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UID:pretalx-2026-RRG3FP@conferences.acspri.org.au
DTSTART;TZID=AEST:20261126T133000
DTEND;TZID=AEST:20261126T134500
DESCRIPTION:In many high-income countries like Australia\, concerns about l
 ow birth rates have emerged as a significant issue\, evident in public and
  political discourse. However\, worries about declining family sizes and y
 oung people not having children are not a new phenomenon\; rather they hav
 e been a persistent concern throughout Australia's history since Federatio
 n. By analysing 125 years of Australian federal parliamentary Hansard tran
 scripts (1901–2026)\, we examine the historical political framing of low
  birth rates as a concern\, how birth rate trends have been interpreted an
 d evidenced\, and the evolution of explanations for fertility decline.\n\n
 The Hansard from both the Senate and House of Representatives\, from the 1
 st of January 1901 to 1st July 2026\, was searched for relevant discussion
 s using key terms including: ‘birth rate(s)’\, ‘fertility’\, ‘na
 tural increase’\, ‘having children’\, and ‘family size’. After e
 xcluding material not related to human birth rates\, the corpus consisted 
 of 1\,802 speeches from 921 individual speakers. The texts were analysed u
 sing close reading\, or qualitative content analysis. The analysis was org
 anised around two frameworks: Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework and Bac
 chi's ‘What's the Problem Represented to Be?’. These frameworks guided
  us in examining the conditions under which low birth rates were identifie
 d as a matter of policy concern and how the ‘problem’ was framed once 
 it became part of debates.\n\nWe find that the nature of concern regarding
  low birth rates has shifted over time. In the early 20th century\, low bi
 rth rates were linked to national security fears surrounding geopolitical 
 vulnerabilities\, as a small population was deemed susceptible to invasion
 . By the early 2000s\, the discourse shifted to economic anxieties\, parti
 cularly about ageing populations\, influenced notably by the 2002 Intergen
 erational Report. More recently\, the framing has evolved to focus on repr
 oductive choice and intergenerational equity\, with low birth rates seen a
 s a signal that young people cannot achieve the families they want. The sa
 lience of birth rates as a topic of political concern has also depended on
  whether it was seen as amenable to policy. \n\nDiscussions around the cau
 sal explanations for low birth rates also evolved significantly over time.
  In the early decades\, low birth rates were seen as a moral problem roote
 d in societal selfishness. This view then shifted with economic and struct
 ural explanations increasingly being favoured\, including the high cost of
  living and housing\, and more recently also work-family imbalance. This s
 hift was accompanied by a change in underlying assumptions about fertility
  desires. Moral explanations treated low fertility as reflecting what peop
 le wanted\, while later accounts emphasised a gap between desired and achi
 eved family size. Throughout\, the whole period a persistent partisan asym
 metry is also noticeable. Regardless of which party held office\, oppositi
 on speakers were more likely to emphasise economic constraints\, while gov
 ernment speakers were more likely to invoke complexity\, cultural change o
 r individual choice.\n\nWe also find that while early discussions relied o
 n simple measures\, over time increasingly sophisticated statistics and un
 derstanding of trends became the norm. Despite the more precise and sophis
 ticated data\, demographic trends are still typically discussed as acute c
 rises marked by successive ‘record lows’ rather than as part of a long
 -run decline. By tracing how these narratives have emerged\, competed\, an
 d evolved over more than a century of Australian parliamentary debate\, th
 is paper provides a historical foundation for more critically informed eng
 agement with the fertility policy debates now underway across the develope
 d world.
DTSTAMP:20261102T131136Z
LOCATION:Holme Room
SUMMARY:From “moral decay” to “cost of living crisis”: An analysis 
 of 125 years of Australia’s parliamentary discourse on low birth rates -
  Anna Reimondos
URL:https://conferences.acspri.org.au/2026/talk/RRG3FP/
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