Australians have a big sex problem, Caleb Bond says

When it comes to getting intimate there’s one area where Australians aren’t performing well, writes Caleb Bond.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem.

We’re simply not shagging enough.

Surveys of sexual activity in the US and UK have shown a gradual decline in people having sex for decades.

Then a few years ago, the US National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior found a decline in all forms of sex.

It’s one of the reasons fertility rates across the western world are through the floor, with Japan this week recording its lowest ever fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman.

That means they’re pumping out far fewer children than they need to keep the population stable.

The Japanese population was three million people smaller in 2022 than it was in 2010.

It had twice as many deaths as births in 2022. The number of births dropped below 800,000 in 2022 – the first time since records began in 1899. And last year they dropped another 42,000.

There were also 30,500 fewer marriages and 4700 more divorces between the two years.

So the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has decided there is only one thing for it – they’re launching their own dating app.

Yes: the local government is so worried about the dwindling birthrate that they’ve turned into a matchmaking service.

Journalist Caleb Bond says we have a sex problem. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

“We learned that 70 per cent of people who want to get married aren’t actively joining events or apps to look for a partner,” an official working on the app said.

“We want to give them a gentle push to find one.”

I’m not sure I’d want the government getting involved in my dating life but, I suppose, desperate times call for desperate measures.

And Japan is not alone – Australia’s fertility rate is now 1.6 children per woman.

It’s one of the main drivers of our reliance on immigration.

Economic growth relies on the population growing or, at the very least, not going backwards.

If we were to shut the borders right now, the population would be smaller and older next year than it was this year.

The cost of living has become a major contributor to this baby bust.

Recent research by RedBridge Group found that more than half of 18-34 year olds have delayed having a family due to economic conditions.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Picture: iStock

Most people are smart and compassionate enough to not bring a child into this world if it cannot be properly reared.

And for many, it has become unaffordable.

Chief among the problems is housing affordability – starting a family generally relies on stability, of which owning a home is a major indicator and harder to achieve at a young age, and rent has gone through the roof leaving precious little money to spend on a child.

John Howard once said that “good economic policy is no end in its own right; it is only a great thing if it produces a human dividend”.

It is that of which we have lost sight. Where it was once common for a family to own a home and have at least two children with one parent at work and the other at home, it’s now standard for both partners to be at work, putting in overtime to pay their rent and struggling to support their kids if they’ve been able to have any.

Chief among the problems is housing affordability. Picture: Supplied

Sure, the economy has grown – but for what? Certainly not for a country in which people want to have kids. On that metric we’re going backwards.

The scale of economic growth has tipped so far that the one thing we really need for the economy to expand – more children who can grow up to become workers – has disappeared because we’re all too busy working to pay for ourselves.

Without better housing affordability in the streets and more action in the sheets, we’re rooted – or not, as the case may be.