Australia’s fertility rate is expected to fall to an all-time low of 1.42 in 2025-26, continuing a long-term decline.
The projection comes from the Federal Goverment’s Centre for Population’s latest report.
The fertility rate is the average number of children a woman is expected to have during her reproductive years.
The Centre said the decline has been driven by people delaying having children until they are older, and having fewer children once they do.
Fertility rate
In Australia, fertility rates have declined steadily since their peak in the 1950s.
The rate remains higher among First Nations women than other women, at 2.13 in 2024, though it has been declining since 2023.
While the overall rate is expected to pick up slightly to around 1.62 at the beginning of the next decade, it is projected to stall in the long term.
The use of assisted reproductive treatments (e.g. IVF) has increased in recent years, however the Centre said these are “a relatively small share of total births”.
In order for a society to sustain its population over time without migration, women need to have an average of 2.1 children each. This is known as the replacement rate.
Australia has not met the replacement rate for almost 50 years.
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The number of children people want to have, considering their economic and personal circumstances, has also declined since 2001.
It dropped from 2.1 in 2018 to 1.89 in 2022, largely due to pandemic-related uncertainty.
Why?
A 2025 report from independent think tank e61 identified three key factors driving the decline.
First, more women are choosing not to have children. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data shows the number of women aged 50-54 without children increased from 13% two decades ago to 16% in 2021.
Second, parents are having fewer children. While many women still become parents, the data suggests a growing preference for smaller families, particularly two-child households.
Third, people are delaying parenthood.
ABS data shows that over the past 50 years, the median age of mothers has steadily increased. In 2024, the median age was 32, compared with 25 in the mid-1970s.
e61 also identified the growing importance of financial pressures: the cost of raising children, balancing time and energy with career demands, and the availability and affordability of quality childcare.
Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the Government is focused on “rolling out policies to ease pressure on families and make it easier for people to have children if they want to”.
