For health and legal professionals with an interest in bioethics
Breeders to the rescue

Breeders to the rescue
By Michael Cook
The Australian, 10 May 2002

TREASURY is scratching its head over how to get women to have more children. Why don't they ask women who aren't afraid of being mothers?

Children have been on the nose before. About one-third of the women born at about the same time as Don Bradman – those who lived through the Depression – never had children. But the birthrate never sank to today's levels because nearly 40 per cent had three or more children. Today, however, that figure has fallen to about 27 per cent.

According to a 1998 study by Australian National University demographer Peter McDonald: "More than 50 per cent of the total fertility is contributed by the 27 per cent of women who have three or more children. The other 73 per cent of women, with 0-2 children, contribute less than 50 per cent. This indicates the extent to which the current level of fertility in Australia is dependent upon around one-quarter of all women having three or more children."

Believe it or not, Australia has a relatively large number of large families. Italians and Spaniards, whose birth rates are plunging to suicidal levels, do not have greater numbers of childless women. Rather, they have fewer women who have more than two.

So, if the Government really wants to raise fertility in Australia, it ought to be pouring money into studies of what motivates the 27 per cent of women who are holding our birth rate up. Research on this has been scandalously meagre. And no wonder: for the past 50 years, demographers have focused on making large families smaller, not small families larger.

Let's face it. The stereotype of women with lots of children is that they are dumb, stay-at-home and religious. But an article by Rachel Meyer in Monash University's People and Place magazine a couple of years ago suggests that this stereotype is wrong. SURPRISINGLY, Meyer found that career orientation, education and income did not keep women from having three or more children. The factors that did predict family size were cultural and personal:

  • Marrying – women who had not been in a de facto relationship that did not lead to marriage were 2.6 times more likely to progress to a third child.

  • Marrying young – women who were 27 or younger when their second child was born were 3.8 times more likely than other women to have three or more children.

  • Having children quickly – women who had two or fewer years between their first and second births were twice as likely as other women to have a larger family.

  • Having unplanned children – women who said that their first child was unplanned were 1.6 times more likely to have more children.

  • Having religious values – Catholic women were also 1.6 times more likely to go on to have more children.

    Meyer's provocative survey was small-scale and may already be out of date. But it has important implications for future population policy.

    First, economics is less important than culture. Most ideas for increasing fertility have been cooked up by Treasury boffins. How much do they know about why women like having children? More handouts may motivate women to have one or two children. But these account for less than half of Australia's birth rate. What makes those 27 per cent tick?

    Second, de facto relationships depress the birthrate. Understandably, without the security of marriage, women are not going to risk having large families. Quite apart from moral considerations, it is simply not in Australia's interest to promote policies that make de facto relationships easier and more secure.

    Third, religious values clearly make women more open to bearing children. Perhaps they give women a sense of optimism that helps them to face up to the difficulty of bringing another child into the world.

    For years, we have been obsessed with why 73 per cent of Australian women are having so few children. But they are demographically irrelevant. The 27 per cent with big families hold the secret of increasing Australia's birth rate. Ask them.

    Michael Cook is editor of bioethics email newsletter Australasian Bioethics Information.