Speaker 1: Already and this is the daily This is the Daily
Speaker 1: ohs oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday,
Speaker 2: the thirteenth of June. I'm Zara Seidler.
Speaker 3: I'm Billy fitz Simon's.
Speaker 2: This week, the United Nations released its most comprehensive report
Speaker 2: yet on the state of fertility around the world. The
Speaker 2: report confirmed the global fertility rates are dropping and that
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily for the reasons we're often told it is.
Speaker 2: In today's podcast, we'll unpack the findings of the UN report,
Speaker 2: how this is manifesting here in Australia, and how governments
Speaker 2: can address this issue moving forward.
Speaker 1: Zara, when we talk about fertility rates, I feel like
Speaker 1: we often talk about specific countries. So I know, in Japan,
Speaker 1: for example, we often talk about the declining birth rates
Speaker 1: the big way. But it's interesting that this report is
Speaker 1: looking at the globe as a whole and what is
Speaker 1: happening absolutely everywhere with the fertility rate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So wh it's such a big report because it
Speaker 2: is looking at the state of play across a bunch
Speaker 2: of different countries from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and it's finding
Speaker 2: a similar kind of through line or a similar trend.
Speaker 3: So what did it find?
Speaker 2: So essentially the shorthands is that it found that global
Speaker 2: fertility rates are declining across the board. According to that
Speaker 2: same report, the human population is projected to reach its
Speaker 2: peak within the century, but then from there it's going
Speaker 2: to fall. So I feel like for our whole life,
Speaker 2: we've spoken about how you know, we have more people
Speaker 2: on Earth than ever an overpopulation, But what this is
Speaker 2: saying is that actually that human population is going to fall.
Speaker 2: One in four people are currently living in a country
Speaker 2: where the size of the population is understood to have
Speaker 2: already hit that peak, and so I think it's helpful
Speaker 2: to paint the picture here in Australia, where our birth
Speaker 2: rate has been falling for decades, and I know you
Speaker 2: and I have spoken about this on the pod before.
Speaker 2: If we go back to the fifties, the birth rate
Speaker 2: in Australia was three point five babies per woman. In
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, that birth rate was two point
Speaker 2: zero two children per woman, and then in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three it was one point five children per woman.
Speaker 3: Wow, so it has dropped quite significantly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's only going in one way, and it's pretty
Speaker 2: clear that there is this trend over the last few
Speaker 2: decades of women in Australia having less children.
Speaker 1: I think it's helpful whenever we're talking about a declining
Speaker 1: birth rate to understand why it can be considered an issue,
Speaker 1: particularly an economic issue, which you don't often think about,
Speaker 1: you know, women having babies as something that is global
Speaker 1: or even on the specific country level, an economic issue
Speaker 1: for that country.
Speaker 3: But it kind of is.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's something you and I strangely find
Speaker 2: ourselves speaking about a lot, and certainly when you've sat
Speaker 2: down and interviewed treasurers or shadow treasures, this is something
Speaker 2: that's come up. The reason it's an issue is that
Speaker 2: basically we have an aging population at the same time
Speaker 2: as we have a shrinking working population. And so if
Speaker 2: I just unpack that, really clearly we've got people getting
Speaker 2: older and living for longer, which is great. I mean
Speaker 2: it depends on who you are. Objectively a good thing
Speaker 2: living standards, but fewer people that are then of working
Speaker 2: age and who are contributing to the economy, and so
Speaker 2: the consequence of that is that there is this increased
Speaker 2: economic pressure on governments. So, like I just said, that's
Speaker 2: because we have less people being able to work and
Speaker 2: pay taxes, which is the key way that the government
Speaker 2: raises money, and more people in that aging population who
Speaker 2: require assistance, whether that be health services, the pension, you know,
Speaker 2: whatever it is that they need in their old age.
Speaker 2: There is this incongruence between where the money is coming
Speaker 2: from and what it's being spent on. And the other
Speaker 2: thing I think that isn't spoken about very often though,
Speaker 2: is the fact that it means there's a lot of
Speaker 2: pressure on younger people to care for old people and
Speaker 2: the economic burden that that can carry if they have
Speaker 2: to leave the workforce for that.
Speaker 1: So to put it really simply, and maybe this is
Speaker 1: too simplistic, but we have less people paying taxes and
Speaker 1: more people needing tax payer money.
Speaker 3: Correct, got it.
Speaker 1: So we know that it can be a bad thing
Speaker 1: for economies. What did this report tell us about why
Speaker 1: there is this declining birth rate?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I mean this is the golden question and
Speaker 2: it's certainly the one that this UN report was trying
Speaker 2: to answer. I'll just quickly run through what this report
Speaker 2: actually was because I'd certainly never seen anything of its kind. Essentially,
Speaker 2: it was undertaken by the UN Population Fund and It
Speaker 2: surveyed fourteen thousand people across fourteen different countries about their
Speaker 2: fertility intentions. The final report was called The Real Fertility Crisis,
Speaker 2: and it was a very very long read. So I
Speaker 2: guess I'll just give you a too long didn't read,
Speaker 2: which is to say that the fertility rate is declining
Speaker 2: not because people don't want to have children, but rather
Speaker 2: that they are prevented from making the decision to have
Speaker 2: children because of external factors. So let me just really
Speaker 2: clearly simplify that the UN isn't saying that there is
Speaker 2: a fertility crisis because young people don't want to have kids.
Speaker 2: What they're saying is hundreds of millions of people aren't
Speaker 2: having the number of children they want because the conditions
Speaker 2: just aren't right for them to be able to do that.
Speaker 2: And before I go any further, Billy, I do just
Speaker 2: want to highlight that, of course, there are factors, including infertility,
Speaker 2: that can prevent people very clearly from starting families, and
Speaker 2: that's really really significant. But for the sake of this discussion,
Speaker 2: the UN is broadly looking at the fertility rate and
Speaker 2: it's trying to understand if it's because people want less
Speaker 2: children or because they feel like they have to have
Speaker 2: less children, and essentially the report finds the latter, it's
Speaker 2: that they feel like they have to have less children.
Speaker 2: The UN Population Fund director said, it's often assumed or
Speaker 2: implied that fertility rates are the results of free choice. Fortunately,
Speaker 2: that is not the whole picture.
Speaker 3: That is so interesting and relatable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it is, and I mean I feel
Speaker 2: like people anecdotally probably know this to be the case.
Speaker 2: But this is the first kind of report that has
Speaker 2: told us, or at least has the data to support
Speaker 2: the fact that it's not that. Broadly, across the board,
Speaker 2: young people are saying no, we're not interested in having children.
Speaker 2: And it was really interesting. The report compiled a bunch
Speaker 2: of headlines from across the globe that said like young
Speaker 2: feminist women no longer want children, or they've gone a
Speaker 2: different path than all these headlines, and it was like, no,
Speaker 2: this isn't actually the issue that when you ask people
Speaker 2: is what's coming back. It's that there are these conditions
Speaker 2: that are not allowing them to realize what it is
Speaker 2: they might actually want.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have so many more questions, but just quickly,
Speaker 1: here is a message from our spots up Zara, you
Speaker 1: mentioned that there were some other reasons why women and
Speaker 1: couples are choosing to not have more children.
Speaker 3: What are those other reasons.
Speaker 2: We'll go first through the economic reasons, because those make
Speaker 2: up kind of the first three main reasons, the first
Speaker 2: being that thirty nine percent of respondents said that financial
Speaker 2: limitation had affected or would affect their ability to achieve
Speaker 2: their desired family size. Twenty one percent said that it
Speaker 2: was about job insecurity, nineteen percent said it was about housing.
Speaker 2: So clearly that economic context that people find themselves in
Speaker 2: is playing a really, really big role. Another interesting stat
Speaker 2: from the report, and it's certainly something I feel like
Speaker 2: comes up in a lot of conversations I'm a part
Speaker 2: of or I'm listening to, is that one in five
Speaker 2: people said fears about the future, including things like climate change, wars,
Speaker 2: and pandemics, would lead them or has led them to
Speaker 2: having fewer children than desired. Interestingly, only twelve percent of
Speaker 2: people cited infertility or difficulty conceiving for not having the
Speaker 2: number of children that they wanted, and I was quite
Speaker 2: surprised by that number, to be honest, it was much
Speaker 2: lower than I thought it would be. And of course,
Speaker 2: this is just one report. This hasn't spoken to every
Speaker 2: woman everywhere, but I just thought that that was interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, often when I think about infertility, I think that
Speaker 1: in the past ten years or so, we have come
Speaker 1: leaps and bounds when it comes to having really open
Speaker 1: discussions about the issues surrounding infertility and how it can
Speaker 1: feel to be a woman going through that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I guess maybe it's not the case that more
Speaker 1: women are experiencing infertility, but it's the case that more
Speaker 1: women are talking about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And what the report actually highlighted was that one
Speaker 2: of the big areas of concern is the inaccessibility of
Speaker 2: these fertility services or the assistance that they can provide.
Speaker 2: That while there are many in the world that can
Speaker 2: access them, for so many they are still inaccessible and
Speaker 2: that's one of the things that they think need to
Speaker 2: change for more people to have the family or the
Speaker 2: size of the family that they want.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we know there's a declining fertility rate. We
Speaker 1: know that's a problem, and we know why it's happening.
Speaker 1: Did the un have any ideas about how to solve
Speaker 1: this issue?
Speaker 2: Well, the report was basically saying that attempts that governments
Speaker 2: are making around the world, things like a baby bonus
Speaker 2: or an incentive to have a baby isn't actually getting
Speaker 2: to the root cause of the issue, and that they
Speaker 2: don't believe that that's actually going to move the dial
Speaker 2: at all. I want to focus in on one example
Speaker 2: of these sorts of incentives that we've actually spoken about
Speaker 2: on this podcast before, but it's a local version, so
Speaker 2: I think it's quite interesting, and that was the idea
Speaker 2: put forward by Matt Canavan. He's a National Senator. His
Speaker 2: recommendation was to give couples and one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: loan for their first home when they have their first child,
Speaker 2: and then if they have three children that the loan
Speaker 2: would be wiped And while shockingly the UN didn't specifically
Speaker 2: address Man Canavan, I don't think his own party has
Speaker 2: addressed that proposal. However, broadly, the UN did talk about
Speaker 2: this this movement of you know, we've seen it in Hungary,
Speaker 2: we've seen it in other countries, of offering specific incentives,
Speaker 2: especially to women to have more children. What it was
Speaker 2: saying was investing in structural changes is the only thing
Speaker 2: that is going to shift the dial. And when I
Speaker 2: say structural changes, we're talking about things like paid parental leave,
Speaker 2: the accessibility of child's care, addressing housing issues, and ensuring
Speaker 2: access to reproductive health services. They're saying, if you offer
Speaker 2: those bonuses, that's not going to do anything. Do all
Speaker 2: of these things and maybe then we'll see the fertility
Speaker 2: rate rise again in the opposite way that it's been
Speaker 2: going for decades.
Speaker 1: So they're saying, you can't fix this long term issue
Speaker 1: with short term solutions exactly.
Speaker 2: And again I feel like, you know, even if I
Speaker 2: look at our comment section anytime we report on these
Speaker 2: sorts of bonuses or incentives, like everyone in our comment
Speaker 2: section is saying the same thing. That know, this wouldn't
Speaker 2: be enough to actually shift the dial. But I think
Speaker 2: having the un come out and have surveyed so many
Speaker 2: people across the world and to have come to this conclusion,
Speaker 2: it'll be interesting to see if any governments pick up
Speaker 2: on it. You know, of course, here in Australia there
Speaker 2: have been a lot of pieces of legislation when it
Speaker 2: comes to paper rental leave and childcare, but perhaps not
Speaker 2: this like suite of reforms aimed at raising the fertility rate.
Speaker 2: It can be a bit of a hot topic and
Speaker 2: people feel very strongly when they hear, especially male politicians
Speaker 2: talking about it, so definitely an interesting one to see
Speaker 2: if governments take up this kind of call to action.
Speaker 3: Zara, thank you for taking us through that.
Speaker 1: It was one hundred and sixty page report, so we
Speaker 1: very much appreciate you reading every single word and then
Speaker 1: summarizing it for us here. And thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening to this episode of The Daily os. We'll
Speaker 1: be back again this afternoon with your evening headlines, but
Speaker 1: until then, have a great day.
Speaker 3: My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 3: bunge Lung Chalcotin woman from Gadigal Country. The Daily oz
Speaker 3: acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of
Speaker 3: the Gadigal people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and
Speaker 3: Torrestrate island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 3: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.