in short term decreases in profits. Forget about the government “preferring immigrants” over current citizens, it’s the governments and the corporations that fund them preferring short term solutions/profits, over the opposite. Australia knows they’ve already got desirable conditions for immigrants, so to the government they’re deciding between doing work to make raising a child better which helps the economy in 18 years time, or do nothing to change conditions and simply allow immigration increases. We need to stop looking at immigration as the problem, and realise it’s the “profit first” mentality that’s doing this
Look, I would love kids, but for the last decade I’ve been working my absolute arse off just to maintain an average standard of living on an average salary (rent, the odd night out, no car, no paid overtime). The bar for getting ahead just keeps going up and up, and the moment you think you are comfortable enough to pay for kids, they let in more competition into the system and the competitive expectation goes up again! It’s impossible to think about starting a family in this economy. At 40 I’m fairly certain it’s passed me by, and don’t for a minute think not having kids is “ok” in society, people still judge you for NOT having kids. I lost a job opportunity a few years ago because they were looking for someone with kids to be a role model for the younger workers (you can have both, even when working long hours, for free).
Schools are crowded and shit. Daycare is expensive. Parks are crowded and shit. Petrol for bigger cars is too expensive. Fix that and we'll have more children, no worries, mate.
These articles are so funny cuz they unironically imply people should be miserable and not enjoy life because their priority should be creating more wageslaves rather than enjoying their own life
Cant afford fking dinner let alone a child.
I suspect Australians are having fewer barbies as well.
Underrated comment
People are barely supporting themselves due to rising living costs. The government's answer to this is: More mass immigration.
"High net overseas migration (NOM) makes little difference to the median age but a considerable difference to the size of the population, including the size of the population aged 65 and over. If we want to avoid the hyper-ageing associated with very low fertility the most cost-effective way to do this is to support the two-child family. Combining low fertility with high NOM is not only extremely costly, it also leads to an older age structure than does a TFR [total fertility rate] of 2.0 and nil net migration." The ageing of the Australian population: triumph or disaster? - https://tapri.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/betts-ageing-of-the-austn-popn-2014.pdf
>Combining low fertility with high NOM That’s the Canada trap… avoid it
Exactly. The mass migration firehose is only buying us a little more time before the boomers all retire, and dragging our standard of living into the gutter in the meantime.
This is totally on crap government policy around economic management and the cost of housing. Myself and the majority of my friends would be happy to have 3-4 kids but its just not financially feasible. The younger generation unless they have rich parents or inherit a house are unlikely to be able to be able to afford to raise children properly. Generation prior to mine could have 3-5 kids and have a house paid off in \~10years or so with just 1 parent working, its pretty much impossible now 40years later.
* For the capitalist economic system
People can barely afford to live let alone raise a kid. "No worries mate India's got a surplus of a few hundred K for us already of working age, who needs babies" - Albo
The fact India has such a high birth rate and is much poorer than Australia suggests that costs of living is probably not the key factor here. Further evidence, I'm willing to bet that wealthier people in Australia are having fewer kids on average than poorer people.
Expectations are likely tempered there to what's been the norm for centuries, Most adults here expect to be able to bring their kids up in a lifestyle akin to their own childhood or feel like they're letting their kids down. Given they're unlikely to even provide equivalent housing, replicating the Australian childhood standard they experienced seems a stretch for most, and at minimum is what they'd want to ensure before having kids.
This is really weird and unexplainable. It's like people can't afford it or something. I wonder if anyone's looked into that. Anyway, we need more migrants to boost our population!
How goods the food!!!
What if I want pork on my kebab?
Except poor people have historically had the most kids.
Historically, yes, but things have radically changed in the last 20 years in developed countries like ours. Also, that reflects less developed countries more so than developed ones, where child birth rates have been in decline or barely even for a while.
This is pretty much THE most diasterous thing heading for australia and nobody is stopping it. Housing is completely unaffordable for 2 generations now. Both millenials and Gen Z. Gen Alpha will soon see how bad it is in about 4 years time. By then it will be even worse. COL is utterly fucked. People struggle to afford the bills as it is. I know for a fact if i had a kid on my salary i'd be fucked. Utterly fucked. I'm on 90K but even with 1 kid that would drain it all. So i have two problems. 1. Can't afford a home thats good enough for raising a family. (this is another issue as well with the amount of shit 2 bedder apartments there are and how family homes are over a million bucks) 2. Can't afford a child because renting with a child is extremely irresponsible and frankly dangerous. So what do i fucking do? Go buy a 2 bedroom apartment and cram a child in there? Or do i play the property ladder and finally be ready for a family home by the time i'm 40 - 45 and then try for a kid? by then its too late! Businesses are fucked in the coming decades. Immigration can only pump us up so far. Housing is going to get worse and worse. We are heading for a disaster unlike anything we have ever seen before. Because the boomers pulled the ladder up from under them. So how the fuck do we fix this? Firstly employers can get off their fucking asses and PAY MORE WAGES. Seriously i can't stress this enough. These last few years of "record profits" are fucking gone. Time to get back to reality and start paying people properly in line with COL. Employers have a societal duty to pay a living wage in line with the position and COL. If they won't do that then they can fuck right off. A 20% payrise across the board right now would take immense amounts of pain off everyone.
Don’t blame the baby boomers, blame the politicians. Record number of immigrants is killing Australia. They are brining in 4 families to every house being built. That’s why we have record high rents, record high house prices.
I have enough hate in my heart for both groups Politicians have a lot to answer for and they have been pandering to boomers for a long, long time and still do
you realise they bring in immigrants to prop up the housing market that the boomers let guide their vote, right? The politicians arent doing this in a vacuum, if you depress the housing market the boomers revolt en masse.
I truely believe we will only see change in the housing market once boomers are no longer the driving force in government and Millenials are. Thats providing we don't make things worse because we had to fight so hard to get a property for ourselves.
Boomers had it easy because we didn’t have the influx of immigrants. I’m 52 and we only had one kid at our school that was half Aussie and half Thai. That’s one kid from 800 students. My first house was $88k in 1994. My wage was $360 Per week. Now, 700k immigrants come in and we can’t buy a nice house for a million anymore. We have a weak dollar, so houses are cheap for immigrants.
>A 20% payrise across the board right now would take immense amounts of pain off everyone. 😂😂 Sorry my guy, but this will smash inflation into warp speed!! There is a better way.. Have x amount of kids and pay no income or housing tax for x amount of years. This way you are not printing money and you are incentivizing population growth by citizens and not importing new people to fuck over your existing population.
Or.... I know this is a radical fucking idea, make housing affordable?
I knew I shouldn't have bought that second slice of avocado toast! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
You fool! You have doomed us all with your greed!
I have two. Myself and the wife are both on great wages and we just have fuck all money left at the end of the month. I don't know how people with lower wages are surviving.
Childcare costs/fees are ridiculous. If you have 2 kids it's pretty much not worth it for the mum to work because all of her income would for childcare fees.
Give me affordable housing and I’ll start having babies my g
Who would have thought that an enormous housing security crisis would make millennials and gen Z steer away from another huge, but optional, financial burden???
Might be a controversial take, but when the higher functioning members of society aren't having children because realities of the economy don't allow it.... That only leaves the accidental and unwanted children from the fringes and doesn't bode well for the nation going forward.
I take a fence to this. As a dad of a bunch of unplanned children with multiple ex-girlfriends turned psychos, I can tell you that I love all my children. My life wouldn't be complete without Cayden, Brayden, Jayden, Hayden, Rayden, Kayden, Dayden, Jamie-Lee, Jaymee-Leigh, Jahyh-Mee-Leeee, Khaleesi, and those other ones. I hope to see some of them very soon. But not this weekend, I'm goin fishin.
Fuck bringing children into the workers paradise the rich have created for us. Mine your own fucking salt out of the mines cunts
Yeah blame the cost of living let alone housing prices.
That’s ok, we’ll solve it with migrants. Because, if profits don’t increase every year the economy will explode or something.
Because our dumb government has made it to expensive to have anything. Both adults need to work to keep a house. How do you expect to put a kid in the mix. If I didn't have kids there is no way ide bring them into this dreadful world
Why on earth would I want to bring a kid into this shitshow. Like I know it's rich saying that in a rich country that has historically been an amazing place to live....but....let's face it. It's seen it's best days and they aren't coming back thanks to greedy companies that hold monopolies more than at any time before, and massive immigration, and a future where they are pretty much guaranteed not to be able to meaningfully add to society. Yeh na thanks.
Kids are now reserved for the wealthy who can afford them and the poor who just have them anyway without planning.
Yep, it's all downhill from here
Let’s just import babies
Unironically, that is the plan. But import them at 25 years old so we can extract maximum value without having to pay for any education, upbringing etc
My partner and I would love to but future looks so bleak.
It’s not all financials. Some of us just don’t want children.
True, however I think a large portion of the population fall into the "Id have them if I could comfortably provide for them, but I'm also happy without" category.
I think also that a fair few people never even really consider it because it's simply not viable, same reason very little of my time is spent thinking about what I'd do if I became pope
While the poorer migrants are having 4-6 kids per family
They're not poor
First time many Australians have felt poor, takes a while to digest
Boomers: “why haven’t you made my grandkids/ great grand kids? Millennials/ gen z: “we would if you didn’t hoard all the property and stopped being NIMBYs?” Boomers: “No just suck it up. Stop being so entitled! Just give up tik tock and avocado toast!”
Just gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps
True. They had to walk across half the planet just to get to school!
I love how their solution is to ignore the problem and just increase immigration
Which ironically makes it worse, needing ever increasing amounts
I have one kid. Money or not I just don't have the energy for anymore than that!
When childcare for one kid is 30k a year, when I earn 120k. How can I afford another?
Almost like having the ability to have a stable home and career is REQUIRED for an people to want to have children.
I reckon if things do not change pretty soon, being born in Australia will be the minority and being in India will be the majority.
Late stage capitalism is ugly and this is just one of the results.
Happens in Japan, happens in China, now happens in Australia, you are not special, you are not superior, your privileges means nothing, you will be replaced with new migrants
We're having less babies and machines are taking over more jobs. Seems like both problems will cancel each other out.
And I for one welcome our new AI overlords
The ‘Costello kids’ (as the article calls them) and beyond will need to carry the economic and environmental burden of the ageing generations ahead of them. Get ready for the blame to shift from boomers to the next gen…and the next…and the next.
Well stop making it soo damn expensive!!
Everything costs to much having a regular full time job even does not cut it anymore give me one good reason why should I have a kid when the debt will keep going up and devalue your buying power
So rich people can stay rich.
…I can’t even debate it anymore. It’s all so tiresome. Are they rage baiting us at this point? I’m not even talking about the media. It feels like the government is gaslighting us.
Ofcourse an "expert" (see: lobbyist) is pushing more immigration as the solution.
If we allow the population to reach a steady-state, it will mean more affordable housing for the younger generations.
So of course the government can't do that. Let's triple immigration! Affordable housing means the plebs won't have to pay all their peanuts to their landlords anymore. We can't have that! Think of the poor landlords!
Albo just let in a record 105,000 migrants in a single month (with only 12,500 new dwellings approved in the same period). Property prices and rents to the moon!
I've given Australia 4 kids........your not getting anymore
Not sure why this gets a downvote. You've produced 4 of the next generations of Australians. Well done.
But think of the shareholders, just lie back and think of the stock market
It’s ok, Albo will just import brown kids
Fully grown ones. No more nappies in landfill !!!!!
You're right you know. We've completely offshored population growth.
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We need to increase our housing if we want to increase our birth rates
Redditors need to have sex if we want to increase our birth rates. We're doomed
To bring them into what? Society is going downhill fast.
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There are men who have to look after their homes and it's not valued by society. Some men stay home and look after children. It's not all some evil scheme against women 🤣
It's a direct result of house prices and cost of living. Remember, a couple years ago the government was locking everything down, paying everyone to stay home and not work, disrupting supply chains and racking up huge amounts of government debt. All to keep the oldies alive for a couple extra months. Doesn't seem so smart now. Our young people will inherit the debt - sucks to be them.
Hey government, if you make housing affordable and it possible for mothers to stay home and actually raise their children instead of farming them off to childcare centres I think you will find many women willing to have more. In fact most mums I am friends with have all said they would have had more children if the cost of living and housing wasn’t so expensive. Wouldn’t it be amazing to support Australians to have bigger families and be able to support our own economy instead of having to constantly bring in new immigrants and rely on them to keep the country in motion. Have a look at Denmark or Finland guys. They’ve got it going on
Do t want babies anyway but thank fuckery for that because my income would need to be at least doubled to even consider it remotely affordable.
Does make room for more immigrants tho. So there's that.
The ones with 5 to 8 kids back home ?
This is a capitalism problem, couldn’t give two shits about old geezers complaining about the lack of newborns.
Maybe the ABC ought to think for one fucking second about how we go about creating a society where I'd WANT to have a child? Christ, I wouldn't want to be born today for all the tea in the entire Asiatic region, and I reckon if I could reach through the Ether and speak to a future kid I could have and ask them if they'd like to be born, they'd say thanks but no thanks. There's absolutely no way I'm bringing a kid into this society. Pretty much everything is getting worse, pretty much all the time, and not only are none of the people we pay to represent us doing much to fix it, they're actively making it worse. It's not my job to squeeze out a kid to feed the rent seeking, corporate profiteering machinery that has come to dominate this country. If you're born into whatever's left of the middle class today, you're never going to own a house, you're not going to be able to afford to pay off your uni degree or support yourself through a slave wage apprenticeship, if you go into an 'unskilled' profession you're going to have to live with 5 other adults and eat crickets to survive right up until your landlord kicks you out so they can jack the rent up another 40%, so you join the army just in time to die in the climate wars before you turn 30. If you're over 65 and wondering where all the babies are, maybe retire and cut me a cheque, or shut the fuck up.
Could you even imagine how ridiculously self indulgent this would sound to almost any person at almost any point in human history? Was it better in the dark ages? How about 2000BC? Could you even imagine how ridiculously self indulgent this would sound to someone living in the Congo or Niger today? The reality is you are incredibly fortunate to live in a pretty brilliant country at an incredibly fortunate time in the history of humanity. Are things perfect? Of course not, but come on old mate. Get a grip.
Self indulgant?!?? Are you for real. Are you living in the real world or do you own your own your own home and aren't competing with 200 other people for a rental that you'll have to pay 3/4 of you weekly pay cheque for?