Maternity wards across the state experienced their quietest start to any year in more than a decade,as families weigh up having children against financial pressures,climate anxieties and the lingering effects of the pandemic.
Boosted by conceptions during the COVID-19 lockdowns,the number of babies born in NSW public hospitals peaked at 19,081 between April and June 2021. But new data from the Bureau of Health Information shows just 15,868 babies were born in public maternity wards between January and March 2023,the lowest of any quarter since 2010.
Figures from NSW Births,Deaths and Marriages reflect the public hospital data,with total births dropping from 24,693 in the first three months of 2021 to just 20,435 in the corresponding period this year.
Dr Liz Allen,a demographer at the Australian National University,said the decline in births was due to both short-term factors – such as couples bringing forward their pregnancy plans during COVID – and longer-term factors such as concerns about housing and climate change.
“Given what we’ve just been through with the pandemic,and the economic difficulties we’re confronting now alongside the problems with climate change,more and more young couples especially are not having their desired number of children,” she said.
“Behind these figures lies this very complex socio-economic storm that … will ripple down the line for generations to come.”
Associate Professor Udoy Saikia,a social demographer at Flinders University,said the increase and subsequent decrease in births after the onset of the pandemic was similar to what happened in Australia after World War II when a baby boom resulting from the reunion of couples was quickly followed by a decline in the number of births.
“But that is a very temporary phenomenon,” he said.
Australia’s fertility rate (which represents the average number of children that would be born to a female over their lifetime) has been in steady decline since the 1970s,with the exception of a small upswing after then-treasurer Peter Costello introduced thebaby bonus in 2002.