Lockdowns produce national ‘baby bump’

AUSTRALIA has bounced back from its historic low birth rate to record a ‘baby bump’ – nine months after lockdowns and work-from-home orders.

Many parts of the country are on the baby bandwagon.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show a national “total fertility rate” of 1.7 babies per woman in 2021 – up from 1.59 in 2020 and 1.67 in 2019.

University of Queensland population geographer Elin Charles-Edwards said the uptick in births was probably a result of people being at home and spending time together.

“Australia is in a long-term downwards trend for fertility, as are many developed countries in the world, but we have seen a bit of a baby bump associated with Covid,” she said.

“We expected fertility might drop as people delay having children, but it seems the opposite has been true. It’s possibly due to the fact people were working from home and spending more time with their partners so they had more exposure to the risk of pregnancy.”

Although it was positive to see a rise in Australia’s 2021 birthrate data, Dr CharlesEdwards said national fertility was nowhere near where it needed to be.

“The magic number demographers use is replacement fertility, so 2.1 (babies per woman),” she said.

“That’s one for mum, one for dad, and a bit extra to offset mortality risk.

“No developed country has been able to maintain that.

“It’s (caused by) a whole raft of things … we are at school and university for longer, it takes longer to save for a house, we partner later so we have children later, and that obviously impacts our overall family size.”

Dr Charles-Edwards, who had a second child herself in 2021, said there was no easy solution to population decline but gender equity was a crucial part of the equation.

“It’s about things like allowing women to transition back to the workforce, good childcare subsidies, extended maternity leave, understanding how even the domestic sphere is in terms of distribution of work,” she said.

“Ultimately, if we don’t have replacement fertility, our population will disappear, but that is a couple of hundred years down the track.

“In the immediate term, (the consequence is) fewer workers in relation to dependants.”

For those who do grow their families, the federal budget proposed cheaper child care and more paid parental leave to help out with the financial burden.