Dr. Eliza Philby

Now parenting is a 30 year financial commitment with the most expensive years after 18, right?

And that's how we, you think about the language we use around parenting.

We invest in our children.

It's an economic commitment here, right?

So the way that parenting has gone is women are having fewer children.

They're having them closer together.

That's really important.

And they're having them much later in life.

And that is a product to a large degree of choice, right?

Because as soon as you start educating women to tertiary level, the birth rate declines massively and they have children later.

Yeah.

It's about choice, but it's also about economic burdens and the complexities of trying to find a partner.

And I use gender neutral terms there deliberately, right?

Because families come in many forms.

And also you're seeing increasing number of women, I have many friends that are, chosen single mothers that are choosing to...

make a child on their own steam.

So the model of what a family looks like, the model of how women procreate, just all looks very different.

But to speak to the political point, which I think is mentioned too often, too casually, which is childcare is too expensive, healthcare is too expensive, education too expensive.

The economics of parenthood has become more expensive.

But people had a lot more children in a lot tougher economic times.