Having children requires faith in the future – Jonathan Ayling
Demographic decline, a technical term for ageing populations and low birthrates, was once a fringe concern associated with conspiratorial claims about migration and cultural decline. Yet the stakes are high and the issue is becoming mainstream.
National and New Zealand First have both recently proposed policies to make life easier for young families, with NZ First going so far as to argue New Zealand must increase its birthrate rather than rely indefinitely on immigration.
As a father of three children aged 4 and under, I appreciate the support these policies seek to offer. But international experience and a realistic assessment of why birthrates are falling suggest they will not shift the dial very far.
In the year to March, 2026, New Zealand registered 57,027 births, 1512 fewer than the year before. The fertility rate fell to 1.53 children per woman, 27% below the replacement rate of 2.1. New Zealanders are also having children later. The median age of women giving birth reached a record 31.5 years in 2024.
What does it say about our society: that we are disinterested or incapable of replicating ourselves? We need a more serious conversation if we actually want to turn our birthrates around.
I believe there are three core considerations at play: economics, environment and culture.
Numerous OECD countries have tried ambitious economic interventions; Poland offered cash payments, Hungary tax exemptions and subsidised loans, Japan decades of childcare initiatives, and South Korea almost every financial lever available to a wealthy state. While Hungary achieved a temporary improvement, no country has produced a sustained return towards replacement-level fertility.
Economic pressures matter. But economics is only one part of the environment (both figuratively and literally) in which decisions about children are made.
In terms of the physical environment, we may not only be becoming less willing to have children. For some couples, it is becoming harder. A major international study estimated that total sperm counts among men fell by more than 60% between 1973 and 2018, with sedentary lifestyles, obesity and exposure to synthetic and endocrine-disrupting compounds contributing to this decline.
Yet the social environment is more consequential. Research suggests childbearing spreads through networks of friends, siblings and colleagues. When those around us marry and have children, family life appears normal, desirable and attainable. When few people in our social circles have children, postponement is viewed as normal.
But that assumes couples are forming in the first place. Across much of the developed world, fewer young people are entering durable relationships and they are having less sex. American research found the proportion of men aged 18 to 24 reporting no sexual activity in the previous year rose from 19% to 31% over the past 20 years.
A society in which fewer people form relationships, and in which those who do are less intimate, will inevitably produce fewer children. But why have relationships, marriage and parenthood become less common, less urgent and, for many, less attractive?
This is where culture matters, and is arguably the biggest issue.
For couples who already intend to have children, longer parental leave or Kiwi Kids Grant payments will be welcome, but they are unlikely to persuade people ambivalent about parenthood to embrace it.
A government can reduce the financial cost of having children, but no grant can substitute for confidence in the future, a culture that describes children as something more than an expense, or communities willing to sacrifice in support of families.
Too often, our public narrative presents children through the language of cost, exhaustion, career interruption and lost freedom.
These burdens are real. Anyone who has tried to feed three small children, get them dressed and leave the house on time will confirm that parenthood is rarely convenient. (Case in point: in the two hours I’ve been writing this column, I’ve been interrupted six times by my 4-year-old.)
But a radical claim we should keep in mind, now more than ever, is that convenience is not the measure of a meaningful life.
Of course children bring exhaustion, disorder and sacrifice. They also bring joy, responsibility and a love that draws us beyond ourselves. A culture that speaks endlessly about their burdens, while struggling to describe their beauty, should not be surprised when fewer people choose to have them.
Having children requires faith in a future we cannot control, hope in the generations who will follow us and communities of love in the meantime, as parents rely on others to support them. Without these virtues, our culture will be incapable of sustaining belief in the value of children.
Amid the abundance, autonomy and opportunity of our consumerist age, have we forgotten one of humanity’s most basic impulses: to bring children into the world, recognise something of ourselves in them and offer them the fruits of what we have achieved?
Many people are understandably wary of governments talking about how many children couples should have. But that does not require society to remain neutral about whether children are welcomed, family life is honoured or the next generation is regarded as a gift, rather than a burden.
A government can help create conditions in which those who want children can have them, but this isn’t going to address demographic decline.
That task belongs to all of us by recovering confidence in the future and recognising that raising those who will inherit it is among the most important things we will ever do.
Jonathan Ayling is a strategy consultant and professional director. He is the former chief executive of the Free Speech Union (NZ), an Act Party supporter and donor, and has worked as a ministerial staffer and senior Parliamentary adviser in both Government and Opposition.
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