Fertility Trends and Prospects in Australia and other Industrialised Countries

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Abstract
Marital fertility in Australia has been falling, with occasional halts and reversals, for a century. The trend in overall fertility has been rendered more complex by changes in marriage patterns. The original fertility decline may not have been triggered by a mortality decline but instead may have initiated one. The paper analyses the unprecedentedly steep fall in fertility after 1971 and the reversal from the mid-1970s of marriage trends which was so sudden as to wipe out in three years the entire movement towards younger marriage over the preceding thirty years. Fertility and fertility control trends are compared with other industrialised countries, and prospects for future natural increase and immigration are assessed.