Facts:

• Population of ≈27 million
• Population density of 4 people/km² – one of the lowest in the world

Reasons for underpopulation:

• Low birth rate – High education standards
  → People want to focus on careers and not on having children
• Low fertility rates – Women educated on birth control
  → In 2023, Total Fertility Rate was 1.50, below the replacement rate of 2.1
• 40% of Australia is desert climate – Difficult to have water supply, unsuitable to grow food

Problems of underpopulation

• Shortage of workers – Cannot achieve optimum productivity
  → In 2023, 36% of occupations assessed were experiencing national shortages
• Cannot exploit all natural resources – Australia is a resource-rich nation
• Less tax-payers – Reduced government revenue, more challenging to fund public goods and services
• Schools, hospitals, services may close – insufficient government funding, threshold population not met
• Less brain power – Less development
• Ageing population – Strain on healthcare and aged care services

Solutions of underpopulation:

• Encouraging Immigration
• Jobs with attractive pay
• Australia wants migrants to settle in rural and regional areas
• Attracting international students to regional universities:
  → In 2019, the government introduced new tertiary scholarships to attract Australian and international students to study in regional Australia. $15,000 scholarships are offered annually to over 1,000 students through the Destination Australia program.
  → Giving international students studying at regional universities access to an additional year in Australia on a post-study work visa
• In September 2022, the Albanese government increased the permanent migration intake from 160,000 to a record 195,000 a year