Maybe, just maybe it shouldn’t cost close to 10k to even TRY to have a kid through IVF? More like 15k out of pocket costs till the Medicare rebate anyway.
1 in 6 aussie couples will struggle with infertility whilst 1 in 20 kids is born of IVF. https://monashivf.com/one-in-six/
1 in 6 couples. 1 in 20 babies. You can see a fair gap here. Unless your comfortably “middle class”, you screwed. yes there are some public clinics with no gap, but the wait times are staggering. If we’re worried about falling birth rates FULLY funding IVF and fertility treatments through Medicare is a no brainer.
Maybe I’m weird, and I am open to that as a possibility, but I don’t see low birthrates as a problem. I feel like the human race could actually benefit from a reduced population. If the population was to reduce by half or more because people did not want to procreate and did so voluntarily and of their own free will, many of our climate change issues would be reduced and might even reverse without changing anything else.
Unless and until the human population gets down to two billion or less, there is little to no danger of a non-man made disaster wiping us out.
The media: the world is going to end, covid, expensive housing, war, climate change, death, destruction, doom.
Also the media: Australians are having fewer kids, mystery deepens.
covid, expensive housing, war, climate change, death, destruction, doom
Honestly, I doubt any of these apart from expensive housing is playing a significant role. I haven’t seen any reliable data on it, but I suspect a vanishingly small number of people genuinely choose not to have kids “because I don’t want to bring kids into this terrible world”. The cost of living thing though? That’s something that affects the parents and their ability to feel like they even can raise a child right now.
I’m literally one of those people who you say is vanishingly small.
It’s not even a “the world is bad and I don’t want to subject my child to that” kind of decision. It’s more like a series of thoughts over the years: “is this the right time to have a kid?” and it’s never a good time.
Had a vasectomy about 30 years becase their are too many people on the planet. That was the case then, now it’s fucking ridiculous.
One of the reasons we increasingly have a “terrible world” is too many people.
I’d suggest tax laws to discourage people having children.
Can always adopt if you feel the need, the world seems awash with unwanted kids who already exist…
Perhaps it’s unfair to people who want to have kids but can’t that IVF is so expensive, but really, there’s one thing that affects birth rate more than anything else: cost of housing with decent nearby amenities, infrastructure etc. If housing were cheaper, people would have more kids… Simple.
So if you want to solve the social equity problem, subsidize IVF. If you want the birth rate to increase, knock down the barriers to entry and high costs in the housing market.
No.
Not an Australian but I bet good money it is the exact same reason as everywhere else in the west: people have no time, no money, no social services, and really bad future perspectives with the ecosystem going to shit and capitalism running the world into the ground.
People need time to raise kids, people need money to afford kids, kids need education and attention. Provide those things, and provide a not-bleak perspective for the future, and people will be happy to have kids again.
That and the fact that women are still penalized in the workplace for having babies.
Maybe if the cost of living is addressed than people would be more likely to want more kids.
If you have enough money to afford housing, food, education for a large family, then lucky you — you can pay for your own IVF.
I’ve paid taxes for over 40 years, and I’m quite happy to fund Medicare, welfare, roads, things that benefit everyone. I don’t want my taxes paying for other people to fulfill their selfish desires, particularly when the future looks so bleak — climate change, housing, wages, to name a few.
Agreed. Sacrifice something if you want to have a child
Yeah, fuck that. We need society that isn’t dependant on the next generation inheriting a ponzi scheme. Also faaaaaaar too many people have children, and I’m convinced most didn’t actually think it through beforehand.
I’m convinced most did not think at all.
There are eight young kids within my extended family, only two of them were planned - my child, and my sisters child.
The other six, I just feel sorry for. Their parents are… Well… You know…
Sometimes I just have to shake my head.
It’s like they don’t know how babies are made…or what having a child actually requires…
Sometimes it seems to be announced about the same as “Oh, and we’re getting a new puppy!”
Sometimes I don’t even know if I should say “Congratulations!” or not…
Was at the kids park the other day. The other kids parents called for them.
They named their girl MEMPHIS
ARE YOU FUCKED IN THE HEAD? WE LIVE IN AUSTRALIA CUNT
I’m a trauma researcher. So many people shouldn’t have kids.
Aren’t there enough people in the world already?!!?!?
It’s fucking gross when you treat babies as some good you can run out of and by extension I guess the people that give birth to them
Get knocked up for the economy! Create workers!
Silence peasant! We need more slaves!
Government financed IVF will not solve the birth decline, nor will a plethora of government carrots and incentives for short term fixes. Because Australia has a long tradition with immigration I don’t see low birth rates as a dire problem, it is bad news for older homogenous societies like Russia, China and Japan. What will be necessary though is a shift in our composition of tax policies and handouts. Much more tax collections will have to come from non personal income.
