Australia's fertility rate has fallen to its lowest level on record, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics reporting just 1.48 births per woman for 2024. Demographers have described the trend as troubling, warning that the country may be approaching a critical demographic tipping point that could prove very difficult to reverse, with long-term implications for the workforce, economy and ageing population.

The total fertility rate, which measures the average number of children a woman is expected to have between the ages of 15 and 49, has now declined for three consecutive years after a brief pandemic-era uptick. It rose slightly to 1.69 in 2021 following Covid lockdowns before falling every year since, dropping to 1.49 in 2023 and now 1.48 in 2024. Australia's birth rate has remained below the replacement level of 2.1 since the mid-1970s, and Australian National University demographer Liz Allen has warned of the difficulty in reversing the current downward trajectory.