The Stats Guy: Why Australia should care about fertility in Kazakhstan
What is happening in the land of Borat – and why it matters in Australia, writes Simon Kuestenmacher.
I don’t know what you are up to today, but you probably didn’t plan to think in depth about birth rates in Kazakhstan.
This is going to change right now. I promise it’ll be worth it as you will learn about how to drive up birth rates permanently and you’ll be able to tell former treasurer Peter Costello that his baby bonus was a waste of money.
Does that sound appealing? I think so!
As I wanted to write a column about birth rates, I scanned international data to find a country that saw a common standard decline in fertility (TFR, Total Fertility Rate is the technical term) at some stage but then celebrated a stunning comeback.
This is where Kazakhstan enters the picture. For about 40 years the TFR declined in Kazakhstan like it does in most places, but around 2000 things turned around. Wow, it’s very rare to find such a case study.
Source: European Journal of Population
From Italy to Japan to Brazil, once families start having fewer kids, they don’t suddenly decide to expand again. Except in Kazakhstan. Let’s figure out what happening in the land of Borat.
The research I’m drawing on, published in the European Journal of Population, digs into this apparent miracle.
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Kazakhstan’s fertility rate plunged in the 1990s, bottoming out at just 1.8 children per woman in 1999. But by 2018, it had rebounded to 3.0.
The scholars argue the real story isn’t about a miraculous recovery, but about an artificial dip.
The collapse of the Soviet Union left Kazakhstan in deep economic crisis. Hyperinflation, unemployment and uncertainty crushed household confidence. Families simply postponed having children during that turbulent decade.
Once the economy stabilised and growth returned, births bounced back. What looked like a recovery was really only the resumption of a long-run norm. Kazakh women didn’t decide to have more babies, they always favoured larger families but a terrible economy made them forestall their wishes.
Further, demographic shifts shaped the TFR in Kazakhstan. Low-fertility Europeans and Russians left the nation while high-fertility ethnic Kazakhs moved in. This by itself drove up the fertility rate.
What are the lessons for us in Australia?
We still think of fertility change as a permanent, one-way street in Australia. But Kazakhstan reminds us that demography is also about economics.
In Kazakhstan we can’t point to a government initiative that impacted how many kids families will produce. When life feels unstable, people delay or abandon plans for children. When stability returns, fertility can surprise on the upside.
This brings us to Peter Costello.
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As Australians, we were thought to believe that governments could nudge us into having more babies with a cheque at birth.
Costello certainly believed his baby bonus was the reason fertility rose in the mid-2000s. The research says otherwise.
One-off payments can shift the timing of births at best. Australia’s records show thousands of babies held back until at least July 1, 2004, to qualify for the new payment. So, people did take that into account. There was, however, no meaningful change to how many children families had over their lifetimes.
The real reason the fertility rate in Australia went up after the introduction of the baby bonus was the booming economy and the optimism of households.
Everyone believed the Australian economy was going to perform strongly forever onwards. We saw a resources-driven increase in fertility. Our Kiwi cousins in New Zealand didn’t have a baby bonus at the time and still had the same fertility rise at the same time.
What interventions do work if a prime minister really wants to push the birth rate up? The academic consensus is clear: Invest in the institutions that make it easier and less risky to combine work and family.
That means three things above all:
- First, affordable universal childcare. When Sweden capped childcare fees in the early 2000s, births jumped – Norway and Germany had similar results.
- Second, decent, earnings-related parental leave that both parents can share. Evidence from Scandinavia shows that when fathers are guaranteed their own leave entitlements, families are more likely to go on to have a second or third child.
- Third, housing. Of course there is a housing angle to this story too! Brutally unaffordable housing discourages births – people just aren’t confident that they can afford to have babies. Policies that make secure, family-sized housing affordable near jobs are quietly pronatalist.
On top of this come the details that make life manageable for parents: Smoothing out punishing tax and childcare subsidy tapers that trap second-earners, guaranteeing outside-school-hours care, and making assisted reproduction affordable and accessible.
Each lever on its own delivers only small gains, but combined they reduce uncertainty, raise confidence, and shift lifetime fertility upwards. That is how you move a country’s fertility rate up.
The lesson for Australia is simple. If you want more babies, don’t cut a cheque at birth. Build the services and institutions that make it possible for modern families to have the number of children they say they want. That is a permanent, and much more cost-effective, fertility policy.
Our own low fertility rate isn’t set in stone. It reflects economic realities: High housing costs, insecure jobs, and the juggling act of modern family life. Change the circumstances, and behaviour might change too.
Even if we were to change policy settings to push for more births, Australia wouldn’t have a Kazakh-style rebound. We don’t have the same cultural baseline of larger families, and decades of delayed parenting have created generational habits that are hard to reverse.
But the principle is the same: Economic conditions are a powerful fertility driver. In fact, the best demographic policy is just good economic management.
Simon Kuestenmacher is a co-founder of The Demographics Group. His columns, media commentary and public speaking focus on current socio-demographic trends and how these impact Australia. His podcast, Demographics Decoded, explores the world through the demographic lens. Follow Simon on Twitter (X), Facebook, or LinkedIn.
