The May 30 edition

An interesting thing happened while we were working on this week’s cover story about the experience of not having children, part of a wider project across our newsrooms looking at Australia’s declining fertility rate. Every time we sat down to discuss the presentation and execution of the story, a long and usually very personal conversation would ensue. Colleagues would share the experiences that had shaped whether or not they had children or wanted children, and why. They would talk of loves lost, or burgeoning careers, or cultural shifts that have occurred, influencing their path to parenthood. As is often the case, when it comes to choosing to have children – or not, the personal is political. There are many factors which impact decisions about family size, from cultural trends to cost and climate – and there are also complex societal consequences of what has been dubbed in some European countries a “demographic winter”. I am hard-pressed to think of another topic that has prompted such an emotive response, and we hope you find our contribution to this important national conversation equally engaging. – Melissa Stevens, editor