BLUF
In 2004 when then-federal treasurer Peter Costello introduced a baby bonus to encourage Australians to have more children—results were mixed.Summary
This article by Anthony Segaert in the Sydney Morning Herald makes the following points:
- Babies born in the year the baby bonus was introduced are turning 18.
- These children represented a short-term uptick in the number of births in Australia.
- Mr Costello—now chairman of Nine—said he did not believe the 'baby bonus' payments influenced families to have children if they did not already intend to.
- In 2004 the fertility rate was about 1.6 births per woman.
- Australia needs a rate of 2.1 for the population to remain steady.
- Most recent data shows the Australian birth rate has dropped to 1.58.
Worth noting, however, that Australia's population continues to grow because of births and migration. See: National, state and territory population, December 2021
References
Recent Runway Posts related to this topic:
- Could China’s population start falling? | The Runway (airforce.gov.au)
- How humanity doubled life expectancy in a century | The Runway (airforce.gov.au)
References from the Web:
- DEC 2021 The challenge of not having one for mum, dad and the country—AFR
- FEB 2022 Candidates, take note: those Costello kids are coming. Ignore them at your peril—The Mandarin
- MAY 2022 Baby names Australians no longer want revealed in 2022 report—news.com.au
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
- Link to Source: Australian Breaking News Headlines & World News Online | SMH.com.au
- Media Check: The Sydney Morning Herald - Media Bias/Fact Check (mediabiasfactcheck.com)
- RAAF RUNWAY: RATIONALE, GUIDELINES, LEARNING OUTCOMES, ETC |
