Australia's fertility rate has fallen to its lowest level on record, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics reporting 1.48 births per woman in 2024. This marks a continued downward trend after a slight increase to 1.69 in 2021, attributed to COVID-19 lockdowns.
The total fertility rate, which represents the average number of children an Australian woman is expected to have between the ages of 15 and 49, has been below the replacement level of 2.1 since the mid-1970s. Liz Allen, a demographer at the Australian National University, expressed concern that the rate is approaching a critical tipping point, warning that a decline below 1.4 could become "very difficult to reverse."
"That decline then gets to 1.3, then the decline gets to 1.2 … and once we hit 1.2, it's done. You're done like a dinner," Allen told News24, drawing parallels to countries like South Korea and Japan, which face significant demographic challenges due to low birth rates.
South Korea's fertility rate dropped below 1.4 in 1999 and reached 0.75 in 2024, while Japan's rate fell to a record low of 1.14 in 2025. Allen cited housing affordability, economic security, gender equality, and climate change as contributing factors to Australia's declining fertility. She suggested that the "hurdles to having much-wanted children are insurmountable," leading to "fear about tomorrow, uncertainty and a loss of hope."
Another factor contributing to the decline is the increasing age of first-time mothers. The median age for first-time mothers rose from 25.8 years in 1975 to 32.1 years in 2024.
Economic and Workforce Implications
Professor Roger Wilkins, deputy director of the Melbourne Institute, suggested that a robust immigration program could help mitigate the impact of an aging population. However, he cautioned that migration alone cannot fully address the economic and labor consequences.
Wilkins warned that labor shortages are likely to worsen as the proportion of Australians in their prime working years shrinks. This decline could put further pressure on the nation's ability to sustain living standards and economic growth, as employment is closely tied to the size of the working-age population. "We will see a decline in the share of the population that is in those prime working ages and ultimately that's where economic output and economic growth comes from," Wilkins stated.
Futurologist Rocky Scopelliti pointed to Japan's experience, where technology, including AI-enabled robotics, has been increasingly used to address workforce gaps in sectors like health and aged care. "Australia cannot solve an ageing population through migration alone, and it cannot solve it through robots alone," Scopelliti said, advising Australia to learn from Japan's approach but not to simply replicate it.
Allen emphasized that the fundamental solution lies in government policy reform to provide citizens with hope for a stable and affordable future. "The type of change and reform that would be required to policy settings is unpalatable to the Australian electorate," she noted. "But the problem is now that if no change is made, the mess continues and the mess will not only continue but it gets worse."
