The real reason less of us are having babies in 2025.

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"Crisis."

"Catastrophe."

Those are some of the words that have been bandied about in recent weeks, as Australia grapples with the news that its birth rate has hit record lows.

For all Australian women, the total fertility rate is sitting at 1.50 births per woman — with a total of 286,998 births registered in 2023, according to the Bureau of Statistics. This is below the 2.1 replacement rate needed to sustain our workplace and population growth.

Debate is now raging about how Australia can stem the decline, which mirrors a global trend, as the global fertility rate has been declining for decades.

We need to talk about the elephant in the room. While some headlines may declare this a crisis. For many women, this is not a crisis. This is a choice.

LISTEN: Australia isn't having enough babies but why is it women who are the only ones being scolded about it? Post continues below.

It's an emotional, nuanced one that women are weighing up with extreme delicacy.

Full transparency, I'm currently 36 years old in a long-term committed relationship and, as my doctors gently try and remind me, (and parents not quite as gently), my "biological clock" is ticking.

However, I'm more uncertain about having kids now than I was at 20.

When I imagined my life when I was younger, there were always children in the picture at some point. Definitely one, even two, maybe three.

But now, staring down the barrel of 2025, that picture has become fuzzy. Those romanticised chats about whom a baby may take after have been replaced by a budgeting spreadsheet and how many we can afford realistically.

And on more personal notes, (because why not lay it all on the table), I feel the pandemic robbed me of vital years I could've spent travelling with my partner. I have just stepped back into an industry and a career I love after purchasing an apartment. Plus, I'm very concerned about the state of the climate.

Still, I can't deny the maternal tug I feel whenever baby clothes pop up on my feed, when my friends' beautiful kids do anything remotely cute, or when I hear a baby cry on TV.

I'm staring down the barrel of a choice that needs to be made sooner rather than later and, as I get older, the doubts? Well, they're more present than ever.

Australia's total fertility rate is sitting at 1.50 births per woman. Image: Getty.

I don't think I'm alone with the mental gymnastics.

I believe many women are not having children at the same rate as our predecessors because we choose not to.

That choice can be born from a myriad of factors; whether it be the cost-of-living, fears about a changing climate, housing affordability, the perils of modern dating, career concerns — or a jumble of them all.

What's interesting is that most of these factors are out of our control. So we are choosing the aspects we can control to carve out a comfortable life for ourselves.

This week on Mamamia's Out Loud podcast, Amelia Lester made a point that really hit home for me.

"Children are becoming almost a luxury good. Everything is so expensive that if you can't afford $18,000 a year, and $280,000 over the course of your lifetime you're simply going to opt out of having children," she said.

Holly Wainwright added, "Now there are more models for how women's lives can be when 'mother' isn't their central role. And it seems to me, I know I'm rankling at this a little bit. Now just as that shift is happening, they're kind of being pushed back upon; 'well, your advancement is now going to be the reason for civilisational collapse.'"

I understand the concern about a declining birth rate is not without its merits from an economic standpoint.

It leads to an ageing population, with a lower number of people in the following generations to replace a retiring workforce, who can continue contributing taxes to maintain infrastructure.

I get it.

Demographer Liz Allen has previously warned that once fertility drops below 1.5 it becomes extremely difficult to recover from. One of the reasons is that fewer babies today means fewer potential parents tomorrow, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of decline.

I get it.

I get why Australia's record-low birth rate has now prompted calls for the Australian Government to reinstate the baby bonus scheme. To recap, this policy was first introduced in 2004 by former Prime Minister John Howard and saw lump sum payments of $3000, later raised to $5000, given to parents.

It's a scheme widely credited with boosting birth rates.

However, these payments nowadays would barely scrape the surface with inflation sitting at 2.1 per cent and the price of housing, food and health services all going up.

It's just my opinion here, but rather than a "bonus", I believe substantial reforms to subsidised childcare, housing affordability (and availability), would go further in tackling child-raising concerns.

I get that bigger picture-wise, Australia's declining birth rate is not great.

But what I don't get, is why it feels like women are solely to blame for this. That thinking a bonus, which, let's face it, may help in a pinch, but is nothing more than a bribe to have a baby, will fix the issue.

What I don't understand is why people aren't acknowledging the fact that women may be choosing not to have children to create a more comfortable life for themselves.

Until people and policy-makers address that, nothing is going to change.

Feature image: Getty.