Description

A leading indicator developed by foreseechange over the past five years predicts a decline in births in 2025 and 2026.  A decline in the fertility rate is also predicted for these years.

This will make for difficult conditions for marketers targeting parents of infants and young children.

As the federal budget is predicated on rising births, there is potential for misallocation of resources.  The decline may, however, allow for a period of catch-up for shortages such as the number of early childhood educators.

This may not be a long-term decline – that would depend on factors such as future interest rates, health services price inflation, and possibly other factors.  Given the period of time taken to conceive and the gestation period, the predicted decline in births in 2025 and 2026 is unavoidable.

Our model can be used for prediction further into the future based on scenarios about the driving forces.  For example, what would fertility be over the next five years under a range of interest rate scenarios?

This report sets out the data and analysis employed in arriving at our prediction.

Our predictions will be updated quarterly, based on the most recent proprietary survey updates on which our models are based and the most recent ABS data on fertility (annual) and births (quarterly).

Quarterly births data is published with a lag of nearly six months and annual fertility data is published with a lag of nearly one year.  Our models provide early warnings of change more than two years before it is official.

Our future research will be aimed at identifying other potential drivers of fertility plans, such as the rate of unemployment.  Some drivers may have longer-term impacts: these could include, for example, concerns about the future impacts of climate change and of military action.

Longer-term impacts of lower fertility would have implications for government budgets, labour force supply, housing, and climate change targets.  Not all of these outcomes would be negative.