Populations of New Zealand and Australia at the Millennium

A joint Special Issue of the Journal of Population Research and the New Zealand Population Review

Edited by Gordon A. Carmichael with A. Dharmalingam

Published September 2002
ISBN 0-9578572-1-7

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TAKING STOCK AT THE MILLENNIUM: FAMILY FORMATION IN AUSTRALIA
Gordon A. Carmichael, The Australian National University

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Abstract
As the new millennium and century begin, it is appropriate to reflect on the transformation of family formation patterns that has occurred in Australia in the latter decades of the 1900s, and what the current state of this fundamental social process is. This paper summarizes major trends in the two main dimensions of family formation – relationship formation and childbearing. It notes in particular, at millennium’s end, a circumspect approach to formal marriage, slowly declining fertility at well below replacement level to a yet-to-be-determined nadir, a marked weakening of the nexus between marriage and childbearing, and a need to probe more intimately the forces influencing fertility decisions.

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