The cost-of-living crunch and housing crisis have been blamed for a sharp drop in the number of Perth families having kids.
Just more than 25,000 babies were born in metropolitan Perth in 2023 — plummeting 6 per cent compared to four years ago. That’s despite a 2021 spike chalked up to a COVID-era boom.
Data from KPMG shows births across the country fell last year at the harshest rate in half a century, down 4.6 per cent.
“We haven’t seen such a sharp drop in births in Australia since the period of economic stagflation in the 1970s, which coincided with the initial widespread adoption of the contraceptive pill,” KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley said.
He said economic uncertainty was likely a big factor in declining birth rates last year.
“It’s a perfect storm when it comes to births,” Mr Rawnsley said.
The rising cost of living was adding pressure to household finances and forcing Perth residents to delay starting or expanding their families, he said.
Housing affordability and availability were also likely to be big factors, Mr Rawnsley said.
Prices for consumer basics have surged following pandemic stimulus while residential tenancy vacancies plumbed depths below 1 per cent, leaving families struggling to find homes.
Western Australia’s population has surged towards 3 million but the growth has largely been driven by overseas migration.
There’s also a dramatic split in new bub numbers across the city.
The growing outer suburbs mortgage belt posted the highest fertility rates, with Alkimos and Eglinton ranked in the top spot.
The average family in those suburbs has 2.4 kids — with 350 newborns in 2023 alone.
Byford, Yanchep, Baldivis and Brabham were also on KPMG’s top 10 list, with young parents pushed to the edges of the metro area to find affordable housing.
But inner Perth and the wealthy western suburbs delivered far fewer babies.
Only 95 kids were born across the elite postcode of Dalkeith, Nedlands and Crawley — where the average family has only one child.
Dalkeith resident Dominique Carlson’s third child, Cooper, is just nine weeks old.
Dr Carlson said the rising cost of daycare was making it more expensive to have kids.
“I’m taking longer off work and that’s probably a cost of living decision,” she told The West Australian.
“It’s cheaper for me to stay at home and to look after the other two (children) than to have them in daycare or have nannies like we have in the past.
“We always wanted to have three but it definitely impacted the timing of it, and the planning around it.”
Childcare costs have lifted about 10 per cent in Perth in the five years to March despite growing subsidy programs from the Commonwealth, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Dr Carlson said most of her friends were stopping at one child or at most were having two — adding that the Federal Government needed to keep improving support for working mothers.
“I have lots of friends who are having to reduce work hours . . . to stay at home and look after their children,” she said.
“The decision to go back to work is a really difficult one because childcare is so expensive.”
But the “baby recession” is not just a problem in Perth.
Births in Regional WA fell 8 per cent over four years.
Sydney was down 8.6 per cent and Melbourne 7.3 per cent. Those were sharper falls than other cities, which Mr Rawnsley said added to the evidence that housing affordability was a major factor.
Many suburbs around the inner cities of Sydney and Melbourne had fertility rates below one, with residents largely living in high-density apartments.
Those postcodes have plenty of international students and young professionals, too, pushing down birth rates.
Australia’s performance is much stronger than many other developed countries, although perhaps not for long.
Japan’s fertility rate hit 1.21 in 2023, according to the financial newspaper Nikkei Asia — meaning most couples are only having a single child.
Italy’s birth rate is at a similarly low level.
It follows a broader trend across the world of birth rates dropping for decades, especially as nations get richer and women have greater opportunities to work and study.
Mr Rawnsley said Australia had defied that global trend until recently.
“Five to 10 years ago, Australia was in a really good space,” he said, with a fertility rate of around 2. That’s roughly the level needed to keep the population from falling.
“We’ve dropped off, heading towards 1.5 pretty quickly.”
That would mean the country has fewer workers in 20 years time.
“People should be concerned about that longer term,” he said.
It’s an issue that’s long been on the mind of the Federal Government, which faces a smaller pool of taxpayers to cover the health and care costs of an ageing population.