Posted on 09/15/2005 9:28:57 AM PDT by qam1
THE Australian family is under attack: not from an evil outside force intent on destroying a wholesome way of life, but from a none-too-subtle shift in values between generations.
Whereas the boomers were great supporters of mum, dad and the kids, later generations of Xers and now Ys are clearly less enamoured with family life, at least in youth. If there is a place for the traditional nuclear family in modern Australia it has been relegated to the late 30s and early 40s wasteland.
In 1991, 41 per cent of all Australian households featured a traditional nuclear family. This proportion would have exceeded 50 per cent in the 1960s. In this early manifestation of the traditional family, "the kids" numbered four and upwards.
Not like today: families have slimmed to two kids at best; a single child is common.
There is now a whole generation of Ys, and increasingly of Zs, growing up as lone kids in suburban houses. There are no brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles or aunties. These kids are quite alone.
The role of the family changed dramatically in the 90s. By 2001 only 33 per cent of all Australian households contained a traditional-styled family. In one devastating decade the family yielded 8 percentage points of market share to other, flashier, trendier, sexier households such as singles and couples.
Gen Xers didn't want to be stuck with a permanent partner and kids. They wanted to flit from relationship to relationship, job to job, home to apartment and then back to home, or from Australia to London and back.
Xers wanted to "discover themselves"; doing the daggy family thing just didn't sit well with Xer's plans for their 20s. Xers are incredulous at the suggestion they should pair up, bunker down and reproduce by 25.
"This is a no-brainer, right? The choice is either the pursuit of a cosmopolitan and funky 20- something lifestyle or spending this time cleaning up after a two-year-old? And the upside of the second choice is what exactly?"
Well, my dear little Xers, the upside of having kids in your 20s is that you grow as a person; you discover a wonderful sense of fulfilment in caring for and raising a well adjusted child who depends on you for everything.
"Bernard, please stop it. I can't take it any more. My sides are hurting. Tell me the real reason why we should forgo earning an income and having a good time in our 20s to have children.
"You mean that's it? That was for real? Look, if previous generations were dumb enough to waste their youth doing the kid thing, so be it. But don't lay any guilt trip on us just because we are exercising options that others were too stupid to grasp. And if I wanted a wonderful sense of fulfilment, then I'd go shopping."
And so the family shrivels.
By 2011 the traditional nuclear family will make up barely 28 per cent of all Australian households.
Singles and couples will account for 28 per cent of households. By the end of this decade the traditional nuclear family will no longer be the dominant social arrangement within Australia.
This is a very different world to the childhood of boomers 40 years earlier. In that world the family ruled. The family was reflected positively on television rather than in dysfunctional parody.
A suburban three-bedroom lair was designed specifically for families. No-one questioned the logic or the sanctity of the 1960s family.
The family is projected to continue on its current downward trajectory to make up just 24 per cent of all households by 2031. Single person households at this time are expected to make up 31 per cent of households.
What will Australia look like in 2031 when almost one in three households contains a single person? And this is not the young, sexy 20-something single that blossomed in the 1990s. No, the burgeoning market for singles during the 2020s will comprise sad old lonely baby boomers whose partner has died.
If we accept that there was a cultural impact from the baby boom in the 1950s that shaped consumer demand for 50 years, then we must also accept the confronting fact that there will be a "baby bust" 70 years later in the 2020s. The former delivered and deified the family; the latter will deliver a fatal blow to a social institution wounded by the shifting values of Xers and Ys 30 years earlier.
No need for sporting fields in Australian suburbia in the 2020s, but there will be a need for social and religious clubs to stem isolation within the burbs. It is an odd fact that as Australians get older and closer to death they also get closer to God. The 2020s will see a rise in religious fervour.
The bottom line is that the family is in transition, downwards. It is little wonder that political institutions are rallying behind its demise. The stark and brutal assessment is that within half a century we will have shifted from a situation where traditional families accounted for one in two households to one in four.
There will never be another decade like the 1990s when families conceded 8 percentage points in market share. After all, if we did this in the 2020s, then by the end of that decade traditional families would make up barely 17 per cent of all households. And at that level, you would have to question the basis upon which we as a nation bring up our kids. I don't think the Australian nation would ever be happy to have the majority of our children brought up in a social institution that does not contain a mother and a father living in cohabitation.
If these are our values, then the attack on the family that started in earnest in the 1990s must slow down and grind to a halt in the 2020s. Such a shift will slow down the rate of household formation and, combined with the dying off of the baby boomers in this decade, will lead to a severe slowdown in the demand for residential property in the 2020s.
As a consequence, I reckon the property industry has one, perhaps two, boom periods to run before it hits the wall at some stage during the 2020s.
Bernard Salt is a partner with KPMG
bsalt@kpmg.com.au
How, pray tell, are you paying to raise my child?
The taxes you pay, just like the taxes I pay, go for a whole host of things. Your claim makes about as much sense as me claining I'm paying for your commute to work - absolutely none.
I just gave up. It was like arguing with the stupid cat lady that lived around the corner when I was a kid. She hated kids and everyone who had them too. I think they eventually hauled her off to the looney bin.
You are NOT paying for your child's education just because you are paying "a share" of taxes. If your school system spends $17,000/year per student, then you are paying for child only if your share of property taxes and portion of state income taxes that goes to schools, is $17,000+.
And at even a conservative $15,000/year for public schooling a child, someone would have to be making WAY into six figures to actually cover the cost of educating a dozen children. And if they're not paying that much in taxes, then somebody else is supporting their children.
Classifying anything as private property, instead of as community property subject to government control, is hardly socialist.
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Children are not property.
There shouldn't BE a public school system. It's just one more socialist wealth redistribution scheme. What the heck is wrong with expecting people to foot the cost of raising and educating their own children? Grandparents can help too. But people who put their kids in public schools, pay a tiny fraction of those kids' tab in taxes, and then claim to be supporting their own children, are either clueless or lying.
Financially, children are only an asset to today's society after they are grown up and well-educated. That wasn't the case when most people were farmers, and children were put to economically productive work at a very tender age. But now, children are a financial liability to their parents.
I am paying WAY more in taxes than I use in any form of taxpayer funded services. That means I am subsidizing people who are paying less in taxes than they use. If those us who are paying way more than our share suddenly stopped, the net takers would find out fast and hard just how dependent they've been on other people's money.
I like children, and will definitely have them in the future. Can't afford to yet, because I'm paying so much in taxes to support other people's children, and I refuse to dump my children in the government indoctrination centers.
Unfortunately, it is unambiguously almost the worst time by most other important metrics. Our environment is evolving faster than our biology.
The amount of time one has to spend in educational institutions is a problem. It would actually make more sense for young women do college on a slow track while having kids in the meantime. That way they could enter the workforce with the early stage of raising the children completed.
We don't treat them like a liability, they are a liability by any reasonable analysis.
"tortoise said so" is not a reasonable analysis.
The majority of people in college today have no business being there. Likewise, high school is mostly a daycare center for teens.
If you aren't doing calculus by age 14, I see little point in continuing the education sham. Go do something real instead.
I'm about to do the same myself.........it's nearly time to go over homework.
Be that as it may, there is a public school system and it is not a new phenomena.
It's just one more socialist wealth redistribution scheme.
Bravo sierra - some of the ideas being touted in some school systems may be socialist, but that is another issue.
But people who put their kids in public schools, pay a tiny fraction of those kids' tab in taxes, and then claim to be supporting their own children, are either clueless or lying.
Both my husband and I were in our 40s before our daughter began attending a public school. My brother and I each spent 12 years in Catholic schools, even though my parents were paying taxes for public schools. Same with my mother and her sister.
So please don't talk to me about not paying my tab.
As was said in an earlier post - homeschooling is not an option for everyone - and that includes this family. Private school is also out because that would entail my returning to work and having some kind of daycare arrangements for our daughter.......and the nearest one is 45 miles away.
If you are so against public education and the taxes you pay for it - talk your your state legislators, but get off the back of those of us who have made decisions and sacrifices based upon what we believe is best for our children.
So am I. What is your point?
If you aren't doing calculus by age 14, I see little point in continuing the education sham. Go do something real instead.
Having done calculus at 14, I can't protest. Seriously, I agree with you - the idea of university education as a mass product is one of the silliest and costliest 20th century inventions.
You are kidding, aren't you?
There are people that are not very good at mathematics, and have no interest in it, so what is your point? Are you saying those without math aptitude should not have an education?
The part of your post to me I meant to highlight was:
I just gave up.
My apologies.
That is precisely what I was thinking. I believe that Australia must be a generation behind the U.S. I have found that it is the Boomers who rejected family/aborted their babies/and "lived" together without benefit of marriage. The GenXers have seen the sorry results and have opted for family. So sad when people can't realize that not reproducing is the same as signing their death warrant. The population producers rule the world by virtue of numbers. Advice for the future: learn to speak Spanish.
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