Sydney is in the midst of a baby recession. The number of births in the city fell to a 20-year low of 58,122 in the latest data, for 2024, despite strong population growth.The city’s fertility rate, which measures expected births per woman, has fallen by nearly 20 per cent in the past decade to a historic low of 1.44. That’s way below the benchmark population “replacement” level of 2.1 needed to replace the population from one generation to the next without migration.If the trend continues, Sydney’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.)Decreasing birth rates will change neighbourhoods – school enrolments will fall, and some schools will close or merge 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 contributing to a steady 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 12 per cent of Sydney neighbourhoods last year including Belrose (121 more deaths than births), Hunters Hill (104 more deaths) and Turramurra (99 more deaths).The number of babies born across Greater Sydney peaked in 2018 at 72,514 but has fallen below that every year since.To illustrate the effects of this trend, the Herald used Bureau of Statistics data to compare the number of births in each Sydney suburb in 2014 with the number in 2024.leaflet scrolly: sydney birth scrolly notes;geojson:suburb-data/sydney_sa2_birthrate_20260519.json;label:SA2_NAME;color:DIFFERENCE;scale:#C82134,#D9D9D9,#096DD2;domain:-248,0,503;Sydney is not alone – fertility rates have fallen in all of Australia’s capital cities. Canberra had the lowest fertility rate among the capitals, at 1.34, and Hobart had the second lowest (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 work patterns and lifestyles in inner-urban areas affected the fertility rate.“Generally in cities, you have people whove got high incomes, theyve got high levels of education and they work long hours, so thats not really the setting to be having large numbers of children,” she said. “The people who live there either dont really want children, have already had children or theyre going to have children in the future.”Mothers aged under 35 are becoming increasingly rare in Sydney: the last census, taken in 2021, showed nearly half (48 per cent) of the city’s women aged 30 to 34 had never had a child, up from 42 per cent a decade earlier.An array of personal preferences and economic factors affect the decisions individuals make about childrearing, but the size and cost of housing has emerged as a major influence on fertility patterns in Sydney.Many parts of Sydney with relatively high house prices also have relatively low fertility rates.https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=906&configUrl=https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/57349.json&v=0.7144002900587084; width:regular;KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley said the cost of housing was locking young couples – those most likely to have children – out of many parts of the city.“Families are being pushed to more affordable areas, or they’re deciding not to have as many children as they might have otherwise,” he said.Thousands of young families are leaving Sydney for other parts of the country each year.“The loss of affordable homes for people to live in has been probably the biggest impact on the number of births in Sydney over the last five years,” Rawnsley said.https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2026/birth-census-interactive/index.html?resizable=true; size: large