Women are delaying family formation for reasons other than ‘career and travel’: women are acting responsibly

• need a financially secure partner
• need a stable dependable relationship
• need a partner willing to commit to family formation
• need to be sure they could raise a child alone if their circumstances changed

It’s society’s issue, not a women’s issue

Economic factors

• Australia’s economy needs women to both work and have children
• two wages are needed now to pay a mortgage for even a modest home
• women have been entering the workforce and remaining there
• women now want financial independence before they will have children
• jobs are more often casual or contract, so loans are hard to get as banks only take into account the lowest hours
• incomes are less secure – ‘waiting to see if the job situation improves’ can mean long delays in family formation
• women are increasingly the breadwinners or the higher earner in a couple

• financial commitments may depend on her income; studies indicate that his career is often the deciding factor in delaying children, not hers

• more jobs require qualifications so more women are completing study
• women are more qualified, but less likely to use their qualifications than men especially once they have families.
• increased education means higher HECS debt and difficulty getting a loan/mortgage
• future HECS debts count in mortgage calculations, even if not payable yet
• government paid parental leave helps, but is not at the person’s income rate
• extra paid maternity leave is still rare and extra paid paternity leave even rarer

• more childcare places but
• no recognition of the high cost of providing baby care
• long waiting lists
• childcare is expensive for one child, prohibitive for 2 or 3
• childcare services don’t attract a tax rebate for 18 months
• childcare is inaccessible if working hours are long, variable or not Monday to Friday.

Social factors

• education extends dependence and delays responsible adulthood
• “failure to launch”- men are taking longer to grow up and commit
• studies indicate that the main reason for not becoming pregnant is the absence of a partner or being unable to find a partner who is prepared to commit to having children, rather than personal ambition
• men and women want to feel securely independent before they have children, and that often depends on the male partner having stable employment
• definitions of success and happiness for both men and women include a career as well as a family
• it is more acceptable for women to choose to be single and childless
• the nuclear family is less common; combined families, step families and de facto relationships are more common
• families are geographically spread and grandparents are not there for emergency childcare even if they are close, and Grandma may still be working
• meeting later and marrying later, first marriage rates for under 30s dropped in the last 10 years:
• later first births, longer wait after marriage
• couples cohabit then marry when they decide they want children
• in 1970s the peak age for having babies was 20-25 – and they had babies after 1 year of marriage,
• but in 2000 the age range rose to 25-35 with babies after 3 years
• now over half of babies are born to women over 30
• reduced partnering and increased divorce and separation
• 1/3 of men will never marry (by choice or circumstance), 1/3 of married men will divorce
• there are plenty of single men across the age groups

but overall there is an excess of women in their 30s