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"I had my baby at 38," says Heer Kaur, an Indian migrant living in Beveridge, north of Melbourne, who had always imagined having a big family .
But the reality of building a life in a new country, establishing a career and raising a child without family support meant rethinking that dream.
Kaur eventually decided to have just one child, weighing her desire for a large family against the financial and practical demands of parenthood.
"As migrants, we have to rebuild everything in the new country. I kept postponing marriage or having children for later. I wanted to be settled first. Be a permanent resident, build a career, have some stability," she tells SBS Punjabi.
"I wanted to have at least two kids. I assumed I would be able to have kids whenever I tried. But that was not the case."
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SBS News has withheld her real name for privacy reasons.
Kaur says the lack of family support in Australia also meant spending more on childcare.
"The compromise comes with guilt as a parent. We work hard to ensure he learns social skills, how to share, and has a network of his own, beyond us."
She says she hopes the family she built was the result of her own choices, not dictated by social and economic circumstances.
Kaur's experience reflects a wider question facing Australia: what happens when the family people want, and the family they can afford, are not the same?
Kaur is not alone in finding herself at this crossroads.
The Treasury's Intergenerational Report (IGR) 2026 puts Australia's total fertility rate at a historic low of 1.48 births per woman, lower than the total fertility rates projected in previous IGRs.
The replacement-level fertility rate — the rate at which a population replaces itself over time without migration — is about 2.1 births per woman.
The report projects that Australia's fertility rate will decline further to 1.34 births per woman by 2065–66.
It identifies delayed childbearing as a key factor contributing to smaller families and lower fertility rates.
The IGR identifies establishing a career as one reason people delay parenthood. It also points to access to childcare, the burden of unpaid care , housing security, and workplace flexibility as factors influencing people's decisions about whether to start a family or have more children.
The trend towards later childbearing is not unique to Australia.
In 2023, more than one in three births worldwide were to women aged 30 and over, compared with about one in four in 1990.
However, experts say delayed parenthood is only part of the picture. Financial pressures, changing social expectations and individual circumstances can also shape decisions about family size. The reasons vary, and lower fertility rates do not necessarily mean that everyone wants more children but is unable to have them.
But as Australia's fertility rate falls and its population ages, the implications extend beyond individual families.
The IGR warns that if birth rates and migration fall below baseline expectations, Australia's population would be 1.9 million smaller and the economy 7.4 per cent smaller by 2065–66.
And with deaths projected to outnumber births by the 2060s, migration is expected to play an increasingly important role in sustaining population growth and meeting workforce needs.
Migrants already make up a large and growing share of the health care and social assistance workforce.
The IGR notes that migration can help moderate population ageing as new migrants are "typically younger than the existing population".
Demographer Liz Allen says Australia's ageing population and below-replacement fertility rate mean the country will rely more on migration to support its workforce and economy.
"Australia is on the way to what's considered super-aged. It essentially means that, in proportion speaking, we have more people aged over 65 than we have young people," she tells SBS Punjabi.
"Currently, we rely on individual income taxpayers to contribute to the economy; with an ageing population and below-replacement-level fertility, we have a shrinking relative working-age population. That means fewer tax dollars coming from that biggest source of taxpayers, individual workers."
Allen says migration also brings social and cultural benefits alongside its economic contribution.
The IGR found new migrants are typically younger than the existing population, with a median age of 26 compared with 38 in 2024-25. As a result, migration helps slow population ageing and increases the share of working-age people beyond what would be achieved through natural increase alone.
Research by the University of Melbourne's demographer Peter McDonald shows that temporary migrants are predominantly young adults aged 20 to 35, many of whom come to Australia to study or establish their careers. While they are included in the population's childbearing age group, they contribute relatively few births.
Allen says migrants can also adopt the fertility patterns of their new country, which "in some cases, means even have lower fertility rates than the local population".
"Upon arrival in Australia, many migrants prioritise work and education, which delays family formation into their late 30s or beyond. This trend mirrors the broader patterns seen in the Australian population," she says.
For Adelaide-based freelance photographer Naina Redhu, moving to Australia meant meeting her partner, Jamie. While she says she is happy with her partner, neither of them wants to have children.
The 46-year-old says she has always been clear that she doesn't want children . Yet the decision has often prompted questions and unsolicited advice, including suggestions that she freeze her eggs as a precaution.
"My ex-husband and I were clear that we did not want children, but later, he did want to have kids some years down the line," she tells SBS Punjabi.
"I think it is selfish to have kids, and we ended up parting ways."
Redhu says not having a child doesn't mean she takes motherhood lightly.
"I believe parenting is a 24X7 commitment for the rest of your life. For someone like me, it would mean putting everything aside and being completely focused on raising the child, and I am not ready for that commitment yet," she says.
"There are so many things that I have to do and still want to do."
Allen says Australia should focus less on achieving an ideal number of children and more on removing hurdles that prevent people from having the families they want.
"We need to reach a point where having a much-wanted child, or a second child, is truly possible and not obstructed by barriers that feel insurmountable. Otherwise, the consequences ripple across society," she says.
She warns that smaller families may also have broader social consequences, including greater pressure on individuals to provide care for ageing relatives or fewer family connections to rely on.
"Until we address major challenges including housing affordability, economic security, climate change, and gender equality, Australians may lack the confidence and hope needed to plan for the future."
This story was produced in collaboration with SBS Punjabi .
