How the fuck are people expected to have kids when they need to work work work just to live. So many people can barely support themselves, much less be expected to support two other individuals. And it is two because all these articles keep harping on about the "replacement rate". No one in power seems to want to do anything to actually help aside from funneling more taxes into corporate leeches with increasing subsidies.

To jump on my soapbox for a minute, we as a society need to recognise that times have changed.

Once upon a time, most households survived on a single income, with one partner (normally the mother) staying at home to do the necessary work there and raise the children.

This is fundamentally no longer the case.

Now both partners have to work, perhaps multiple jobs.
The grandparents still have to work.
The parents may have had to move away to find that work.

Full time child care should be free for tax payers.
Yes that will be expensive.
Yes people will rort it.

I don't care.

It pays a societal benefit to have educated, well fed, healthy children.
Even the poorest ones.
Perhaps especially the poorest ones.

With the cost of living crises combined with the housing shortage I think everyone saw this coming. Some people have full time jobs and live in tents because they cannot get a house. Anyone who is surprised by the baby shortage is most likely rich and never had to experience what the rest of the population goes through.

The news in the 21st century is irritating. Yes we are aware that fertility rates are low in Australia and other countries, and the reasons are well publicised. Rehashing is unhelpful and not even informative.

What would be more interesting to read is successful strategies implemented by other countries on how to deal with it.

Population booms in good times hence the boomers during the post-war economic expansion. It isn't a Children of Men scenario. Parenting is one of if not the biggest economic decision people face in their lives.

No single issue like free child care will change things. Unless we see real wage growth again and better affordability of housing and utilities we won't see higher birth rates. It is a huge sacrifice for many people and turns very stressful in a bad economy.

Yep. We aren't even young but despite our combined income going up by 40% in the last 2 years, we are still having to cut back on everything after having a kid.

With the cost of available childcare at $140 per day, we only get back $20.

So we are basically stuck. So daycare is like $ 18 an hour. If you earn minimum wage or like in aged care you would be fucked. We are super lucky my partner earns a good wage.

We definitely have to cut back on a lot of things to get by lately but unless I'm earning $60+ an hour, childcare isn't worth it. It's super not worth it if you have to take them home sick and still pay...

just try to do what I can freelance when the baby sleeps. But like shit..if we just scrapped the stage 3 tax cuts..

Real wage growth has been stagnant since the late 70's, while productivity and corporate profits have skyrocketed. If we deal with that I think people might be more inclined to have kids.

Opening the floodgates lets you wring every cent from your existing workforce without threatening future profits. You even get the workforce in now rather than 20 years from now and they'll pay big when they get here for the privledge of joining

Why would you have a kid knowing they will need to live in a world that will be increasingly inhospitable throughout their lifetime? This is just a basic ethics test - do you care enough about other people, including those yet to be born, to sacrifice your right to have children? The correct answer is pretty obvious.