Australia: Fewer babies – women are having fewer children than ever

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Births
Australia: Significantly fewer babies – fertility rate lower than ever

A mother caresses her newborn baby’s hand. Their number is falling in Australia.

© Johan BEN AZZOUZ / Picture Alliance

The fertility rate in Australia has hit rock bottom. Australian women have an average of 1.58 children.

The trend continues. Fewer and fewer babies are born in Australia. The number of registered births fell below 300,000 for the first time in 14 years, reports “The Guardian”. In 2020, 294,369 children were born in Australia. A decrease of 3.7 percent compared to the previous year. In 2019, the decrease was 3 percent.

The fertility rate in Australia has fallen to an all-time low of 1.58 babies per woman. It peaked in 1962 with 3.55 babies per woman.

Cited among the reasons for the decline “The Guardian” Beidar Cho, the director of demography for the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Fewer births could largely be attributed to a year marked by the upheaval caused by Covid-19, Cho said.

Longer-term statistical data also showed that fewer young women have children, while the number of women between 40 and 44 giving birth has tripled in the past few decades.

Fewer babies in Australia, more in Norway and Finland

The number of births declined not only in Australia during the pandemic. This development can be observed in several countries. As the “Southgerman newspaper” reported with reference to studies, seven of 22 rich industrialized countries experienced a sharp decline in births of up to nine percent in 2020. Including Italy, Spain and Hungary.

Most other countries, including Germany, would have been within the statistical error range with a slight increase or decrease. In Germany, women gave birth to an average of 1.53 children in 2020.

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The picture is different in Norway and Finland. Here, women gave birth to more children in the pandemic. According to the “Süddeutscher Zeitung”, the Norwegian statistical office SSB recorded a nationwide increase in births of almost five percent in the first half of 2021 compared to the previous year.

sources: “The Guardian”, “Southgerman newspaper”

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