Some mums bucking the trend, but Illawarra heads into a 'baby recession'

According to a new analysis of data from KPMG, there were 3,410 births in the Illawarra in 2023, which was was 2.6 per cent below the 2019 level of 3,500.

This was also well below the levels seen during the pandemic, when the region had a baby boom.

This news is no surprise to Wollongong doula Alyssa Booth, who said she had noticed less and less expectant couples requiring her services compared to the peak of a couple of years ago.

"The first half of my year was chock-a-block with doula work, which I expected, coming off the back of the birth trauma inquiry," Ms Booth said.

"But from a birth education perspective, our classes have definitely been less full than the past five years.

"I would say there's been a trend [of fewer births] - normally August and September is very busy because it's all the Christmas and New Year [conceptions], but there are definitely less people coming through."

According to the data, the Illawarra - along with other populous regional cities Newcastle and Geelong - has fared better the nation's capital cities, where births fell significantly in 2023 compared to 2019 birth rates.

For instance, Sydney experienced a decline of 8.6 per cent while Melbourne experienced a decline of 7.3 per cent.

But most other regional areas fared better than the cities with only modest declines in births compared with 2019, with NSW recording a decline of 1.3 per cent.

KPMG Urban Economist Terry Rawnsley said the Illawarra, Newcastle and Geelong had seen a greater decline in births than other region, likely because of how much they had benefited from the pandemic sea and tree change boom.

"The surge that the Illawarra saw in 2021, with 500 additional births from the previous year, was linked to that sea-change activity where people were like 'I want to get out of Sydney start a family'," he said.

"Then the drop off over the last couple of years is probably related to housing affordability, housing availability and the general cost of living pressures.

"Housing in particular has gone on quite a run in Wollongong, as more people have started to move into the area and buy.

"And even just with interest rates going up people might be going, 'I can't quite afford a three bedroom house, I might end up in a two bedroom apartment', which just means they're going to have one child rather than two in the two-bedder."

Given the region's constrained physical environment between the sea and escarpment, he said it was likely that the baby recession would continue for some time.

"Cost of living pressures haven't improved since 2023, and what we can see in the long-term national figures is that when births go down, they tend to go down for a while," he said.

"We're probably going to have another sort of very soft year when it comes to births in 2024, and the baby recession will be around for a bit longer."

Mr Rawnsley said the 2023 drop in births was the most significant for decades, which was likely due to the unique environment created by the COVID pandemic.

"We haven't seen such a sharp drop in births in Australia since the period of economic stagflation in the 1970s, which coincided with the initial widespread adoption of the contraceptive pill," he said.

"Following the uncertainty of pandemic lockdowns, people who had held off having children decided to start families.

"The record-low unemployment rate and the stimulus money that flowed into the economy had provided encouragement for people to start having children again."

"But as inflation set in and put stress on family budgets, Australians have once again put off having children. This combination of pandemic and economic changes explains the spike and then rapid decline in births we have seen over the past four years."

Wollongong mother Katie Gallagher, whose son was born in the midst of the pandemic and is due to have her second child in September, said she and her husband considered the economic climate before falling pregnant a second time.

"We always kind of wanted to have a three year gap, and when my son was two we were talking about maybe having another and my husband said 'I don't know if this is a good idea'," she said.

"Interest rates were going through the roof and we thought how are we going to afford another baby."

"But you just can't put life on hold, because there could always be something else - you just have to make it work."