Having kids shouldn’t be a luxury. It’s time we cut the cost of IVF

For most major milestones in life, the financial path towards achieving them is relatively straightforward. Whether it’s buying your first car, taking a life-changing holiday, getting married or buying a home, the way to achieve it always the same: you set a budget and work towards it, slowly but surely seeing your savings grow until you have enough to pull the trigger.

But a story published in this masthead this week really drove home that for a growing number of Australians, there’s one area of our lives where the path isn’t always linear, especially financially, and that’s the journey to parenthood.

Women shouldn’t be forced to choose between a secure retirement or having kids.Credit: Dionne Gain

News that a 32-year-old Melbourne man fathered 27 children by 15 different women via informal sperm donation was shocking, but illuminating. It revealed the growing number of people forgoing formal fertility routes such as IVF and choosing riskier options, in large part due to financial constraints.

According to the Australian and New Zealand Assisted Reproduction Database, about 20,000 babies are born via IVF each year, while egg freezing has increased by as much as 1567 per cent in Australia over the past decade.

In other words, this is a booming industry with no signs of slowing down. That in itself isn’t inherently a bad thing. But we need to be realistic about the fact that it’s a profit-driven industry worth over $6 billion, the process of IVF is prohibitively expensive, and people find themselves there when they are at their most vulnerable.

Depending on where you live and the specialist you see, the average IVF cycle costs between $9000 and $15,000. You might get some of this back via Medicare rebates, but the out-of-pocket costs are substantial.

While some states like Victoria have begun rolling out IVF services via public healthcare, the wait times to see specialists are as long as two years. And as anyone who has had children, is thinking about one day having them, or is currently trying, knows: time is the cruel enemy of fertility. Hence, why most people will invariably end up in the private system.

For context, a healthy woman with no pre-existing conditions in her 20s has a 25 to 30 per cent chance of falling pregnant naturally, but this starts to decline throughout her late 20s and early 30s. Once she reaches 35, this decline becomes swift, and by the time she’s 40, the chance of falling pregnant naturally is roughly 5 per cent.

While IVF can’t overcome the effects of ageing on a person’s fertility, the chances of having a live birth via IVF when you’re aged between 30 and 34 is 43 per cent. This drops to 31 per cent when you’re aged 35 to 39, and sits at 11 per cent once you’re aged 40 to 44.

So you can understand why so many people are willing to pay – or are willing to try to do whatever it takes to pay – to access IVF and fulfil their dreams of being a parent.

It’s important that the realities of the financial implications surrounding IVF, particularly when it involves super, are clear from the outset.

A relatively new but increasingly common way people are finding the money to access IVF services is to access their superannuation. The Australian Tax Office reports that throughout the 2023-24 financial year, 4210 applications to access superannuation to fund IVF were approved, totalling $64.1 million in withdrawn superannuation. Compared to the 2018-19 financial year, where 2720 applications were approved, this is an increase of 55 per cent in just five years.

Accessing superannuation for medical treatments is considered on compassionate grounds, with applicants required to prove that the procedure or treatment will alleviate life-threatening illnesses, pain, or acute or chronic mental disturbances. Applicants also have to prove to the ATO that their superannuation is the only way that they can pay for the treatment.

Again, none of this in and of itself is inherently a bad thing. I understand the desire and drive to become a parent on a deep level. But I also believe that IVF services should be more readily available to people who need them, not least because there are few major concerns with women using their super to fund the process.

To start with, although men and women alike can apply to access their superannuation for IVF, research indicates that the majority of Australians currently applying and being approved are women.

As we all know, women are not only more likely to earn less superannuation than men over the course of their working lives thanks to the gender pay gap, and they’re also retiring with much less because they’re more likely to take time out of paid work to raise children. To then see that balance even further reduced to become parents feels disgustingly unfair.

There’s also the tax implications of accessing your superannuation – because any money you are approved to withdraw is taxed as a normal super lump sum. So, for example, say you withdraw $20,000, that money will appear on your tax statement and could mean that your HECS debt repayment rises.

Another issue is the timing of the superannuation withdrawal, and what it really costs in the long run. Say you access $20,000 for two rounds of IVF when you’re 35 years old. If you retire in 30 years, that deduction will actually equate to roughly $40,000.

Of course, you can’t put a price on having kids. As someone who didn’t have the smoothest path to motherhood, I truly understand the desire to start or grow a family.

But it is important that the realities of the financial implications surrounding IVF, particularly when it involves accessing superannuation, are clear from the outset because the cruel and heartbreaking reality is that not every IVF journey ends happily.

People’s physical and financial safety are closely linked, and all women have the right to be safe on their journey to parenthood in both respects.

But if nothing changes, we will see more women forced to engage in high-risk, short-term situations like informal donation, or long-term risks like not having enough superannuation later on.

Victoria Devine is an award-winning retired financial adviser, bestselling author and host of Australia’s No.1 finance podcast, She’s on the Money. She is also founder and director of Zella Money.

• Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.

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