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Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
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. 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. Loading 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.
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
The $1700 question: Is your super being paid correctly?
Real Money, a free weekly newsletter giving expert tips on how to save, invest and make the most of your money, is sent every Sunday. You're reading an excerpt − sign up to get the whole newsletter in your inbox. What about if you found out you'd been missing out on a free $1700 a year? Given that's enough to buy a return flight somewhere nice, cover the kids' sporting costs for a year, or buy more than 1000 bags of rolled oats, I can imagine you'd be pretty upset. What about if it was $30,000 instead? That's a lot of oats! While this is a little bit hyperbolic, $1700 is roughly how much each year affected workers are missing out on due to their bosses not paying their super properly. A recent study from the Super Members Council (SMC) found in 2022/23, 3.3 million Australians missed out on $5.7 billion in super due to their entitlements being unpaid or underpaid. By the time retirement rolls around, that $1700 can turn into upwards of $30,000, which is a massive deal when the average super balance at retirement age is between $300,000 to $400,000. Loading What's the problem? This amount is on the up too, with SMC estimating an additional $600 million in super has gone unpaid since last year. Thankfully, there are new laws on the way to help combat this, with the government planning to legislate payday super by next July. This will force employers to pay superannuation each time they pay their employees' regular wage, rather than quarterly as current legislation requires (though some employers choose to pay more frequently), with beefed-up penalties for employers who fail to pay within seven days of wages. It will also increase retirement savings, as more regular payments improves the effect of compounding interest. What you can do about it
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
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. 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. Loading 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.
