TRANSCRIPT
With ten children, one on the way plus mum and dad, the Soliolas aren't just a family of talented singers, they'll soon have enough people to field their own rugby league team.
Parents Bill and Sana always wanted a big family.
Sana: "I don't think it was ever planned, but I always knew that I wanted a lot of kids."
Bill: "We named our younger twins Alpha and Omega, because we thought Omega's going to be very last one, and then all of a sudden..."
Sana: "Omega number two!"
Their children agree it's a blessing...
Monalisa: "I think always having company, like I'm never bored."
Via: "We play with each other at the backyard."
Elizabeth: "You can go have so many friends you want, but they're the only real ones you're gonna have."
But it has its challenges: getting around requires a mini bus, the couple have three jobs between them and it takes two hours just to buy groceries.
Bill: "People always ask us, how do you do it? How do you do it? Even sometimes we, we don't know. We don't know how we do it."
Sana: "The obvious, financially it is a big thing, but um, I was just saying I think I'm just grateful that my kids are I think, understanding."
In our rapidly changing world, big families like theirs are increasingly rare.
Professor John Aitken is a distinguished Emeritus Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Newcastle.
"The decline in fertility rates is a really sort of complex issue and you can't really look at it through the lens of any single discipline."
New research by HSBC estimates based on current trends... the global population could begin declining by 20-40, and halve before the end of the century.
This turning point well ahead of the 2022 base population forecasts by the UN.
HSBC Global Economist James Pomeroy has been analysing the numbers.
"Birth rates have fallen to levels that I don't think anyone thought was possible five or 10 years ago. It's been the continued increase in female participation rates in the workforce, which is clearly a good thing. But what it's meaning is that people are then delaying having their children. We also think the pandemic has changed people's mindset a little bit and not being able to do things like traveling the world for a number of years. Suddenly people think, well, actually I'll delay having kids for a couple of years. I'll do all of these things. And again, you start running into some of these biological issues. But the biggest one for me is the cost. And I think this is something that goes really, really underappreciated by governments across the world. If you are a person in your twenties today, you've been dealt a horrific hand in terms of your future finances. You look at the cost of housing across the world relative to wages, unless you're lucky enough to win a lottery or to inherit loads of money from your parents, you are not buying a house at the very earliest until you're in your thirties. And for a lot of people, you don't want to start a family until you've got that security."
This delay in having children... is critical.
The World Health Organisation says around one in six people globally will experience infertility.
The University of Newcastle's John Aitken.
"With age, both the man and the woman will lose fertility. Women lose their fertility very rapidly. Over a five, six year period, their fertility completely declines. With men, it's not so rapid, but still there is a significant decline in fertility with age. We unfortunately, we cannot change our biology to meet our social aspirations. We rather have to change the way we structure society in order to encourage young couples to have children earlier in life."
He says sperm counts are also declining due in part to environmental toxins and lifestyle factors.
"We shouldn't think that because sperm cancer declining that fertility is necessarily declining. Those two things don't need to go together. What's worrying is not the actual sperm count itself, but rather the trajectory of the change. Men are losing about 2% in sperm counts per annum. And if this keeps on happening, if it keeps on happening, then you will get to a point where you do literally run out of spermatozoa and it starts to have an impact on fertility."
In Australia, one in 18 children are now born through IVF.
Experts say the technology is essential, even in places like Sub-Saharan Africa where fertility rates are high but access to medical infertility care remains scarce.
Dr Karin Hammarberg is a Senior Fellow at Monash University and has overseen the establishment of an IVF clinic in Zimbabwe.
"For an individual woman of course in countries where having children is a woman's main role in life, not having any is a deeply confronting and difficult situation for women. It's a societal expectation and it's a cultural expectation and it also ensures inheritance and it ensures that you have a status in society that is accepted. Women can sometimes be ostracized and stigma is enormous".
Meanwhile amid debate around the climate crisis, experts say a smaller population, is not a quick fix.
Professor Bonnie McBain is a Senior Lecturer in Sustainability Science at the University of Newcastle.
"Environmental impact is really driven by population, by affluence and by technology. In places like Australia, we have a very, very affluent lifestyle. Ecological footprint is very significant when we think about a per capita use of resources. So for each individual person in poorer countries, we might get whole entire families with eight children using less resources every year than one individual in Australia. I think population is one of those inflexible things. I think what we really need to focus on and what we've got more power to influence is how much we spend and what our level of affluence is."
As countries become more prosperous, research shows fertility rates decline which, James Pomeroy says, will have economic consequences going forward.
"So then you're probably going to have to think seriously about do you raise retirement age? Do you raise taxes considerably? Do you make healthcare worse or pensions worse? And I mean, these are policy choices that no one is going to be making if they want to win an election or stay in power because they're massively unpopular."
But Professor John Aitken says having children is also a matter of personal fufilment.
"I don't think fertility is ever a question of good or bad, but it is a question of choice or should be a question of choice."
And the Soliola family wouldn't have things any other way.
Bill: "Stay encouraged. If you want a big family, you can have a big family because the community, everyone will support you."
This podcast was done in collaboration with the Australian Science Media Centre and supported by a META Public Interest Journalism Fund administered by the Walkley Foundation.
