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Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges

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Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast

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Speaker 1: is recorded on.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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Speaker 1: I'm Claire Murphy. This is Mamma MIA's daily news podcast,

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Speaker 1: The Quickie. The world is experiencing a baby shortage and

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Speaker 1: Australia is right up there with one of the lowest,

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Speaker 1: only twenty nine countries in the entire world factoring a

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Speaker 1: lower birth rate than us. But while governments go into

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Speaker 1: panic mode and wonder what the future holds for society

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Speaker 1: when there's no new generations to replace the older here

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Speaker 1: in Australia and many of those countries low down on

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Speaker 1: that birth rate list, the triangle family is rising. Today

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Speaker 1: we find out the reasons for the triangle family dynamic

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Speaker 1: becoming the norm and why the single child stigma is

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Speaker 1: still persistent in twenty twenty four. But first, here's the

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Speaker 1: news headlines for Monday, October twenty eight. Queensland has a

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Speaker 1: new premier and a new government, with the Liberal National

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Speaker 1: Coalition beating Labor at the polls on Saturday. LNP leader

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Speaker 1: David Chrysifully will visit Government House today where he and

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Speaker 1: his deputy leader will be sworn into interim leadership roles

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Speaker 1: after former Premier Stephen Miles conceded defeat. With almost seventy

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Speaker 1: percent of the vote counted by yesterday afternoon, the LNP

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Speaker 1: are on track to win forty eight seats ahead of

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Speaker 1: Labour on twenty eight, With twelve still in doubt. Forty

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Speaker 1: seven are needed to claim a majority government. Mister Chrisifully

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Speaker 1: will become Queensland's first Liberal leader since Campbell Newman won

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Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. Labour has governed the state for thirty

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Speaker 1: of the past thirty five years. A mon Ash Center

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Speaker 1: for Health Research report has found that people in both

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Speaker 1: smaller and larger bodies are impacted by wait stigma when

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Speaker 1: it comes to the treatment of polycystic ovarian syndrome. The

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Speaker 1: authors of the report reviewed sixty eight papers and agreed

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Speaker 1: education for doctors was inadequate and affecting the quality of

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Speaker 1: care and outcomes for women dealing with PCOS, which can

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Speaker 1: cause menstruation, issues in fertility, excess body hair, and a

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Speaker 1: high risk of cardio metabolic conditions like diabetes and weight gain.

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Speaker 1: The authors found that doctors focus on weight either simply

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Speaker 1: telling those with PCOS to lose it if they're bigger,

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Speaker 1: or presuming those in a smaller body are healthy and

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Speaker 1: so a denied lifestyle management of the condition is negatively

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Speaker 1: impacting care. American far right commentator Candice Owens will not

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Speaker 1: be coming to Australia Immigration Minister Tony Burke canceling her visa.

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Speaker 1: Owens is known for her controversial commentary, from downplaying the

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Speaker 1: impact of the Holocaust to claims that Muslim people's started

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Speaker 1: slavery and suggesting that Israel was behind the assassination of JFK.

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Speaker 1: Mister Burke saying Australia's national interest is best served when

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Speaker 1: Candice Owens is somewhere else. The Candice Owans Live Tour

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Speaker 1: was said to start in Melbourne next month. Adele has

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Speaker 1: broken down in tears after spotting Canadian superstar Selene Dion

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Speaker 1: in the audience of her show in Vegas. Adele walked

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Speaker 1: through the crowd as she sings, sometimes spotting people she

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Speaker 1: knows or other famous faces, but when she saw Selene Dion,

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Speaker 1: she began to cry, leaning over the race Elle and

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Speaker 1: hugging her. Dion then seen also wiping away tears as

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Speaker 1: she's hugged by the person sitting next to her. It

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Speaker 1: took Adele a few moments to compose herself after the interaction,

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Speaker 1: calling for the audience to give it up for Miss

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Speaker 1: Selene Dion as she tried to get the show back

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Speaker 1: on track. Adele has long shown her love for Dion's work,

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Speaker 1: referring to her as Queen Selene. That's what's going on

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Speaker 1: in the world today, next triangle. Families are becoming more

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Speaker 1: the normal than the outlier. Are you one of them?

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Speaker 1: Are you in the one and done club? That means

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Speaker 1: when you choose to have just one child and not

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Speaker 1: provide them with a stack of siblings. It's a choice

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Speaker 1: more Australian families are making and it has the government concerned.

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Speaker 1: Australia's birthrate has hit a record low. According to the

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Speaker 1: latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. In twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty three, the total fertility rate felled to just one

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Speaker 1: point five babies per woman. That's down from one point

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Speaker 1: six to three in twenty twenty two. This represents a

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Speaker 1: significant decline of four point six percent in just one

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Speaker 1: year and continues a long term downward trend in Australia's

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Speaker 1: fertility rate. The ABS reported that there were just two

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Speaker 1: hundred and eighty six thousand, nine hundred and ninety eight

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Speaker 1: berths registered in Australia in twenty twenty three. Now, this

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Speaker 1: decline in births has been observed across most states and territories,

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Speaker 1: with Way recording the highest fertility rate at one point

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Speaker 1: five seven babies per woman, followed closely by New South

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Speaker 1: Wales and the Northern Territory at one point five five.

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Speaker 1: The ACT had the lowest rate across the country at

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Speaker 1: just one point three to one. Fider Cho, head of

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Speaker 1: Demography Statistics of the ABS, noted that there's been a

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Speaker 1: long term decline in younger women having children, coupled with

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Speaker 1: a shift towards women having children later in life. This

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Speaker 1: trend has resulted in the median age of mothers rising

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Speaker 1: to thirty one point nine years. The fertility rate for

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Speaker 1: women aged thirty to thirty four remains the highest of

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Speaker 1: any age group, followed by women age twenty five to

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Speaker 1: twenty nine, but interestingly, the fertility rate for women aged

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Speaker 1: forty to forty four has almost doubled compared to thirty

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Speaker 1: years ago, reflecting the trend towards later childbearing. Experts, though,

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Speaker 1: are warning that this record low birth rate could have

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Speaker 1: far reaching consequences for Australia's workforce, health system and cultural makeup.

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Speaker 1: Demographer Amanda Davies suggests that the current generation of Australians

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Speaker 1: in their twenties, often referred to as the Costello Kids,

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Speaker 1: and now making family planning decisions in a very different

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Speaker 1: economic climate. The Costello Kids, if you're not across it,

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Speaker 1: refers to former Liberal Treasurer Peter Costello, who back in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and four asked the young people of Australia

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Speaker 1: to get baby making, saying this have.

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Speaker 3: One for mum, one for dead, and one for the country.

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Speaker 1: His baby Bonus scheme gave families a lump sum payment

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Speaker 1: of three thousand dollars for every child born from July one,

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Speaker 1: two thousand and four, and that did lead to an

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Speaker 1: uptick in the rate of Australian births, but back in

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Speaker 1: the early two thousands Australia was a much more economically

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Speaker 1: stable place to live. Treasurer Jim Chalmers told the ABC's

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Speaker 1: Q and A program that the Albanezi government is doing

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Speaker 1: as much as they can to incentivize women to have

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Speaker 1: more children and get them to the two point one

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Speaker 1: babies per woman that they need to keep the country rolling.

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Speaker 4: I don't want to tell people what they should be

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Speaker 4: doing with their own family decisions, but I do want

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Speaker 4: to make it easier. And so when you look at

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Speaker 4: right across our government, you know the way that we've

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Speaker 4: expanded paper and a leave, the way that we're now

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Speaker 4: paying super or soon we'll be paying super on payper

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Speaker 4: and a leave, The way that we've invested billions of

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Speaker 4: dollars in early childhood education and care, the way that

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Speaker 4: we're boosting wages in care economy sectors dominated by women.

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Speaker 4: All of these things are about trying to make it

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Speaker 4: easier for people to make that decision if they want to.

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Speaker 1: But economists agree that choosing to have children is based

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Speaker 1: on more than just getting enough money. It's a signal

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Speaker 1: of social confidence too. The shift towards smaller families also

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Speaker 1: reflects changing social dynamics. Parenting expert doctor Rosina MacAlpine points

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Speaker 1: out that the lack of support for working parents, including

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Speaker 1: the absence of extended family networks and grandparents working longer,

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Speaker 1: makes it challenging to raise multiple children in Australia in

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Some families are also factoring in the

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Speaker 1: potential of passing on genetics that aren't favorable for their

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Speaker 1: potential future children. Others say their mental health as a

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Speaker 1: barrier to becoming a parent too. There are also those

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Speaker 1: at cite the persistent high levels of domestic and family

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Speaker 1: violence in this country as a reason for not wanting

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Speaker 1: to bring more children into their relationship, and of course,

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Speaker 1: there are those who struggle with fertility. As a result

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Speaker 1: of this, the rise of the triangle family two parents

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Speaker 1: and one child is becoming increasingly common. Over the past

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Speaker 1: forty years, the number of single child families has almost doubled.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty one, only seven point six percent of

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Speaker 1: Australian women aged forty to forty four had just one child.

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Speaker 1: By twenty twenty one, this figure has risen to sixteen

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Speaker 1: point three percent. This trend towards smaller families is not

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Speaker 1: unique to Australia either. In the European Union, triangle families

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Speaker 1: now represent the predominant family structure, accounting for forty nine

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Speaker 1: percent of all households with children. The impact of this

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Speaker 1: demographic shift on Australian society could be substantial. With fewer

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Speaker 1: children being born, there are concerns about future workforce shortages

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Speaker 1: and the ability to support an aging population. The cultural

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Speaker 1: makeup of Australia may change too, with migration likely to

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Speaker 1: play an increasingly important role in addressing labor shortages. The

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Speaker 1: rise of triangle families is challenging long held stereotypes about

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Speaker 1: only children, though many parents are now advocating for an

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Speaker 1: end to the stigma surrounding single child families. They argue

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Speaker 1: that having one child allows them to maintain their lifestyle,

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Speaker 1: pursue career goals, and provide better financial support for their child,

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Speaker 1: but the stigma still exists. Naraine's family is a triangle family.

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Speaker 1: She is the mum of one child by choice, and

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Speaker 1: she says that she quite often comes up against this

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Speaker 1: idea that having one child is somehow selfish, or that

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Speaker 1: she's doing her child a disservice.

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Speaker 2: Oh, one hundred percent. Right now, I'm standing at my

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Speaker 2: daughter's school and I'm surrounded by parents, and these parents

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Speaker 2: are always sort of making me feel that where it's like, oh,

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Speaker 2: you've just got the one child, and doesn't she get lonely?

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Speaker 2: And you know what if something happens to you that would.

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Speaker 3: Be so sad?

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Speaker 1: Does any of that stuff around single child's syndrome worry you,

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Speaker 1: you know, this idea that they won't be as well socialized,

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Speaker 1: or they'll end up lonely, or that they'll be spoiled. Like,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure that any of that is actually based

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Speaker 1: in any kind of science, But does any of that

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Speaker 1: linger for you as a concern?

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Speaker 2: Definitely. When I made the decision to not have a kid, though,

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Speaker 2: I sort of went over all those thoughts and those feelings,

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Speaker 2: and I had to address each one of them when

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Speaker 2: making that decision. And so when those thoughts do come

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Speaker 2: up where I'm sort of judging myself and I have

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Speaker 2: fear of, oh, what if she's alone, I sort of

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Speaker 2: referred back to that conversation I had with myself where

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Speaker 2: I was like, well, if I'm raising a child that

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Speaker 2: is confident within herself, secure within herself, has really strong foundations,

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Speaker 2: she'll be okay no matter what, with or without siblings.

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Speaker 1: Why did you decide to stop at one kid? Was

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Speaker 1: it a financial choice for you or a environmental choice?

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Speaker 1: What facted in for you?

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Speaker 2: Initially? We actually didn't plan to have kids at all,

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Speaker 2: So when I felt pregnant, it was quite a surprise

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Speaker 2: and we thought, okay, well, this is destiny. It's meant

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Speaker 2: to be and because we didn't want to have any more,

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Speaker 2: we'll just sort of have the one and see what happens.

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Speaker 2: We have our daughter and it's the most amazing experience.

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Speaker 2: We just never had that feeling of we want another one.

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Speaker 2: We also ask her all the time. I actually checked

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Speaker 2: in with her two weeks ago and she said, Mom,

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Speaker 2: why do you keep asking me this? I already told

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Speaker 2: you know, and I was like, Oh, that's awkward. I

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Speaker 2: was like, I was just double checking. Sorry.

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Speaker 1: Would there be anything that, say, the Australian government could

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Speaker 1: offer you that would change your mind? Any incentive?

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Speaker 2: No, definitely not. I think when it comes to kids,

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Speaker 2: like bringing a human being into this world, you need

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Speaker 2: to really want it and be prepared to dedicate your

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Speaker 2: time and energy to that human being, and so an

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Speaker 2: incentive would not push us towards it in any way.

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Speaker 1: And do you think that your daughter is at any

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Speaker 1: disadvantage being an only child out amongst her peers who

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Speaker 1: might have siblings. Do you think that she's at all disadvantaged?

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Speaker 2: Ah, this is a really hard one because all my

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Speaker 2: friends have multiple children. I really try not to compare

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Speaker 2: the circumstances because everything works for different people. But from

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Speaker 2: what I see with my daughter in our home and

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Speaker 2: our family is she actually has a massive advantage being

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Speaker 2: the only She gets all our time, all our energy.

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Speaker 2: I really feel like it's a big advantage.

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Speaker 1: Doctor macawplin says the stereotype of only children being lonely

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Speaker 1: and spoiled with inferious social skills is based on flawed

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Speaker 1: science and is simply untrue. Mark McCrindle is the founder

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Speaker 1: and principal at McCrindle. Mark, What have you found out

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Speaker 1: that is the main driving factor for parents deciding to

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Speaker 1: only have one child? Is it the cost of living

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Speaker 1: crisis right now?

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Speaker 3: Well, it's one of the big factors.

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Speaker 5: We are looking at declining births that has been going

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Speaker 5: for a couple decades now, and so the low birth

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Speaker 5: rates the lowest on record in Australia other than the

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Speaker 5: COVID live have been a longer term trend. It comes

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Speaker 5: about because women are in education later and their starting careers.

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Speaker 3: For longer before taking time out for family.

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Speaker 5: So there are some social factors and some longer term

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Speaker 5: factors as well, but the fact that the birth rates

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Speaker 5: have continued to drop and even now the birth numbers,

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Speaker 5: one of those key factors is cost of living.

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Speaker 1: How does the modern Australian lifestyle factor into dropping birth rates.

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Speaker 5: Well, the reason that they continue to drop is because

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Speaker 5: of those broader factors as well. That is that couples

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Speaker 5: in Australia look to do their nesting before they start children.

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Speaker 3: That's just the tradition that we see. That is to say, they.

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Speaker 5: Want some level of financial stability before they bring children

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Speaker 5: into the world, and they like to ensure that they

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Speaker 5: have the funds there to raise the children. Cost of

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Speaker 5: raising children now is more than it used to be

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Speaker 5: because there's childcare costs, and then there's education costs outside

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Speaker 5: of schooling, and of course just getting all of the

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Speaker 5: items ready for a child and setting up their room, etc.

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Speaker 3: Is quite expensive.

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Speaker 5: Many couples move from more densified living apartments to larger

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Speaker 5: places as well, and so there's a lot that takes

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Speaker 5: place which involve finances as couples start to think about

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Speaker 5: having children.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned nesting there. I'm guessing house prices does impact

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Speaker 1: the birth rates. With prices being so high in at

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Speaker 1: taking so much longer for us to get home, I'm

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Speaker 1: guessing that time to nest then comes later in life.

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Speaker 5: Yes, it sure has, and so all of those factors

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Speaker 5: that used to mark the shift from adolescence to independence

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Speaker 5: used to take place in the early twenties, and we

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Speaker 5: go back a generation and that's when people were coupling

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Speaker 5: up and then moving into the family years in the

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Speaker 5: mid twenties. Now it's shifted into the early thirties. The

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Speaker 5: mediing age of a woman giving birth now is almost

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Speaker 5: thirty two. And that's not just because people want to

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Speaker 5: start careers and university is running later and people like

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Speaker 5: to establish some level of direction in employment before families,

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Speaker 5: but also it's the cost of that and it does

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Speaker 5: involve significant life change, and people are really wanting to

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Speaker 5: make sure that they've got all of that sorted before

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Speaker 5: they start the families, and so that's one factor to it.

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Speaker 1: Just a few weeks ago, Treasury Jim Chalmers said that

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Speaker 1: we should be having more children. What interest does the

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Speaker 1: government have in my decision to have kids.

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Speaker 5: Well, Australia's on a rising aging trajectory because we're living longer,

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Speaker 5: which is great, but as we have fewer children, it

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Speaker 5: means the midpoint in our population gets older and older.

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Speaker 5: If we don't have the younger generation coming through in

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Speaker 5: sufficient numbers, then there's going to be shortfalls in employment.

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Speaker 5: There's going to be shortfalls in ensuring that the income

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Speaker 5: tax and the workforce is able to fund the increasing

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Speaker 5: costs of age care, health care and pension. So we

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Speaker 5: need the diversity of generations in a population otherwise it

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Speaker 5: has economic impacts and it has social impact. Now, what

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Speaker 5: Australia has been doing for some decades is leaning more

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Speaker 5: heavily on immigration to plug those gaps in workforce, but

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Speaker 5: there's only so much that can be done there. In fact,

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Speaker 5: the medium term trend had been about sixty percent of

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Speaker 5: our population growth through migration and about forty percent through

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Speaker 5: natural increase, which is births.

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Speaker 3: Those numbers have now blown out.

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Speaker 5: Eighty three percent of our growth is through immigration overseas arrivals.

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Speaker 5: Just seventeen percent over the last couple of years is

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Speaker 5: through birth, So it tells us that the birth's growth

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Speaker 5: has been dialed so low, in fact, your lowest birth

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Speaker 5: rate ever recorded currently, that.

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Speaker 3: We're having to lean more and more on migration.

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Speaker 5: And while that will do something with fixing and plugging

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Speaker 5: those employment gaps, it doesn't do anything to provide that

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Speaker 5: next generation moving through the schools and moving through society

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Speaker 5: coming of age, having that shaping of society that young

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Speaker 5: people do. And of course by just purely relying on

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Speaker 5: overseas migration doesn't do much to reduce the average age

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Speaker 5: compared to a birth, which has a massive impact on

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Speaker 5: age and bringing that down compared to someone arriving in

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Speaker 5: their thirties or forties.

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Speaker 1: Aside from employment and migration, though, could there be other

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Speaker 1: areas that are impacted by declining birth rates.

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Speaker 5: Yes, if we don't have that next generation of families

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Speaker 5: coming through in numbers, we again get suburbs and areas

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Speaker 5: that become monogenerational. They become less rich in terms of

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Speaker 5: all of the age groups in society and our communities.

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Speaker 5: Our suburbs are at their best when they're real melting

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Speaker 5: pot of all of those age groups and generations. That

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Speaker 5: keeps a society healthy in terms of the future and

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Speaker 5: the generations and the economics, as we said, but just

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Speaker 5: also that social interaction. We look around the world and

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Speaker 5: see countries that have such low birth rates that they

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Speaker 5: move to population contraction, and that has an issue, you know,

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Speaker 5: Japan being a leading example of that, but we see

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Speaker 5: it right across Western Europe. So births are really a

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Speaker 5: vote on the future.

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Speaker 1: Other countries are experiencing the fallout from low birth rates too.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned Japan there, how are they dealing with it.

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Speaker 5: Couples, particularly women, are so engaged in the workforce and

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Speaker 5: in Korea, and the costs of children so much that

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Speaker 5: couples are delaying it and not even entering into it.

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Speaker 5: I think we've got the same challenge in Australia that

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Speaker 5: if people do leave the family forming too late, and

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Speaker 5: as I said, we're almost at thirty two for mum

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Speaker 5: and thirty four for a dad in Australia. Currently, you

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Speaker 5: can just run out of time, the biological clock. There's

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Speaker 5: only so much that can be done to that. Assistant

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Speaker 5: fertility has helped only one age group increase in fertility,

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Speaker 5: and that's the forty plus age group. But people can

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Speaker 5: run out of time, and that's why we have more

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Speaker 5: smaller families. It's not necessarily that people didn't want more,

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Speaker 5: but for many by the time they have their first

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Speaker 5: and get sorted and start to think about a second

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Speaker 5: or beyond, they just find it more difficult.

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Speaker 1: There's such a stigma around only children. Is there any

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Speaker 1: basis in fact that backs up the theory that solo

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Speaker 1: children have issues where those with siblings don't like that

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Speaker 1: they're not as well socialized or spoiled.

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Speaker 5: No, I think most people who've got an opinion about

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Speaker 5: a solo child or an only child or a triangle

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Speaker 5: family probably bring their perceptions from their own experience and

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Speaker 5: from what they think it might be like to.

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Speaker 3: Grow up as a solo child.

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Speaker 5: So I think a lot of it is more amotive

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Speaker 5: and their own perspective than what might be provable. But

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Speaker 5: it's not that a lot of the families that have

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Speaker 5: one child have decided on that.

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Speaker 3: Many just recognize that.

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Speaker 5: If they did have some assistant fertility there, that's expensive

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Speaker 5: and maybe there's just not the funds to continue that,

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Speaker 5: or maybe after a lot of trial, they had the

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Speaker 5: one but they haven't been able to have more, and

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Speaker 5: again because of the costs of getting support, they're shut

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Speaker 5: out from that. So it's not as though we can

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Speaker 5: think that the number of children people have is purely

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Speaker 5: by choice. In fact, in a lot of circumstances most

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Speaker 5: people's experience, it just sort of happens. There's not that

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Speaker 5: perfect plan to have the numbers that people want. It

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Speaker 5: just rolls out that way. But it is leading to

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Speaker 5: the low berths.

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Speaker 3: That we have.

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Speaker 5: It's not that we've got a rise in the number

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Speaker 5: of women remaining childless in Australia. The reason we've got

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Speaker 5: this record low birth rate is that in the past

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Speaker 5: the couples that might have had four having three, and

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Speaker 5: those that might have had three having two, and many

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Speaker 5: that in the past might have had two having one.

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Speaker 5: So it's smaller families rather than more women having none.

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Speaker 5: That is the current decline in births.

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Speaker 1: When you look at the graph, sorry graph if you're

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Speaker 1: in New South Wales the ABS recently posted on social

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Speaker 1: media of the declining birth rate in Australia. There's a

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Speaker 1: peak in the late nineteen fifties early sixties. That's the

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Speaker 1: tail end of the baby boomer generation, whose parents had

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Speaker 1: known the hardship of World War and who were making

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Speaker 1: hay while the sunshine. Then in the late seventies early

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Speaker 1: eighties the birth rate began to nosedive. So what happened

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Speaker 1: back then birth control did. While the pill was made

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Speaker 1: available to Australian women from nineteen sixty one, its prescription

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Speaker 1: was under the control of doctors and tended on their

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Speaker 1: attitude to birth control. Many wouldn't allow it for unmarried women.

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Speaker 1: But those attitudes began to change as the years passed

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Speaker 1: and government changes like removing the sales tax on contraceptives

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two then putting the pill on the

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Speaker 1: Pharmaceutical Benefit scheme made it much more accessible. The use

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Speaker 1: of the pill increased from thirty five percent in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy seven in women age twenty to twenty four to

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Speaker 1: forty five percent in nineteen eighty three, and then fifty

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Speaker 1: two percent in nineteen eighty nine. The development in surgical

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Speaker 1: techniques around viseectomes and triple ligation also meant they became

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Speaker 1: more widely acceptable too, and with choice, women and men

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Speaker 1: choose smaller families, careers and hobbies, and travel and life

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Speaker 1: outside of parenting. So this trend started way before the

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Speaker 1: cost of living crisis hit, and with the exception of

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Speaker 1: the baby bonus in the early two thousands and the

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Speaker 1: pandemic baby spike in twenty twenty two, it doesn't look

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Speaker 1: like there's much that's going to reverse the trend. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for taking time to feed your mind today. The Quikie

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Speaker 1: is produced by me Claire Murphy, our executive producer Taylor

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Speaker 1: Strano and senior producer Grace Roubree, with audio production by

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Speaker 1: Teagan Sadler.