Climate Change Fears Deter 40% of Australian Women Without Children, Survey Finds

Climate Change Fears Deter 40% of Australian Women Without Children, Survey Finds
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About 40% of Australian women without children say they are hesitant to have kids due to climate change, according to a new national survey reported by The Guardian. The study, conducted by Roy Morgan Research for Professor Clive Hamilton of Charles Sturt University, examined public attitudes toward global heating and its social impacts.

The survey of 2,000 participants found that half of Australians are “very” or “extremely concerned” about climate change, while two in five believe the country will be “much hotter” by 2050. Concern varied sharply across political lines: Labor, Greens, and independent voters were three times more likely to express high concern than Coalition voters, over a third of whom believe the climate will remain unchanged.

Among parents, 60% of Labor voters said they worry about their children’s future in a warming world, compared with 20% of Coalition supporters. The study also found that education level correlated more strongly with climate concern than age.

Hamilton’s research noted a significant gender gap: women were more anxious and felt less secure about climate change than men, a pattern he attributes to “values of care” that make women more responsive to scientific warnings. Among non-parents, 40.4% of women reported climate-related hesitancy about childbearing, compared to 17% of men.

Hamilton warned that rising climate anxiety could contribute to a decline in Australia’s birthrate, highlighting a “disconnect” between youth concerns and government demographic planning.

The findings align with a 2019 Australian Conservation Foundation survey, which found one in three women under 30 were reconsidering parenthood due to fears of an unsafe climate future. Interestingly, the new survey found that experiencing floods or fires since 2019 had little long-term effect on people’s overall climate concern.