Australia’s young people have “lost hope in tomorrow”, abandoning plans to have children out of “grim” fear for the future, a leading demographer says.
As we reported earlier, the country’s fertility rate fell to its lowest level on record of just 1.5.
Australian National University demographer Dr Liz Allen.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Australian National University demographer Dr Liz Allen, speaking on ABC Afternoon Briefing, repeated that while some people wanted children, the challenges before them —housing affordability, economic security, gender inequality and climate change — were “insurmountable”.
“That is quite grim because it means that we have lost hope in tomorrow,” Allen said.
For others, the choice was deliberate, with young people pointing to the “climate inferno” and saying, “I don’t want children growing up in hell”, she said.
Demographers also considered a different figure of how many children people wanted to have, compared with how many they ended up having, Allen said.
“That is a whole other figure when we look at, how many [children] do people actually have? And therein lies the human catastrophe,” she said.
“It’s not like we’ve seen this drastic drop in the last couple of years of the intended or desired number of children. It is just that we are not able to see these life wishes accomplished.”
The most important thing the federal government could do to encourage Australians to have more children was to allay fears of tomorrow and about the future being insecure, Allen said.
“We can turn that around really quickly, and I call on political leaders and those in a position of power to commentate on these things,” she said.
“We need to restore hope.”
You can read our story about the fertility rate from Shane Wright and Lachlan Abbott, who also spoke to Allen, here.
Read the full article here
