Melbourne is in the midst of a baby drought. The city’s fertility rate – the expected number of births per woman – has fallen by 18 per cent over the past decade to a historic low of 1.4.That’s way below the benchmark population “replacement” level of 2.1, which is needed for the population to be replaced from one generation to the next without migration.If the trend continues, Melbourne’s fertility rate could soon match rates in southern European nations where a dearth of babies has prompted warnings of a “demographic winter”. (The fertility rate in Italy and Greece is about 1.2.)Falling birth rates will change many neighbourhoods – school enrolments will fall, and schools will merge or close due to low student numbers. Local parks will be used differently. There will be fewer childcare centres and more aged care homes.Low fertility is already contributing to a rise in the number of tombstone suburbs – where deaths consistently outnumber births, especially in the city’s most affluent areas where the cost of housing is beyond the reach of most young families. There were more deaths than births in 13 per cent of Melbourne suburbs last financial year, including Templestowe (124 more deaths than births), Brighton East (81 more deaths) and Camberwell (72 more deaths).Fewer kids means fewer workers and future tax payers, although Australia’s hotly debated migration program helps offset the economic effects of lower birth rates to some extent.The number of babies born in Greater Melbourne peaked in 2016 at 65,147, but the total has been well below that annual figure each year since, despite strong growth in the city’s population. That year, Melbourne’s fertility rate was 1.66, or 19 per cent higher than it is now.To illustrate the effects of this trend, The Age used Australian Bureau of Statistics data to compare the number of births in each Melbourne suburb in 2014 with the number in 2024.leaflet scrolly: melbourne birth scrolly notes;geojson:suburb-data/melbourne_sa2_birthrate_20260525.json;label:SA2_NAME;color:DIFFERENCE;scale:#C82134,#D9D9D9,#096DD2;domain:-171,0,888;Melbourne is not alone – fertility rates have fallen in all of Australia’s capital cities. Canberra now has the lowest fertility rate among the capitals, at 1.34, with Hobart second lowest at 1.36. https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/modules/datawrapper-embed/index.html?resizable=true&v=489&configUrl=https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/hub/configs/datawrapper-embed/57557.json&v=0.5261694954538918; width:regular;Australian National University Professor Edith Gray, who researches the demography of families and childbearing in Australia, said that work patterns and lifestyles in inner-urban areas affected the fertility rate.“Generally in cities, you have people who’ve got high incomes, they’ve got high levels of education and they work long hours, so that’s not really the setting to be having large numbers of children,” she said. “The people who live there either don’t really want children, have already had children or they’re going to have children in the future.”An array of personal preferences and economic factors affect the decisions that individuals make about childrearing, but the size and cost of housing has emerged as a major influence on fertility patterns in Melbourne.https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=526&configUrl=https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/57348.json&v=0.40471888312951976; width:regular;Melbourne districts with high house prices also tend to have relatively low fertility rates.KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley said that the loss of affordable homes had been a key factor in the collapse of fertility rates in Australia’s big cities over the past five years.“Young couples and families are being pushed out to more affordable locations, or they’re deciding not to have as many children as they might have otherwise,” he said.https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2026/birth-census-interactive/index.html?resizable=true®ion=vic; size: large