The Rise Of Triangle Families

Published Nov 1, 2024, 7:00 PM

Are you a 'one and done' household?

New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown a drop in the birthrate, a trend we've seen developing in recent years. 

But why are people opting to call it a day after one child? This week, Mamamia's news podcast The Quicky looked at the rise of the triangle family. 

Liked this episode of The Quicky? You can listen to these parenting and families episode:

Daycare Deserts & Gaslit Parents: Is Childcare In Australia Working?

53 And Pregnant With Twins; The Boom In Ozempic Babies

Why Is Every Girl Called Olivia? Baby Names Data Reveals our Favourites

Skibidy Rizz Ohio? Gen Alpha Has Entered The Chat

The Birth Trauma Report: Are We Finally Listening To Mothers?

CREDITS

Host: Claire Murphy

With thanks to: 

Mark McCrindle, Principal & Founder of McCrindle 

Narayne, Parent of one child  

Executive Producer: Taylah Strano 

Audio Producer: Tegan Sadler 

You're listening to a MoMA mea podcast.

Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on HI. It's Analise jumping back into your feed with a weekend listening recommendation. So this week our news podcast Quickie investigated the growing trend of triangle families. If you're unfamiliar with that term, it defines families with two parents and just one child. As we know, there are so many reasons that people have just one child, some by choice and others not by choice. And I just love hearing how other people are doing things, why they're doing it, and so I just thought that you might enjoy having a listen too, and so like why the rise in triangle families and the decline in birth rates? Here is Claire Murphy from the Quickie.

Are you in the one and Done club? That means when you choose to have just one child and not provide them with a stack of siblings. It's a choice more Australian families are making and it has the government concerned. Australia's birth rate has hit a record low, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. In twenty twenty three, the total fertility rate felled to just one point five babies per woman. That's down from one point six to three in twenty twenty two. This represents a significant decline of four point six percent in just one year and continues a long term downward trend in Australia's fertility rate. The ABS reported that there were just two hundred and eighty six thousand, nine hundred and ninety eight berths registered in Australia in twenty twenty three.

Now.

This decline in births has been observed across most states and territories, with Way recording the highest fertility rate at one point five seven babies per woman, followed closely by New South Wales and the Northern Territory at one point five five. The ACT had the lowest rate across the country, just one point thirty one. Fider Cho, head of Demography Statistics at the ABS, noted that there's been a long term decline in younger women having children, coupled with a shift towards women having children later in life. This trend has resulted in the median age of mothers rising to thirty one point nine years. The fertility rate for women aged thirty to thirty four remains the highest of any age group, followed by women age twenty five to twenty nine. But interestingly, the fertility rate for women aged forty to forty four has almost doubled compared to thirty years ago, reflecting the trend towards later childbearing. Experts though, are warning that this record low birth rate could have far reaching consequences for Australia's workforce, health system and cultural makeup. Demographer Amanda Davies suggests that the current generation of Australians in their twenties, often referred to as the Costello Kids, and now making family planning decisions in a very different economic climate. The Costello Kids, if you're not across it, refers to form a liberal treasurer Peter Costello, who back in two thousand and four asked the young people of Australia to get baby making, saying this have one for mom, one for dad, and one for the country. His baby Bonus scheme gave families a lump sum payment of three thousand dollars for every child born from July one, two thousand and four, and that did lead to an uptick in the rate of Australian births, but back in the early two thousands, Australia was a much more economically stable place to live. Treasurer Jim Chalmers told the ABC's Q and A program that the Albanezi government is doing as much as they can to incentivize women to have more children and get them to the two point one babies per woman that they need to keep the country rolling.

I don't want to tell people what they should be doing with their own family decisions, but I do want to make it easier. And so when you look at right across our government, you know the way that we've expanded paper and a leave, the way that we're now paying super or soon we'll be paying super on payper and a leave, The way that we've insted billions of dollars in early childhood education and care, the way that we're boosting wages in care economy sectors dominated by women.

All of these things are about.

Trying to make it easier for people to make that decision if they want to.

But economists agree that choosing to have children is based on more than just getting enough money. It's a signal of social confidence too. The shift towards smaller families also reflects changing social dynamics. Parenting expert doctor Rosina MacAlpine points out that the lack of support for working parents, including the absence of extended family networks and grandparents working longer, makes it challenging to raise multiple children in Australia in twenty twenty four. Some families are also factoring in the potential of passing on genetics that aren't favorable for their potential future children. Others say their mental health is a barrier to becoming a parent too. There are also those at cite the persistent high levels of domestic and family violence in this country as a reason for not wanting to bring more children into their relationship, and of course there are those who struggle with fertility. As a result of this, the rise of the triangle family to parents and one child is becoming increasingly common. Over the past forty years, the number of single child families has almost doubled. In nineteen eighty one, only seven point six percent of Australian women aged forty to forty four had just one child, but by twenty twenty one this figure has risen to sixteen point three percent. This trend towards smaller families is not unique to Australia either. In the European Union, triangle families now represent the predominant family structure, accounting for forty nine percent of all households with children. The impact of this demographic shift on Australian society could be substantial. With fewer children being born, there are concerns about future workforce shortages and the ability to support an aging population. The cultural makeup of Australia may change too, with migration likely to play an increasingly important role in addressing labor shortages. The rise of triangle families is challenging long held stereotypes about only children, though many parents are now advocating for an end to the stigma surrounding single child families. They argue that having one child allows them to maintain their lifestyle, pursue career goals, and provide better financial support for their child, but the stigma still exists. Narine's family is a triangle family. She is the mum of one child by choice, and she says that she quite often comes up against this idea that having one child is somehow selfish, or that she's doing her child a disservice.

Oh, one hundred percent. Right now, I'm standing up my daughter's school and I'm surrounded by parents, and these parents are always sort of making me feel that where it's like, oh, you've just got the one child, and doesn't she get lonely? And you know what if something happens to you that would be so sad.

Does any of that stuff around single child's syndrome worry you? You know, this idea that they won't be as well socialized, or they'll end up lonely, or that they'll be spoiled. Like, I'm not sure that any of that is actually based in any kind of science, But does any of that linger for you as a concern?

Definitely. When I made the decision to not have a kid, though, I sort of went over all those thoughts and those feelings and I had to address each one of them when making that decision. And so when those thoughts do come up where I'm sort of judging myself and I have fear of oh what if she's alone, I sort of referred back to that conversation I had with myself where I was like, well, if I'm raising a child that is confident within herself, secure, within herself has really strong foundations. She'll be okay no matter what, with or without siblings.

Why did you decide to stop at one kid? Was it a financial choice for you or a environmental choice? What facted in for you?

Initially? We actually didn't plan to have kids at all, so when I felt pregnant, it was quite a surprise and we thought, okay, well, this is destiny. It's meant to be, and because we didn't want to have any more, we'll just sort of have the one and see what happens. We have our daughter and it's the most amazing experience. We just never have that feeling of we want another one. We also ask her all the time. I actually checked in with her two weeks ago and she said, Mom, why do you keep asking me this? I already told you know, and I was like, Oh, that's awkward. I was like, I was just double checking. Sorry.

Would there be anything that, say, the Australian government could offer you that would change your mind? Any incentive?

No, definitely not. I think when it comes to kids, like bringing a human being into this world, you need to really want it and be prepared to dedicate your.

Time and energy to that human being.

And so an incentive would not push us towards it in any way.

And do you think that your daughter is at any disadvantage being an only child out amongst her peers who might have siblings. Do you think that she's an all disadvantaged?

Ah, this is a really hard one because all my friends have multiple children. I really try not to compare the circumstances because everything works for different people. But from what I see with my daughter in our home and our family is she actually has a massive advantage being the only child. She gets all our time, all our energy. I really feel like it's a big advantage.

Doctor Macawpline says the stereotype of only children being lonely and spoiled with inferious social skills is based on flawed science and is simply untrue. Mark McCrindle is the founder and principal at McCrindle. Mark, what have you found out that is the main driving factor for parents deciding to only have one child? Is it the cost of living crisis right now?

Well, it's one of the big factors.

We are looking at declining births that has been going for account of decades now, and.

So the low birth rates, the lowest on.

Record in Australia other than the COVID lip have been a longer term trend. It comes about because women are in education later and their starting careers for longer before taking time out for family. So there are some social factors and some longer term factors as well. But the fact that the birth rates have continued to drop and even now the birth numbers. One of those key factors is cost of living.

How does the modern Australian lifestyle factor into dropping birth rates.

Well, the reason that they continue to drop is because of those broader factors as well. That is that couples in Australia look to do their nesting before they start children.

That's just the tradition that we see. That is to say, they.

Want some level of financial stability before they bring children into the world, and they like to ensure that they have the funds there to raise the children. Cost of raising children now is more than it used to be because because there's childcare costs and then there's education costs outside of schooling, and of course just getting all of the items ready for a child and setting up their room, et cetera, is quite expensive. Many couples move from more densified living apartments to larger places as well, and so there's a lot that takes place which involve finances as couples start to think about having children.

You mentioned nesting there. I'm guessing house prices does impact the birth rates. With prices being so high in at taking so much longer for us to get home, I'm guessing that time to nest then comes later in life.

Yes, it sure has.

And so all of those factors that used to mark the shift from adolescence to independence used to take place in the early twenties, and we go back a generation, and that's when people were coupling up and then moving into the family years in the mid twenties.

Now it's shifted into the early thirties.

The median age of a woman giving birth now is almost thirty two. And that's not just because people want to start careers and university is running later and people like to establish some level of direction in employment before families, but also it's the cost of that and it does involve significant life change, and people are really wanting to make sure that they've got all of that sorted before they start the families.

And so that's one factor to it.

Just a few weeks ago Treasurer Jim Chalmers said that we should be having more children. What interest does the government have in my decision to have kids.

Well, Australia's on a rising aging trajectory because we're living longer, which is great, but as we have fewer children, it means the midpoint in our population gets older and older. If we don't have the younger generation coming through in sufficient numbers, then there's going to be shortfalls in employment. There's going to be shortfalls in ensuring that the income tax and the workforce is able to fund the increasing costs of age care, health care and pension. So we need the diversity of generations in a population otherwise it has economic impacts and it has social impact. Now, what Australia has been doing for some decades is leaning more heavily on immigration to plug those gaps in workforce, but there's only so much that can be done there. In fact, the medium term trend had been about sixty percent of our population growth through migration and about forty percent through natural increase, which is births.

Those numbers have now blown out.

Eighty three percent of our growth is through immigration overseas arrivals. Just seventeen percent over the last couple of years is through birth, so it tells us that the birth's growth has been dialed so low, in fact, your lowest birth rate ever recorded currently, that.

We're having to lean more and more on migration.

And while that will do something with fixing and plugging those employment gaps, it doesn't do anything to provide that next generation moving through the schools and moving through society, coming of age, that shaping of society that young people do. And of course, by just purely relying on overseas migration doesn't do much to reduce the average age compared to a birth, which has a massive impact on age and bringing that down compared to someone arriving in their thirties or forties.

Aside from employment and migration, though, could there be other areas that are impacted by declining birth rates.

Yes, If we don't have that next generation of families coming through in numbers, we again get suburbs and areas that become monogenerational. They become less rich in terms of all of the age groups in society and our communities. Our suburbs are at their best when they're real melting part of all of those age groups and generations that keeps a society healthy in terms of the future and the generations and the economics, as we said, but just also that social interaction. We look around the world and see countries that have such low birth rates that they to population contraction and that has an issue, you know, Japan being a leading example of that, but we see it right across Western Europe. So birth's are really a vote on the future.

Other countries are experiencing the fallout from low birth rates too. You mentioned Japan there, how are they dealing with it.

Couples, particularly women are so engaged in the workforce and in Korea, and the costs of children so much that couples are delaying it and not even entering into it. I think we've got the same challenge in Australia that if people do leave the family forming too late, and as I said, we're almost at thirty two for maumon thirty four for a dad in Australia. Currently you can just run out of time, the biological clock. There's only so much that can be done to that. Assistant fertility has helped only one age group increase in fertility, and that's the forty plus age group. But people can run out of time, and that's why we have more smaller families. It's not necessarily that people didn't want more, but for many, by the time they have their first and get sorted and start to think about a second or beyond, they just find it more difficult.

There's such a stigma around only children. Is there any basis in fact that backs up the theory that solo children have issues where those with siblings don't like that they're not as well socialized or spoiled.

No.

I think most people who've got an opinion about a solo child or an only child or a triangle family probably bring their perceptions from their own experience and from what they think it might be like to grow up as.

A solo child.

So I think a lot of it is more emotive and their own perspective than what might be provable. But it's not that a lot of the families that have one child have decided on that. Many just recognize that if they did have some assisted fertility there, that's expensive and maybe there's just not the funds to continue that, or maybe after a lot of trial, they had the one but I haven't been able to have more, and again because of the costs of getting support, they're shut out from that. So it's not as though we can think that the number of children people have is purely by choice. In fact, in a lot of circumstances most people's experience, it just sort of happens. There's not that perfect plan to have the numbers that people want. It just rolls out that way. But it is leading to the low berths that we have. It's not that we've got a rise in the number of women remaining childless in Australia. The reason we've got this record low birth rate is that in the past the couples that might have had four having three, and those that might have had three having two, and many that in the past might have had two having one. So it's smaller families rather than more women having none. That is the current decline in births.

When you look at the graph, sorry graph if you're in New South Wales the ABS recently posted on social media of the declining birth rate in Australia, there's a peak in the late nineteen fifties early sixties. That's the tail end of the baby boomer generation whose parents had known the hardship of World War and who were making hay while the sunshine. Then in the late seventies early eighties, the birth rate began to nosedive. So what happened back then birth control did. While the pill was made available to Australian women from nineteen sixty one, its prescription was under the control of doctors and dependent on their attitude to birth control. Many wouldn't allow it for unmarried women, but those attitudes began to change as the years passed and government changes like removing the sales tax on contraceptives in nineteen seventy two then putting the pill on the Pharmaceutical Benefit scheme made it much more accessible. The use of the pill increased from thirty five percent in nineteen seventy seven in women age twenty to twenty four to forty five percent in nineteen eighty three, and then fifty two percent in nineteen eighty nine. The development in surgical techniques around vissectomes and triple ligation also meant they became more widely acceptable too, and with choice, women and men choose smaller families, careers and hobbies, and travel and life outside of parenting. So this trend started way before the cost of living crisis hit, and with the exception of the baby bonus in the early two thousands and the pandemic baby spike in twenty twenty two, it doesn't look like there's much that's going to reverse the trend. Thanks for taking time to feed your mind today. The Quiki is produced by me Claire Murphy, our executive producer Taylor Strato, and senior producer Grace Rubrey, with audio production by Teak and Sadler.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of The Quickie. If you're after more news like this, The Quickie drops episodes twice a day to get you up to speed on what's happening across the globe. There'll be a link to follow in the show notes, and I'll catch you on Monday for more this glorious mess.