July 15, 2025 • 36 mins
What happens when fathers disappear? The ripple effect doesn’t just hit the household — it fractures society, destabilises youth, and rewrites the future of Australia.
In this hard-hitting episode of The Finance Bible, Zeke Guenthroth breaks down:
- 📉 How fatherless homes have doubled in Australia since the 1980s
- 🇺🇸 Why 1 in 3 American children grow up without a dad
- 🔗 The direct link between broken homes and youth crime (70% of youth in custody come from single-parent families)
- 👶 Australia's birth rate crash to 1.5 children per woman — and how it's tied to relationship breakdown, economic pressure, and cultural shifts
But we’re not just pointing fingers — we’re offering solutions that actually work:
- 🧠 Premarital counselling: Cuts divorce risk from 24% to 11%
- 🇸🇪 Scandinavia’s joint custody model: Reduces youth delinquency by 20%
- 💬 Communication, policy reform, and community-led support that rebuilds strong families from the ground up
This episode fuses real stats with real stories — a wake-up call for anyone who wants to protect the next generation.
Whether you're a parent, policymaker, educator, or investor in Australia's future… this is a message you can’t ignore.
🎧 Enjoyed this episode?
Follow us on Instagram @zekeguenthrothofficial @oscardonproperty and @assetroad for daily insights, property breakdowns, and behind-the-scenes updates.
Explore more at www.assetroad.com.au
Disclaimer:
The information provided in this podcast is general in nature and does not constitute personal financial advice. It has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information, you should consider the appropriateness of the advice, having regard to your own objectives, financial situation and needs. Asset Road Pty Ltd recommends you seek independent financial, legal, taxation or other advice as required. All investments carry risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Zeke Guenthroth (00:00):
Picture a young boy in Sydney growing up
without his father's guidance,struggling to find his place in
the world.
By 15, he's caught up in pettycrime, searching for belonging
in all the wrong places.
It's not just one story.
It's a pattern that's repeatedacross Australia, us and beyond.
Today, we're diving deep intothe crisis of fatherless homes,
(00:21):
how it's linked to youth crimeand how Australia's declining
birth rates tie into thiscomplex issue.
We'll explore why families arebreaking apart, what's driving
these trends and how we canbuild stronger futures for our
kids.
We'll trace trends from the1980s through to now, backed by
hard-hitting data, expertinsights and real-world stories,
from Australia's risingsingle-parent households to
(00:45):
Scandinavia's unique approach toco-parenting.
We'll uncover why this mattersand what we can do about it.
Plus, we'll highlightAustralia's falling birth rates
and their broader implications.
Welcome back to another episodeof the Finance Bible Podcast.
You're joined with myself, zeke, and your co-host, oscar.
(01:07):
But before we get into it,please note that nothing in this
podcast should ever beconsidered as personal financial
advice.
But if that is what you areseeking, get in touch, let us
know and we will hook you upwith the correct professionals.
Sit back, relax and enjoy theshow.
Let's get into it professionals.
(01:28):
Sit back, relax and enjoy theshow.
Let's get into it.
Let's start off by unpackinghow widespread fatherless homes
have become, not just inAustralia, but globally,
worldwide, internationally.
What do the numbers show usfrom the 1980s through to now,
and which countries are buckingthe trend?
So from the 80s to 2025, 45years.
So from the 80s to 2025, 45years, father's homes, often
single mother homes, haveincreased in many countries
(01:50):
since the 1980s through to now,driven by rising divorce rates,
cohabitation and changing socialnorms.
We'll go through a detailedbreakdown, country by country.
We're going to use Australia asa baseline, country by country.
We're going to use Australia asa baseline.
So going back to early 1981,we're just going to go through a
(02:11):
couple of different countriesthat we got stats on and sort of
look at where they're headingnow.
So Australia 15.5% were singleparent families with dependent
children.
In America, it was 12%, Fastforward to 1991, so 10 years.
Children In America it was 12%,fast forward to 1991, so 10
years.
Australia goes up to 16.6, nota huge jump 1%.
The US, on the other hand, wentup to 20, so 8% increase.
(02:32):
2001, just after I was born, wehad 22% and I'm rounding up
here, but 21.8%, 22%, 22 percentand america went up to 27
percent.
2011.
America held strong and we wentup to 22.4 percent.
Sweden comes in at 31.3 percent.
(02:54):
Poland was only nine percent.
So pretty good stats there forpoland, australia, us and sweden
doing quite poor Fast forwardthrough to 2021 and through now,
even doing the best we can.
You had 21.8% were single parenthomes in Australia.
80% were mother-led, meaningfather wasn't in the picture.
(03:15):
For 80% of those US, verysimilar, but 31% it's about a
third in today's world.
33% of homes in AmericaFatherless, 34% in Sweden quite
a poor statistic, if you ask me.
Of them, 36% are single-fatherhouseholds.
So you get 66% mother-led.
(03:36):
The UAE, now, this is a good one, and Poland, again another good
one.
Uae, like United Arab Emirates,less than 10% and Poland about
9%.
So both of them sitting below10% or a third of what ours are.
Now, if we look into the statsthere, we've got to figure out
(03:56):
what's going on.
What's changed in Australia,we've gone up quite drastically.
We've more than doubled.
We've got to think about what'sgoing on there.
As a country, we've virtuallydoubled our fatherless homes in
that period, because there'sobviously more now than there
was then, although it's onlyabout a 10% to 12% increase.
The number of people hasincreased quite drastically.
(04:17):
So if we then go on to look atwhat's actually happening the
divorce rate it peaked so after1975 Family Law law act, which
introduced a no-fault divorcebasically you can get divorced
because why not?
That had an increase indivorces, meaning an increase in
single households, and it wentup to 4.6 per thousand and
(04:37):
stabilized at 2.2 per thousand.
So it's actually halved sincethen.
It's's gotten better.
However, we're marrying lessthan we were.
We now delay how often we getmarried and how old we are when
we get married has gonedrastically from sitting at like
19, 20, all the way through toabout 25, 26.
So it's getting later and later.
We're buying houses and so on.
(04:58):
If we go into US, 18.4 millionchildren were in fatherless
households by 2021.
18.4 million children were infatherless households by 2021.
18.4 million In 2025, fastforward.
Today there is more recentstatistics on it.
It is more than the Australianpopulation is now in a
fatherless home.
Sweden 34% of households.
We've already been through that.
Poland, only 9%.
(05:19):
We've already talked about thatas well.
But what are the notable shifts?
What has occurred?
What are the trends?
What's changed?
As I just said, the no-faultdivorce laws.
That's huge.
That happened in australia andus 1975 and 1970, so that had a
massive repercussion.
1990 through 2000, cohabitationbecame much more common,
(05:40):
especially in like scandinaviaand austral.
So ultimately what that did wasit decoupled marriage from
parenthood.
So it used to be moretraditional and you would say
get married, wait to have thekids and then have children.
However, now it's the opposite.
It's moving together, have kids, get married and buy a house or
whatever it is.
And then in 2010, it's throughto now, the divorce rate has
(06:02):
stabilized, but thesingle-parent households
continue to rise because you'vegot non-marital births and
separations prior to marriage.
So ultimately it's just peopleare not getting married now, so
the divorce rate doesn't show it, but the actual number of
houses going up theresingle-parent are increasing.
(06:23):
Here's a jaw-dropper In the US,31% of kids, which is over 18
million, live without a fatherat home.
That's a population bigger thanmost countries.
And in Australia the number ofsingle-parent families has
doubled since the 1980sVirtually doubled.
This is a global issue we can'tignore.
The rise in single-parenthouseholds reflects broader
(06:44):
societal shifts, but it comeswith challenges that we must
address.
That's a direct quote from theAustralian Institute of Family
Studies.
Now that we've seen the scale ofthe fatherless home epidemic,
let's look at the consequences.
So one of the most alarming isthe rise in youth crime, and the
data is clear about the link.
It's so obvious, and probablythe biggest issue in today's
(07:04):
society, in my opinion, thatit's the biggest indicator of
crime.
It's the biggest indicator ofanything going wrong in a
society and it's just shocking.
We need to do something aboutit.
Every country needs somethingabout it.
I'm not sure why they haven't.
Poland uae lead the charge.
We'll follow you and we'll getwe'll get to more about why
those two specifically havereally low rates on it.
(07:26):
But there's a well, welldistinguished link between
fatherless homes and youth crime.
It's well documented throughoutcomes and, although different
countries vary and social andpolicy differences vary, it's
just an obvious statistic.
In America, 70% of youth incustody did not grow up with
both parents.
Children from single-parenthomes are two to three times
(07:48):
more likely to engage inhigh-risk behaviors like drugs
and all that kind of thing.
In Sweden they have lower youthcrime rates, even though
they've still got 34% ofsingle-parent households.
I think we can put that due tojoint custody, whereas here it's
not as common to have jointcustody.
They've got about 40% ofdivorced couples have joint
custody, which reducesdelinquency they reckon that's
(08:10):
by about 20%.
And then Poland and UAEjuvenile delinquency is less
than 5% and less than 3%.
Can that be a directcorrelation with their low
single-parent homes?
Absolutely it can.
In single-parent families,poverty and crowded dwellings
explain 56% of variation injuvenile crime across postcodes
in Australia and Indigenousyouth, often from disrupted
(08:33):
family structures, extremelyhigh in assault cases In America
.
A more recent study and we'retalking Pennsylvania 2021, shows
that 80% of juvenile courtcases involve youth from broken
homes, about 50% of which wereliving with single mothers.
In Pennsylvania, over 80% ofjuvenile court cases involve
(08:56):
kids from broken homes andnearly half live with single
mothers.
It's not just a local issue.
It's a signal that familystructure matters for our youth.
But why the link?
There's economic stress,there's lack of role models,
there's emotional impact,there's cultural factors let's
go through them all.
So single-parent homes, oftenmotherland, face higher poverty
rates than two-parent homes.
(09:16):
So we're talking about an 11%to 12% increase and that creates
an unstable environment.
And that creates an unstableenvironment.
Obviously, if you've got twoparents, generally speaking,
both are going to be working andor one will work full-time, one
will work casual, whatever itis, but it's dual income.
One will be working, one willbe raising a kid.
If you've just got the singleparent, they're hard done by.
(09:40):
It's harder for them to thensupport the family, do the work
and then come home and stillparent a child.
It's very difficult.
I'm just going to use an exampleof a single mother.
How will a single mother go towork, work her ass off, do the
best that she can come home tothree children after a big day
at work trying to support herfamily, cook dinner, get it all
(10:00):
done, figure out what theylearned at school, parent each
child, you know, keep them allin check.
And then, if they're boisterousand they're teenagers and the
young boys coming up and they'restarting to play up, how does
she discipline them?
How does she prevent that fromoccurring?
When she's out working all thetime she's got to get sleep for
the next day and at the end ofthe day there's no father figure
to come in and be that firmline in the sand for these boys
(10:21):
and say, hey, hey, fellas,listen up.
You can't do that.
There will be consequences,stop.
So there's the economic impactthere and there's the actual
time impact as well of trying tofigure out how you can parent
multiple children at the sametime while you're trying to earn
an income.
Lack of role models, so simpleFathers provide disciplining
(10:42):
guidance.
Their absence on its ownincreases delinquency risk
astronomically.
If you rewind back in the day,to me as a child, okay, if I was
playing up, mum would come inand tell me to stop.
Okay, I was a bit of a bad kidat times.
I wouldn't say bad kid, I likedto play up and ultimately, if
(11:03):
mum was going to tell me to stop, it's like okay, what are you
going to do?
Send me to my room, cool.
But if she said don't make mecall your dad or wait till your
dad gets home, it was like, ohcrap, like dad can actually do
something about it.
You know what I mean.
At the end of the day, boys,ultimately I'm not advocating
for hitting your child oranything, but at the end of the
(11:25):
day, sometimes boys do need tobe disciplined growing up
because without that fatherfigure to sort of set it in
stone and say, hey, look, thereis consequences, I don't want to
have to smack you or whatever,then, growing up as a boy,
you're a boy, you're not goingto talk to your mum about
certain things, you're going totalk to your dad about it If
(11:47):
your dad's not there.
And then you go to school andthere's no male teachers, or 17%
of male teachers how do youmanage that as a young boy and
try to figure out how you wantto talk about that and who you
can talk about it with?
It's just such a difficultscenario and you really are
going to feel left out and alone.
And then if we go the other wayto you know it's a single
(12:08):
father household, then you knowthe daughter might have trouble
talking about it with her dadand stuff, but at least she goes
to school and 80% of theteachers are women.
You know so at that age, sortof guides and things in place to
help the girls grow and wherethey can have those like safe
(12:29):
space chats and that kind ofthing, whereas as a male it's a
bit like oh what you know, thenyou've got the emotional impact
as well.
So children of divorce theyreport drastic trust and
attachment issues, which leadsto social struggles and risky
behaviors growing up, as you canimagine, like if your, if your
dad walks out on you as a youngkid or your mom walks out on you
as a young kid, then you'regoing to have those trust issues
(12:51):
, you're going to haveattachment issues and socially
you will struggle.
You may engage in riskybehavior.
You know you might.
You might develop those, thosemental sort of guidelines for
yourself to prevent you gettinghurt again.
You might not get that trust inyour friends and develop that
association where you could riskgetting hurt by them.
(13:12):
Then you've got culturalfactors as well.
So collectivist cultures likeUAE, poland.
They leverage extended familysupport to mitigate father
absence effects.
So because they're such a tinycommunity and their religion
comes into that as well, ifthere is a fatherless home the
9% of the homes that are singleparent then there's an uncle,
there's a brother, there's asomething there where they can
(13:34):
come in and get that into it andget them involved because
they're such a closer family.
So summing that up, fatherabsence is basically the biggest
key driver of youth crime.
But social support systems canmake a difference.
And what sort of social supportsystem are we talking about?
We're talking about otherfamilies.
We're talking about friends.
We're talking about justgetting a sense of community
(13:56):
back, which we don't really haveanymore.
We don't have that Like you canget your boy in sports or
whatever.
That's going to help drastically, but then, as a single mum,
again, I don but her in thatposition.
Let's just say you've got Susie, she's a single mum, she's 45,
(14:17):
she's got four children.
You know Ben, bob Dylan andZach all boys and all four of
them want to play sport.
Two of them want to play soccer, two of them want to play
league, and she goes out.
She's trying to feed a familyof four on her own, pay the
mortgage, look after them, getthem through school.
At that point, two of them arein high school, two of them are
in primary school.
(14:38):
So how does she, susie, getthose children to school, get to
work, pay the mortgage, putfood on the table, take these
two to soccer, take these two tofooty, all in one day?
It's not happening.
It's just not possible.
So it's really difficult.
(15:00):
If we move on, though, and let'stalk more about other chronic
birth rates, because it's notjust crime and family breakdown
that we need to talk about.
Australia is also facing a hugepopulation problem.
Birth rates are crashing.
They're crashing hard.
It's directly tied to the shiftin how families are formed.
It's directly tied tofatherless homes.
It's directly tied to splitting, it's directly tied to divorce
and it's shocking.
Without immigration we are goingnegative trajectory for our
(15:23):
population and it's not pretty.
So our fertility rate inAustralia has significantly
declined.
Family structures, societaldemographics, it's all on the
change, it's all on the downhill.
So we go back to the 60s, we'rehaving about 22.8 births per
thousand, and if you go back to1961, the fertility rate was
(15:45):
3.55.
So it's basically 3.5 childrenper female.
1981, 1.94.
2001, 1.73.
So we've got a half now, from60 to 2,000.
And then 2023, 1.5.
So it's more than halved.
It's gone way down.
(16:05):
It's shooting down.
It's going down quick.
It's well below the replacementlevel.
Our replacement level is 2.1.
So if we're in at 1.5, we'rejust not getting anywhere close
to how many children we needcreated per year to sustain our
population.
So our population, instead ofjust sustaining or instead of
going up a bit withoutimmigration, it's just going
(16:25):
down.
It's like a plane crash.
And I mean there's been changesalong the way, like during
covid.
We had a brief spike where itwent to 1.7, which still nowhere
near enough.
Had a brief spike where it wentto 1.7, which still nowhere
near enough, by the way, andthen back down to 1.5 2023.
But was that due to lockdown?
You know you're sort of stuckin an area with your partner.
You know you can't go anywhere,I think.
(16:47):
So it's the only sort of thingthat changed between now and
then that could have caused it.
And what is actuallycontributing to this overall
decrease in fertility rate?
Like, there's a lot ofdifferent things, but later
marriages.
So the median age now forfirst-time mothers is actually
30.
It used to be back in like what?
(17:09):
2010, that we're sitting atabout 28.
It's now 30.
And that's been getting pushedlater and later and later and
later.
It just keeps getting pusheddown the line and we're getting
to a position where they don'twant children until they've got
themselves in a position to haveaffordability.
They want to travel, they wantto have fun, they want to do all
these things and then come backand have the child when they're
(17:30):
30, and then that's also.
I don't think it can get muchworse than that, because
obviously there is a tickingtime bomb for birthing.
Your age and your body clockdoes actually let you.
Your biological age ultimatelyprevents you from having
children at 50.
You've also got fatherless homefigure.
You've got the lack in marriage.
You've got the decrease infamily staying together, you've
(17:53):
got the increase in cost ofeverything, and we'll end up
circling all of this back in afinal podcast where we talk
about where Australia is headingand we talk about the likes of.
You know our house and price.
We're in the top five mostexpensive countries in the world
for income-to-debt ratio orincome-to-property-price ratio
and that kind of thing.
It's only getting worse.
It's only going to get worse.
(18:15):
We're going to be about 320,000houses short of reaching our
goal in 2029 if we keepimmigration where it's heading.
So there's so many differentissues that come into effect
with everything and they're alllinked, they're all correlated.
But declining birth rates alignwith smaller family sizes and
increased single-parenthouseholds.
So fewer couples marry, fewerpeople have children.
(18:36):
People have children later andthen if you're divorcing and not
marrying, then you're going tohave less children in total as
well.
If you're a family that'sstayed together for 40 years,
you're probably going to havemore than one child.
And then there's changinggender roles too, which we're
all very well aware of.
So you know it discouragesstable partnerships and
contributes to family breakdownsas well.
So norway, for example, or justscandinavia in general, general
(19:00):
they're very advanced withgender roles and that kind of
thing, and they also have aterrible rate for single family
parent, single parent families.
So australia's fertility rateis now just 1.5, way below
what's needed to sustain ourpopulation of 2.1.
Fewer kids, more single-parenthomes it's reshaping our society
(19:20):
in ways we can't ignore.
Crime rates are up, youthcrime's up, youth suicide's up.
The leading killer of men under45 is suicide.
Far-lost homes are just killingeverything.
Falling birth rates reflectchanging priorities, but they
also signal challenges forfamily stability.
Let's zoom in on the breakdownitself.
Why are relationships failing?
Who's walking away more oftenand why?
The answers aren't what you'dexpect.
(19:42):
So divorce rates vary globally,influenced by cultural,
economic and legal factors.
I've actually got a piece ofpaper here to guide me through
this one, because I had to writedown the actual statistics for
it, but let's find that Bingo.
So divorce rate per thousand2021.
(20:03):
Australia 2.2.
Us 2.5.
Sweden 2.5.
Denmark 2.7.
Finland 2.4.
Uae 1.5.
And Poland 1.3.
So so the drivers of this you'vegot in australia, no fault,
divorce and relational issues.
Us, you've got infidelity, socheating, financial stress.
(20:25):
Sweden, gender equality, socialacceptance, denmark divorce is
so easy over there and there's alot of welfare support as well.
So it's like I don't want tosay an incentive, but it makes
it easier.
Finland there's highcohabitation and the gender
equality is like way up there.
Uae they're more cultural andreligious.
(20:48):
They've got a real emphasis onfamily and behaviour and bonding
.
And Poland, which is the lowest.
Their Catholic values valuesare up there and they have low
cohabitation.
So it's not very frequent for aman and a woman to be living
together and cohabitate ifthey're not together.
The highest divorce rates inthe world are the Maldives,
(21:09):
which is 5.2, and Belarus, whichis 3.7.
So we can move on from thatstart there.
Second marriages in the ussixty sixty seven percent of
second marriages fail andseventy percent plus fail for
the third.
So if you come out of onemarriage in in America and enter
a second, you've got a two outof three chance failing.
(21:31):
And then if you get the third,you've got a two out of three
chance of failing, and then ifyou get in the third, you've got
a 70% chance of failing.
So that's an interesting statIf we're talking about why
people leave the relationships.
Why do partners leave?
So why men leave.
Infidelity is actually thebiggest one for men leaving a
relationship in America.
(21:52):
So 58% of the US, divorcesdecided by men are for
infidelity, economic pressure,so men in working class jobs.
They face instability whichreduces their marriage ability.
So, for example, if you'regoing to be working heaps hard
and you've got instability inyour job, then it makes it hard
(22:15):
for a partner to sit down andmarry you and stay with you.
You've got cultural shifts aswell, so reduce stigma around a
force and cohabitationacceptance.
So actually more than half thepopulation over there has
cohabited between 18 and 44.
And then you've got unrealisticexpectations as well.
So not only are the, not onlyis divorce no longer like
(22:37):
frowned upon, it's more accepted, like I probably argue.
I can't argue it's more commonthan not because it's 45 but
it's about equally as common now.
But unrealistic expectations areridiculous.
So a lot of people just leavebecause they seek a better match
.
Interesting Interesting whywomen leave.
You have financial independence, so the women's workforce
(22:58):
participation, which was about75% 80% at the moment.
I believe that reducesdependence on marriage.
So women used to have to getmarried to basically support
themselves and they would bedependent on the husband working
back in the day.
And that's clearly changedbecause they're all in the work,
majority are in the workforcenow.
(23:19):
You know they're all gettingpaid equally for the same amount
of work.
There's a lot of regulation inplace to ensure that they're
safe.
There's a lot of jobs now thatare women only and they
advertise for women only to helpget them in the workforce or in
different roles and stuff likethat.
So their financial independenceis growing.
You've got unequal partnershipsas well.
(23:42):
So there's a 97% high divorcerisk when mothers work but
husbands contribute minimally tohousework and childcare.
So if the husband isn'tactually, you know, helping with
the housework or the childcare,it drastically increases pretty
much guarantees that there'sgoing to be a divorce.
And then one of the worstreasons is domestic violence.
So unfortunately, one in sixAustralian women do still
(24:06):
experience partner violence,which is a key driver of
separation.
So that's actually one of thebiggest reasons that splitting
occurs in Australia, whichprobably goes back to fatherless
homes, really Like if you're aman and you're beating a woman,
you're a scoundrel or scumbageven, and does that come back to
the same thing as a youth crime?
(24:27):
We don't know.
There's probably statistics onit In fact, I reckon I'll find
them by the end of this butthere would be some kind of
indicator.
Anyway, either way, notacceptable.
Shouldn't be done.
Cultural and religiousinfluences as well.
So Poland and UAE Catholic andIslamic.
Their values emphasize familyunity way more than anything
(24:49):
here.
Like our family unity inAustralia shocking Poland and
UAE, mainly due to the actualreligion there lowers divorce
rates drastically.
Individualism in Australia andUS it increases divorce
acceptance drastically.
If you actually look at thestatistic in America and
Australia between religiousmarriages and not religious
(25:11):
marriages, the numbers faroutweigh.
How do I word this?
If you're married and it's areligious marriage and there's a
religion in the background,your marriage has more than a
50% chance of success.
If you don't, and it's nothingto do with religion, you
automatically have a less than50% chance of success.
(25:33):
And in Scandinavia, welfare,state support and gender
equality normalize divorce.
So it's pretty much you willget income from the government
and divorce is all good, it'sfine, and then they have really
good joint custody.
So it does mitigate the childimpact a bit, but the fatherless
homes are still up there.
So imagine, imagine a singlemum in melbourne juggling two
(25:55):
jobs while her teenager actuallystarts skipping school.
Right, she's influenced by thewrong crowd, she starts doing
some drugs or whatever.
It's a ripple effect of afather's absence, a story too
common in Australia.
Today, 21.8% of Aussie kids arein single-parent homes, making
this story come true.
Relationships fail whenexpectations of mutual support
and respect aren't met.
(26:16):
Now that we've ultimatelyexposed the problem, or parts of
the problem, there's way moreto it.
But if we sat here and talkedabout them, we'd be sitting here
for hours and hours on end,which I'm sure you guys don't
want to listen to.
So let's talk solutions.
How do we fix what's broken?
Starting with better marriages,better families, fewer kids
falling through the cracks andso on.
So strategies for lastingmarriages, premarital
(26:39):
counselling I personally don'tknow if I would do this because
I'm not super into counsellingmyself, but that's okay.
Couples who discussexpectations reduce divorce
rates from 24% to 11% in thefirst couple of years, like
(27:01):
early on.
Realistically, if you don'thave the conversations with your
partner, you can havecounselling in there to help if
you need.
But if you don't discussexpectations, you don't talk
about what you want, you don'ttalk about what you need, you
don't discuss helping out withchildcare and house duties and
stuff like that or how you'regoing to budget together and
stuff.
Your chance of failing goes up13.
Clear communication, again, asmentioned above, addressing
(27:22):
financial, emotional and roleexpectations lowers the breakup
risk.
Pretty much the exact samething I just said, but more
focusing on emotional andfinancial communication.
So you can do it all withcounseling, but you don't need
to if you can actually do it.
Religious involvement so, butyou don't need to if you can
actually do it.
Religious involvement soregular religious service
(27:45):
attendance reduces divorce riskby 14%.
Just go to church once a week14% reduced, crazy stat.
And the next one is avoidpremarital cohabitation, which
really shocks me.
Cohabitation which reallyshocks me because I've always
thought and I think it's morecommon than not in today's world
(28:05):
that you would cohabit orcohabitate before engagement.
Right, you'd move in with yourpartner, see how it goes, feel
it out, make sure that they'reclean, they're tidy, they
understand personal space, allof that kind of thing.
Get it all figured out.
But no, couples who cohabitatebefore engagement are actually
40% more likely to divorce.
(28:27):
So, statistically, if you'reactually waiting, put a ring on
it and then cohabitate Ashocking statistic to me, but
that's an interesting one.
Next is reducing youth crime.
So joint parenthoodScandinavian models show 30% to
40% shared custody reduces youthdelinquency by 20%.
If we model joint custody asopposed to single parent custody
(28:49):
in Australia, it would make ahuge difference.
I think our 20%, them having20%, I think ours would actually
increase from that becausejoint parenthood here you'd be
forced to sort of get along withdifferent genders.
The father would have to bemore involved in school, the mum
would have to be more involvedwith things, they would have to
talk on some level, I wouldassume, to make sure that the
(29:11):
kid is getting the bestupbringing they can.
If you've got two peoplelooking out for a kid, it's
going to end up better than one.
Community support collectivistcultures.
So UAE, poland they leverageextended family to stabilize
children post-divorce.
We already spoke about that.
So if you do get a divorce,leverage your family, get people
to help out If you do end up ina single custody situation.
(29:32):
Reach out to your brothers,reach out to your uncles, reach
out to your friends, whoever itis.
Get some others.
Reach out to your uncles, reachout to your friends, whoever it
is.
Get some.
Get some role models in there,okay, and intervention programs.
This is a common sense one.
So if you get like copingfocused programs for children
this is like post-divorce, theirmental health and risky
behavior chances decreasedrastically.
(29:52):
So some form of counseling,some form of counselling, some
form of engagement with aprofessional, an intervention
program, will make a difference.
Ultimately, if we're talkingabout strategies that are
separate to that, like we'retalking actual policy strategies
, I think you need torestrengthen the marriage laws.
(30:14):
You need to reconsider no-faultdivorce impacts, marriage laws.
You need to reconsider no-faultdivorce impacts, as it spiked
the rates.
It just came out of nowhere andbang, bang, bang, everyone's
getting divorced.
We need to actually supportfathers.
So I think and it's supportingmothers too, it's encouraging
them, but you want to encouragepaternal involvement is mainly
what I'm talking about.
You can give tax incentives orcustody reforms or whatever it
(30:35):
is.
Probably custody reforms wouldbe the best one, especially in
Australia because our custodysystem is quite poor.
But if you had custody reformswhere you involved the man more
and or tax incentives for theman to be involved, post a split
, because a lot of the time theyjust throw their hands up and
go, yep, well, if I don't getcustody, I'm not involved, I
don't care, then, yeah, you canget them involved easier with
(30:57):
these kind of reforms, with thembeing involved.
Everything we spoke aboutdecreases.
Then family education.
So we need to fund communityprograms teaching relationship
skills.
If we don't do that, then it'sjust not going to.
Nothing's going to improve.
It's pointless.
If we want safer streets, weneed stronger families.
Easy divorce laws might feelliberating, but the cost to our
(31:18):
kids is way too high.
It's time to prioritize familystability again.
Strong families, safercommunities Simple Investing in
family stability is investing inour children's future.
And now that we've covered thetrends, the pain, the patterns,
it's time to act.
So here's how we move forwardwith clarity, strength and
urgency.
Right so fatherless homes.
(31:38):
They've risen globally, withAustralia and the US seeing
significant increases since the80s.
We've already gone through thatand linked to high youth crime
rates, scandinavia's jointcustody model and the UAE and
Poland cultural values.
They offer lessons forstability.
We can learn from that.
If we know that this country isdoing way better than us
one-third less than the US,one-third less than this country
(31:58):
is doing way better than us Onethird less than the US, one
third less than one third ofsorry, the US, one third of
Denmark why are we not learningfrom them?
Why don't we take some of theirvalues and input them here?
With that and with everythingelse that we've discussed, our
declining birth rates couldincrease again.
They could get back up.
We could get to a positionwhere we can repopulate
naturally and we wouldn't relyon immigration as much.
(32:19):
Again, it decreases crime,decreases home values.
It doesn't decrease home values.
It reduces the pressure on homevalues and rent prices and
makes a huge difference.
So, individuals you need to seekpremarital counselling and
prioritise open communication.
Policymakers they need toimplement policies supporting
two-parent households andpaternal involvement.
(32:39):
They need to get the men backinvolved in the relationships
and communities need to actuallybuild support networks for
single parents and youth thatare at risk.
So anyone from a single parenthousehold.
The family is a nucleus of acivilization.
Strengthen it, secure ourfuture.
Australia's birth rate is at ahistoric low of 1.5, and one in
(33:00):
five kids grow up without afather.
This is a crisis for our future.
Share this message to demandpolicies that support strong
families.
I'm going to leave you with acouple of things to think about
before we go today.
So debate points for discussion, right.
Debate them at your home,Debate them while you listen to
the podcast.
Go home to your partner andtalk about them.
I've got a couple of them.
There's five in total.
(33:21):
So should no-fault divorce lawsbe reformed to prioritise family
stability?
Given their role in spikingdivorce rates, does premarital
cohabitation, now common in 81%of Australian couples, undermine
(33:41):
long-term marriage success?
We know the statistic.
How can government supportsingle parents while
incentivising two-parenthouseholds without stigmatising
lone parents, because that's aproblem as well.
You don't want to startincentivising too much and
supporting it too much and thenbeing like oh, lone parents are
no good.
Cultural and religious valuesare seen in Poland and the UAE,
viable solutions for nationslike Australia.
We don't have a huge religionbasis.
(34:03):
Is it something we canincorporate somehow?
And can Scandinavians' jointcustody model work in
high-conflict divorce scenarioscommon in Australia and the US,
like infidelity, leaving Judah,domestic violence and stuff like
that?
What actually, or how, do we doit in a fair way?
So, obviously, the scenario iswhere, yes, we absolutely need
(34:26):
it.
But then, in scenarios likedomestic violence, how do we
actually protect a kid andprotect a mother from that
occurring while having jointcustody?
Is it possible?
How do you then, as apolicymaker, define the two and
determine the difference?
Is it a case-by-case scenario?
How do we do it?
I'll leave that with you andbefore we go, I wasn't able to
find a statistic on the actualpercentage of domestic abusers
(34:48):
or domestic violence people andhow many of them came from
fatherless homes.
However, I was able to find 70percent of juveniles in prison
come from single-parent homes,which, which we already knew,
normally with the father ofabsence, but an interesting stat
that I found was that singlemothers are actually most likely
to perpetrate abuse towardschildren compared to those in
(35:11):
two-parent households,especially under significant
economic strain.
So just a random stat that Ithought would throw out there to
finalize the podcast, butthere's going to be a lot of
discussion about this.
I'm sure I'm going to get a lotof DMs about the whole podcast.
Again, we're going through aseries of things.
I'm putting issues out there.
Eventually we're going to cometo an episode at the end of the
(35:31):
series where I'm going to gothrough each different thing and
what sort of things I wouldchange in the world if I could.
Obviously I'm not a magic man,I can't do it.
So, yeah, it's just a bit ofinteresting things to think
about, a little bit ofconversation to have and, who
knows, if enough of you listenand enough of you can you know,
process what is being said andthink about the changes that can
(35:52):
be made, then maybe that willmake a difference.
Who knows?
But I'll catch you next time.
Ciao, that will make adifference, who knows?
But I'll catch you next time.
Ciao, darling.
As always, we hope you enjoyedthe episode and if you did, you
know exactly what needs to bedone.
Hit that follow button,subscribe, share it to friends,
family or even your co-workers,as sharing this podcast helps
(36:13):
not just us, but everyone in theworld to learn about more
finances.
Thank you, darling.
Picture a young boy in Sydney growing up
without his father's guidance,struggling to find his place in
the world.
By 15, he's caught up in pettycrime, searching for belonging
in all the wrong places.
It's not just one story.
It's a pattern that's repeatedacross Australia, us and beyond.
Today, we're diving deep intothe crisis of fatherless homes,
(00:21):
how it's linked to youth crimeand how Australia's declining
birth rates tie into thiscomplex issue.
We'll explore why families arebreaking apart, what's driving
these trends and how we canbuild stronger futures for our
kids.
We'll trace trends from the1980s through to now, backed by
hard-hitting data, expertinsights and real-world stories,
from Australia's risingsingle-parent households to
(00:45):
Scandinavia's unique approach toco-parenting.
We'll uncover why this mattersand what we can do about it.
Plus, we'll highlightAustralia's falling birth rates
and their broader implications.
Welcome back to another episodeof the Finance Bible Podcast.
You're joined with myself, zeke, and your co-host, oscar.
(01:07):
But before we get into it,please note that nothing in this
podcast should ever beconsidered as personal financial
advice.
But if that is what you areseeking, get in touch, let us
know and we will hook you upwith the correct professionals.
Sit back, relax and enjoy theshow.
Let's get into it professionals.
(01:28):
Sit back, relax and enjoy theshow.
Let's get into it.
Let's start off by unpackinghow widespread fatherless homes
have become, not just inAustralia, but globally,
worldwide, internationally.
What do the numbers show usfrom the 1980s through to now,
and which countries are buckingthe trend?
So from the 80s to 2025, 45years.
So from the 80s to 2025, 45years, father's homes, often
single mother homes, haveincreased in many countries
(01:50):
since the 1980s through to now,driven by rising divorce rates,
cohabitation and changing socialnorms.
We'll go through a detailedbreakdown, country by country.
We're going to use Australia asa baseline, country by country.
We're going to use Australia asa baseline.
So going back to early 1981,we're just going to go through a
(02:11):
couple of different countriesthat we got stats on and sort of
look at where they're headingnow.
So Australia 15.5% were singleparent families with dependent
children.
In America, it was 12%, Fastforward to 1991, so 10 years.
Children In America it was 12%,fast forward to 1991, so 10
years.
Australia goes up to 16.6, nota huge jump 1%.
The US, on the other hand, wentup to 20, so 8% increase.
(02:32):
2001, just after I was born, wehad 22% and I'm rounding up
here, but 21.8%, 22%, 22 percentand america went up to 27
percent.
2011.
America held strong and we wentup to 22.4 percent.
Sweden comes in at 31.3 percent.
(02:54):
Poland was only nine percent.
So pretty good stats there forpoland, australia, us and sweden
doing quite poor Fast forwardthrough to 2021 and through now,
even doing the best we can.
You had 21.8% were single parenthomes in Australia.
80% were mother-led, meaningfather wasn't in the picture.
(03:15):
For 80% of those US, verysimilar, but 31% it's about a
third in today's world.
33% of homes in AmericaFatherless, 34% in Sweden quite
a poor statistic, if you ask me.
Of them, 36% are single-fatherhouseholds.
So you get 66% mother-led.
(03:36):
The UAE, now, this is a good one, and Poland, again another good
one.
Uae, like United Arab Emirates,less than 10% and Poland about
9%.
So both of them sitting below10% or a third of what ours are.
Now, if we look into the statsthere, we've got to figure out
(03:56):
what's going on.
What's changed in Australia,we've gone up quite drastically.
We've more than doubled.
We've got to think about what'sgoing on there.
As a country, we've virtuallydoubled our fatherless homes in
that period, because there'sobviously more now than there
was then, although it's onlyabout a 10% to 12% increase.
The number of people hasincreased quite drastically.
(04:17):
So if we then go on to look atwhat's actually happening the
divorce rate it peaked so after1975 Family Law law act, which
introduced a no-fault divorcebasically you can get divorced
because why not?
That had an increase indivorces, meaning an increase in
single households, and it wentup to 4.6 per thousand and
(04:37):
stabilized at 2.2 per thousand.
So it's actually halved sincethen.
It's's gotten better.
However, we're marrying lessthan we were.
We now delay how often we getmarried and how old we are when
we get married has gonedrastically from sitting at like
19, 20, all the way through toabout 25, 26.
So it's getting later and later.
We're buying houses and so on.
(04:58):
If we go into US, 18.4 millionchildren were in fatherless
households by 2021.
18.4 million children were infatherless households by 2021.
18.4 million In 2025, fastforward.
Today there is more recentstatistics on it.
It is more than the Australianpopulation is now in a
fatherless home.
Sweden 34% of households.
We've already been through that.
Poland, only 9%.
(05:19):
We've already talked about thatas well.
But what are the notable shifts?
What has occurred?
What are the trends?
What's changed?
As I just said, the no-faultdivorce laws.
That's huge.
That happened in australia andus 1975 and 1970, so that had a
massive repercussion.
1990 through 2000, cohabitationbecame much more common,
(05:40):
especially in like scandinaviaand austral.
So ultimately what that did wasit decoupled marriage from
parenthood.
So it used to be moretraditional and you would say
get married, wait to have thekids and then have children.
However, now it's the opposite.
It's moving together, have kids, get married and buy a house or
whatever it is.
And then in 2010, it's throughto now, the divorce rate has
(06:02):
stabilized, but thesingle-parent households
continue to rise because you'vegot non-marital births and
separations prior to marriage.
So ultimately it's just peopleare not getting married now, so
the divorce rate doesn't show it, but the actual number of
houses going up theresingle-parent are increasing.
(06:23):
Here's a jaw-dropper In the US,31% of kids, which is over 18
million, live without a fatherat home.
That's a population bigger thanmost countries.
And in Australia the number ofsingle-parent families has
doubled since the 1980sVirtually doubled.
This is a global issue we can'tignore.
The rise in single-parenthouseholds reflects broader
(06:44):
societal shifts, but it comeswith challenges that we must
address.
That's a direct quote from theAustralian Institute of Family
Studies.
Now that we've seen the scale ofthe fatherless home epidemic,
let's look at the consequences.
So one of the most alarming isthe rise in youth crime, and the
data is clear about the link.
It's so obvious, and probablythe biggest issue in today's
(07:04):
society, in my opinion, thatit's the biggest indicator of
crime.
It's the biggest indicator ofanything going wrong in a
society and it's just shocking.
We need to do something aboutit.
Every country needs somethingabout it.
I'm not sure why they haven't.
Poland uae lead the charge.
We'll follow you and we'll getwe'll get to more about why
those two specifically havereally low rates on it.
(07:26):
But there's a well, welldistinguished link between
fatherless homes and youth crime.
It's well documented throughoutcomes and, although different
countries vary and social andpolicy differences vary, it's
just an obvious statistic.
In America, 70% of youth incustody did not grow up with
both parents.
Children from single-parenthomes are two to three times
(07:48):
more likely to engage inhigh-risk behaviors like drugs
and all that kind of thing.
In Sweden they have lower youthcrime rates, even though
they've still got 34% ofsingle-parent households.
I think we can put that due tojoint custody, whereas here it's
not as common to have jointcustody.
They've got about 40% ofdivorced couples have joint
custody, which reducesdelinquency they reckon that's
(08:10):
by about 20%.
And then Poland and UAEjuvenile delinquency is less
than 5% and less than 3%.
Can that be a directcorrelation with their low
single-parent homes?
Absolutely it can.
In single-parent families,poverty and crowded dwellings
explain 56% of variation injuvenile crime across postcodes
in Australia and Indigenousyouth, often from disrupted
(08:33):
family structures, extremelyhigh in assault cases In America
.
A more recent study and we'retalking Pennsylvania 2021, shows
that 80% of juvenile courtcases involve youth from broken
homes, about 50% of which wereliving with single mothers.
In Pennsylvania, over 80% ofjuvenile court cases involve
(08:56):
kids from broken homes andnearly half live with single
mothers.
It's not just a local issue.
It's a signal that familystructure matters for our youth.
But why the link?
There's economic stress,there's lack of role models,
there's emotional impact,there's cultural factors let's
go through them all.
So single-parent homes, oftenmotherland, face higher poverty
rates than two-parent homes.
(09:16):
So we're talking about an 11%to 12% increase and that creates
an unstable environment.
And that creates an unstableenvironment.
Obviously, if you've got twoparents, generally speaking,
both are going to be working andor one will work full-time, one
will work casual, whatever itis, but it's dual income.
One will be working, one willbe raising a kid.
If you've just got the singleparent, they're hard done by.
(09:40):
It's harder for them to thensupport the family, do the work
and then come home and stillparent a child.
It's very difficult.
I'm just going to use an exampleof a single mother.
How will a single mother go towork, work her ass off, do the
best that she can come home tothree children after a big day
at work trying to support herfamily, cook dinner, get it all
(10:00):
done, figure out what theylearned at school, parent each
child, you know, keep them allin check.
And then, if they're boisterousand they're teenagers and the
young boys coming up and they'restarting to play up, how does
she discipline them?
How does she prevent that fromoccurring?
When she's out working all thetime she's got to get sleep for
the next day and at the end ofthe day there's no father figure
to come in and be that firmline in the sand for these boys
(10:21):
and say, hey, hey, fellas,listen up.
You can't do that.
There will be consequences,stop.
So there's the economic impactthere and there's the actual
time impact as well of trying tofigure out how you can parent
multiple children at the sametime while you're trying to earn
an income.
Lack of role models, so simpleFathers provide disciplining
(10:42):
guidance.
Their absence on its ownincreases delinquency risk
astronomically.
If you rewind back in the day,to me as a child, okay, if I was
playing up, mum would come inand tell me to stop.
Okay, I was a bit of a bad kidat times.
I wouldn't say bad kid, I likedto play up and ultimately, if
(11:03):
mum was going to tell me to stop, it's like okay, what are you
going to do?
Send me to my room, cool.
But if she said don't make mecall your dad or wait till your
dad gets home, it was like, ohcrap, like dad can actually do
something about it.
You know what I mean.
At the end of the day, boys,ultimately I'm not advocating
for hitting your child oranything, but at the end of the
(11:25):
day, sometimes boys do need tobe disciplined growing up
because without that fatherfigure to sort of set it in
stone and say, hey, look, thereis consequences, I don't want to
have to smack you or whatever,then, growing up as a boy,
you're a boy, you're not goingto talk to your mum about
certain things, you're going totalk to your dad about it If
(11:47):
your dad's not there.
And then you go to school andthere's no male teachers, or 17%
of male teachers how do youmanage that as a young boy and
try to figure out how you wantto talk about that and who you
can talk about it with?
It's just such a difficultscenario and you really are
going to feel left out and alone.
And then if we go the other wayto you know it's a single
(12:08):
father household, then you knowthe daughter might have trouble
talking about it with her dadand stuff, but at least she goes
to school and 80% of theteachers are women.
You know so at that age, sortof guides and things in place to
help the girls grow and wherethey can have those like safe
(12:29):
space chats and that kind ofthing, whereas as a male it's a
bit like oh what you know, thenyou've got the emotional impact
as well.
So children of divorce theyreport drastic trust and
attachment issues, which leadsto social struggles and risky
behaviors growing up, as you canimagine, like if your, if your
dad walks out on you as a youngkid or your mom walks out on you
as a young kid, then you'regoing to have those trust issues
(12:51):
, you're going to haveattachment issues and socially
you will struggle.
You may engage in riskybehavior.
You know you might.
You might develop those, thosemental sort of guidelines for
yourself to prevent you gettinghurt again.
You might not get that trust inyour friends and develop that
association where you could riskgetting hurt by them.
(13:12):
Then you've got culturalfactors as well.
So collectivist cultures likeUAE, poland.
They leverage extended familysupport to mitigate father
absence effects.
So because they're such a tinycommunity and their religion
comes into that as well, ifthere is a fatherless home the
9% of the homes that are singleparent then there's an uncle,
there's a brother, there's asomething there where they can
(13:34):
come in and get that into it andget them involved because
they're such a closer family.
So summing that up, fatherabsence is basically the biggest
key driver of youth crime.
But social support systems canmake a difference.
And what sort of social supportsystem are we talking about?
We're talking about otherfamilies.
We're talking about friends.
We're talking about justgetting a sense of community
(13:56):
back, which we don't really haveanymore.
We don't have that Like you canget your boy in sports or
whatever.
That's going to help drastically, but then, as a single mum,
again, I don but her in thatposition.
Let's just say you've got Susie, she's a single mum, she's 45,
(14:17):
she's got four children.
You know Ben, bob Dylan andZach all boys and all four of
them want to play sport.
Two of them want to play soccer, two of them want to play
league, and she goes out.
She's trying to feed a familyof four on her own, pay the
mortgage, look after them, getthem through school.
At that point, two of them arein high school, two of them are
in primary school.
(14:38):
So how does she, susie, getthose children to school, get to
work, pay the mortgage, putfood on the table, take these
two to soccer, take these two tofooty, all in one day?
It's not happening.
It's just not possible.
So it's really difficult.
(15:00):
If we move on, though, and let'stalk more about other chronic
birth rates, because it's notjust crime and family breakdown
that we need to talk about.
Australia is also facing a hugepopulation problem.
Birth rates are crashing.
They're crashing hard.
It's directly tied to the shiftin how families are formed.
It's directly tied tofatherless homes.
It's directly tied to splitting, it's directly tied to divorce
and it's shocking.
Without immigration we are goingnegative trajectory for our
(15:23):
population and it's not pretty.
So our fertility rate inAustralia has significantly
declined.
Family structures, societaldemographics, it's all on the
change, it's all on the downhill.
So we go back to the 60s, we'rehaving about 22.8 births per
thousand, and if you go back to1961, the fertility rate was
(15:45):
3.55.
So it's basically 3.5 childrenper female.
1981, 1.94.
2001, 1.73.
So we've got a half now, from60 to 2,000.
And then 2023, 1.5.
So it's more than halved.
It's gone way down.
(16:05):
It's shooting down.
It's going down quick.
It's well below the replacementlevel.
Our replacement level is 2.1.
So if we're in at 1.5, we'rejust not getting anywhere close
to how many children we needcreated per year to sustain our
population.
So our population, instead ofjust sustaining or instead of
going up a bit withoutimmigration, it's just going
(16:25):
down.
It's like a plane crash.
And I mean there's been changesalong the way, like during
covid.
We had a brief spike where itwent to 1.7, which still nowhere
near enough.
Had a brief spike where it wentto 1.7, which still nowhere
near enough, by the way, andthen back down to 1.5 2023.
But was that due to lockdown?
You know you're sort of stuckin an area with your partner.
You know you can't go anywhere,I think.
(16:47):
So it's the only sort of thingthat changed between now and
then that could have caused it.
And what is actuallycontributing to this overall
decrease in fertility rate?
Like, there's a lot ofdifferent things, but later
marriages.
So the median age now forfirst-time mothers is actually
30.
It used to be back in like what?
(17:09):
2010, that we're sitting atabout 28.
It's now 30.
And that's been getting pushedlater and later and later and
later.
It just keeps getting pusheddown the line and we're getting
to a position where they don'twant children until they've got
themselves in a position to haveaffordability.
They want to travel, they wantto have fun, they want to do all
these things and then come backand have the child when they're
(17:30):
30, and then that's also.
I don't think it can get muchworse than that, because
obviously there is a tickingtime bomb for birthing.
Your age and your body clockdoes actually let you.
Your biological age ultimatelyprevents you from having
children at 50.
You've also got fatherless homefigure.
You've got the lack in marriage.
You've got the decrease infamily staying together, you've
(17:53):
got the increase in cost ofeverything, and we'll end up
circling all of this back in afinal podcast where we talk
about where Australia is headingand we talk about the likes of.
You know our house and price.
We're in the top five mostexpensive countries in the world
for income-to-debt ratio orincome-to-property-price ratio
and that kind of thing.
It's only getting worse.
It's only going to get worse.
(18:15):
We're going to be about 320,000houses short of reaching our
goal in 2029 if we keepimmigration where it's heading.
So there's so many differentissues that come into effect
with everything and they're alllinked, they're all correlated.
But declining birth rates alignwith smaller family sizes and
increased single-parenthouseholds.
So fewer couples marry, fewerpeople have children.
(18:36):
People have children later andthen if you're divorcing and not
marrying, then you're going tohave less children in total as
well.
If you're a family that'sstayed together for 40 years,
you're probably going to havemore than one child.
And then there's changinggender roles too, which we're
all very well aware of.
So you know it discouragesstable partnerships and
contributes to family breakdownsas well.
So norway, for example, or justscandinavia in general, general
(19:00):
they're very advanced withgender roles and that kind of
thing, and they also have aterrible rate for single family
parent, single parent families.
So australia's fertility rateis now just 1.5, way below
what's needed to sustain ourpopulation of 2.1.
Fewer kids, more single-parenthomes it's reshaping our society
(19:20):
in ways we can't ignore.
Crime rates are up, youthcrime's up, youth suicide's up.
The leading killer of men under45 is suicide.
Far-lost homes are just killingeverything.
Falling birth rates reflectchanging priorities, but they
also signal challenges forfamily stability.
Let's zoom in on the breakdownitself.
Why are relationships failing?
Who's walking away more oftenand why?
The answers aren't what you'dexpect.
(19:42):
So divorce rates vary globally,influenced by cultural,
economic and legal factors.
I've actually got a piece ofpaper here to guide me through
this one, because I had to writedown the actual statistics for
it, but let's find that Bingo.
So divorce rate per thousand2021.
(20:03):
Australia 2.2.
Us 2.5.
Sweden 2.5.
Denmark 2.7.
Finland 2.4.
Uae 1.5.
And Poland 1.3.
So so the drivers of this you'vegot in australia, no fault,
divorce and relational issues.
Us, you've got infidelity, socheating, financial stress.
(20:25):
Sweden, gender equality, socialacceptance, denmark divorce is
so easy over there and there's alot of welfare support as well.
So it's like I don't want tosay an incentive, but it makes
it easier.
Finland there's highcohabitation and the gender
equality is like way up there.
Uae they're more cultural andreligious.
(20:48):
They've got a real emphasis onfamily and behaviour and bonding
.
And Poland, which is the lowest.
Their Catholic values valuesare up there and they have low
cohabitation.
So it's not very frequent for aman and a woman to be living
together and cohabitate ifthey're not together.
The highest divorce rates inthe world are the Maldives,
(21:09):
which is 5.2, and Belarus, whichis 3.7.
So we can move on from thatstart there.
Second marriages in the ussixty sixty seven percent of
second marriages fail andseventy percent plus fail for
the third.
So if you come out of onemarriage in in America and enter
a second, you've got a two outof three chance failing.
(21:31):
And then if you get the third,you've got a two out of three
chance of failing, and then ifyou get in the third, you've got
a 70% chance of failing.
So that's an interesting statIf we're talking about why
people leave the relationships.
Why do partners leave?
So why men leave.
Infidelity is actually thebiggest one for men leaving a
relationship in America.
(21:52):
So 58% of the US, divorcesdecided by men are for
infidelity, economic pressure,so men in working class jobs.
They face instability whichreduces their marriage ability.
So, for example, if you'regoing to be working heaps hard
and you've got instability inyour job, then it makes it hard
(22:15):
for a partner to sit down andmarry you and stay with you.
You've got cultural shifts aswell, so reduce stigma around a
force and cohabitationacceptance.
So actually more than half thepopulation over there has
cohabited between 18 and 44.
And then you've got unrealisticexpectations as well.
So not only are the, not onlyis divorce no longer like
(22:37):
frowned upon, it's more accepted, like I probably argue.
I can't argue it's more commonthan not because it's 45 but
it's about equally as common now.
But unrealistic expectations areridiculous.
So a lot of people just leavebecause they seek a better match
.
Interesting Interesting whywomen leave.
You have financial independence, so the women's workforce
(22:58):
participation, which was about75% 80% at the moment.
I believe that reducesdependence on marriage.
So women used to have to getmarried to basically support
themselves and they would bedependent on the husband working
back in the day.
And that's clearly changedbecause they're all in the work,
majority are in the workforcenow.
(23:19):
You know they're all gettingpaid equally for the same amount
of work.
There's a lot of regulation inplace to ensure that they're
safe.
There's a lot of jobs now thatare women only and they
advertise for women only to helpget them in the workforce or in
different roles and stuff likethat.
So their financial independenceis growing.
You've got unequal partnershipsas well.
(23:42):
So there's a 97% high divorcerisk when mothers work but
husbands contribute minimally tohousework and childcare.
So if the husband isn'tactually, you know, helping with
the housework or the childcare,it drastically increases pretty
much guarantees that there'sgoing to be a divorce.
And then one of the worstreasons is domestic violence.
So unfortunately, one in sixAustralian women do still
(24:06):
experience partner violence,which is a key driver of
separation.
So that's actually one of thebiggest reasons that splitting
occurs in Australia, whichprobably goes back to fatherless
homes, really Like if you're aman and you're beating a woman,
you're a scoundrel or scumbageven, and does that come back to
the same thing as a youth crime?
(24:27):
We don't know.
There's probably statistics onit In fact, I reckon I'll find
them by the end of this butthere would be some kind of
indicator.
Anyway, either way, notacceptable.
Shouldn't be done.
Cultural and religiousinfluences as well.
So Poland and UAE Catholic andIslamic.
Their values emphasize familyunity way more than anything
(24:49):
here.
Like our family unity inAustralia shocking Poland and
UAE, mainly due to the actualreligion there lowers divorce
rates drastically.
Individualism in Australia andUS it increases divorce
acceptance drastically.
If you actually look at thestatistic in America and
Australia between religiousmarriages and not religious
(25:11):
marriages, the numbers faroutweigh.
How do I word this?
If you're married and it's areligious marriage and there's a
religion in the background,your marriage has more than a
50% chance of success.
If you don't, and it's nothingto do with religion, you
automatically have a less than50% chance of success.
(25:33):
And in Scandinavia, welfare,state support and gender
equality normalize divorce.
So it's pretty much you willget income from the government
and divorce is all good, it'sfine, and then they have really
good joint custody.
So it does mitigate the childimpact a bit, but the fatherless
homes are still up there.
So imagine, imagine a singlemum in melbourne juggling two
(25:55):
jobs while her teenager actuallystarts skipping school.
Right, she's influenced by thewrong crowd, she starts doing
some drugs or whatever.
It's a ripple effect of afather's absence, a story too
common in Australia.
Today, 21.8% of Aussie kids arein single-parent homes, making
this story come true.
Relationships fail whenexpectations of mutual support
and respect aren't met.
(26:16):
Now that we've ultimatelyexposed the problem, or parts of
the problem, there's way moreto it.
But if we sat here and talkedabout them, we'd be sitting here
for hours and hours on end,which I'm sure you guys don't
want to listen to.
So let's talk solutions.
How do we fix what's broken?
Starting with better marriages,better families, fewer kids
falling through the cracks andso on.
So strategies for lastingmarriages, premarital
(26:39):
counselling I personally don'tknow if I would do this because
I'm not super into counsellingmyself, but that's okay.
Couples who discussexpectations reduce divorce
rates from 24% to 11% in thefirst couple of years, like
(27:01):
early on.
Realistically, if you don'thave the conversations with your
partner, you can havecounselling in there to help if
you need.
But if you don't discussexpectations, you don't talk
about what you want, you don'ttalk about what you need, you
don't discuss helping out withchildcare and house duties and
stuff like that or how you'regoing to budget together and
stuff.
Your chance of failing goes up13.
Clear communication, again, asmentioned above, addressing
(27:22):
financial, emotional and roleexpectations lowers the breakup
risk.
Pretty much the exact samething I just said, but more
focusing on emotional andfinancial communication.
So you can do it all withcounseling, but you don't need
to if you can actually do it.
Religious involvement so, butyou don't need to if you can
actually do it.
Religious involvement soregular religious service
(27:45):
attendance reduces divorce riskby 14%.
Just go to church once a week14% reduced, crazy stat.
And the next one is avoidpremarital cohabitation, which
really shocks me.
Cohabitation which reallyshocks me because I've always
thought and I think it's morecommon than not in today's world
(28:05):
that you would cohabit orcohabitate before engagement.
Right, you'd move in with yourpartner, see how it goes, feel
it out, make sure that they'reclean, they're tidy, they
understand personal space, allof that kind of thing.
Get it all figured out.
But no, couples who cohabitatebefore engagement are actually
40% more likely to divorce.
(28:27):
So, statistically, if you'reactually waiting, put a ring on
it and then cohabitate Ashocking statistic to me, but
that's an interesting one.
Next is reducing youth crime.
So joint parenthoodScandinavian models show 30% to
40% shared custody reduces youthdelinquency by 20%.
If we model joint custody asopposed to single parent custody
(28:49):
in Australia, it would make ahuge difference.
I think our 20%, them having20%, I think ours would actually
increase from that becausejoint parenthood here you'd be
forced to sort of get along withdifferent genders.
The father would have to bemore involved in school, the mum
would have to be more involvedwith things, they would have to
talk on some level, I wouldassume, to make sure that the
(29:11):
kid is getting the bestupbringing they can.
If you've got two peoplelooking out for a kid, it's
going to end up better than one.
Community support collectivistcultures.
So UAE, poland they leverageextended family to stabilize
children post-divorce.
We already spoke about that.
So if you do get a divorce,leverage your family, get people
to help out If you do end up ina single custody situation.
(29:32):
Reach out to your brothers,reach out to your uncles, reach
out to your friends, whoever itis.
Get some others.
Reach out to your uncles, reachout to your friends, whoever it
is.
Get some.
Get some role models in there,okay, and intervention programs.
This is a common sense one.
So if you get like copingfocused programs for children
this is like post-divorce, theirmental health and risky
behavior chances decreasedrastically.
(29:52):
So some form of counseling,some form of counselling, some
form of engagement with aprofessional, an intervention
program, will make a difference.
Ultimately, if we're talkingabout strategies that are
separate to that, like we'retalking actual policy strategies
, I think you need torestrengthen the marriage laws.
(30:14):
You need to reconsider no-faultdivorce impacts, marriage laws.
You need to reconsider no-faultdivorce impacts, as it spiked
the rates.
It just came out of nowhere andbang, bang, bang, everyone's
getting divorced.
We need to actually supportfathers.
So I think and it's supportingmothers too, it's encouraging
them, but you want to encouragepaternal involvement is mainly
what I'm talking about.
You can give tax incentives orcustody reforms or whatever it
(30:35):
is.
Probably custody reforms wouldbe the best one, especially in
Australia because our custodysystem is quite poor.
But if you had custody reformswhere you involved the man more
and or tax incentives for theman to be involved, post a split
, because a lot of the time theyjust throw their hands up and
go, yep, well, if I don't getcustody, I'm not involved, I
don't care, then, yeah, you canget them involved easier with
(30:57):
these kind of reforms, with thembeing involved.
Everything we spoke aboutdecreases.
Then family education.
So we need to fund communityprograms teaching relationship
skills.
If we don't do that, then it'sjust not going to.
Nothing's going to improve.
It's pointless.
If we want safer streets, weneed stronger families.
Easy divorce laws might feelliberating, but the cost to our
(31:18):
kids is way too high.
It's time to prioritize familystability again.
Strong families, safercommunities Simple Investing in
family stability is investing inour children's future.
And now that we've covered thetrends, the pain, the patterns,
it's time to act.
So here's how we move forwardwith clarity, strength and
urgency.
Right so fatherless homes.
(31:38):
They've risen globally, withAustralia and the US seeing
significant increases since the80s.
We've already gone through thatand linked to high youth crime
rates, scandinavia's jointcustody model and the UAE and
Poland cultural values.
They offer lessons forstability.
We can learn from that.
If we know that this country isdoing way better than us
one-third less than the US,one-third less than this country
(31:58):
is doing way better than us Onethird less than the US, one
third less than one third ofsorry, the US, one third of
Denmark why are we not learningfrom them?
Why don't we take some of theirvalues and input them here?
With that and with everythingelse that we've discussed, our
declining birth rates couldincrease again.
They could get back up.
We could get to a positionwhere we can repopulate
naturally and we wouldn't relyon immigration as much.
(32:19):
Again, it decreases crime,decreases home values.
It doesn't decrease home values.
It reduces the pressure on homevalues and rent prices and
makes a huge difference.
So, individuals you need to seekpremarital counselling and
prioritise open communication.
Policymakers they need toimplement policies supporting
two-parent households andpaternal involvement.
(32:39):
They need to get the men backinvolved in the relationships
and communities need to actuallybuild support networks for
single parents and youth thatare at risk.
So anyone from a single parenthousehold.
The family is a nucleus of acivilization.
Strengthen it, secure ourfuture.
Australia's birth rate is at ahistoric low of 1.5, and one in
(33:00):
five kids grow up without afather.
This is a crisis for our future.
Share this message to demandpolicies that support strong
families.
I'm going to leave you with acouple of things to think about
before we go today.
So debate points for discussion, right.
Debate them at your home,Debate them while you listen to
the podcast.
Go home to your partner andtalk about them.
I've got a couple of them.
There's five in total.
(33:21):
So should no-fault divorce lawsbe reformed to prioritise family
stability?
Given their role in spikingdivorce rates, does premarital
cohabitation, now common in 81%of Australian couples, undermine
(33:41):
long-term marriage success?
We know the statistic.
How can government supportsingle parents while
incentivising two-parenthouseholds without stigmatising
lone parents, because that's aproblem as well.
You don't want to startincentivising too much and
supporting it too much and thenbeing like oh, lone parents are
no good.
Cultural and religious valuesare seen in Poland and the UAE,
viable solutions for nationslike Australia.
We don't have a huge religionbasis.
(34:03):
Is it something we canincorporate somehow?
And can Scandinavians' jointcustody model work in
high-conflict divorce scenarioscommon in Australia and the US,
like infidelity, leaving Judah,domestic violence and stuff like
that?
What actually, or how, do we doit in a fair way?
So, obviously, the scenario iswhere, yes, we absolutely need
(34:26):
it.
But then, in scenarios likedomestic violence, how do we
actually protect a kid andprotect a mother from that
occurring while having jointcustody?
Is it possible?
How do you then, as apolicymaker, define the two and
determine the difference?
Is it a case-by-case scenario?
How do we do it?
I'll leave that with you andbefore we go, I wasn't able to
find a statistic on the actualpercentage of domestic abusers
(34:48):
or domestic violence people andhow many of them came from
fatherless homes.
However, I was able to find 70percent of juveniles in prison
come from single-parent homes,which, which we already knew,
normally with the father ofabsence, but an interesting stat
that I found was that singlemothers are actually most likely
to perpetrate abuse towardschildren compared to those in
(35:11):
two-parent households,especially under significant
economic strain.
So just a random stat that Ithought would throw out there to
finalize the podcast, butthere's going to be a lot of
discussion about this.
I'm sure I'm going to get a lotof DMs about the whole podcast.
Again, we're going through aseries of things.
I'm putting issues out there.
Eventually we're going to cometo an episode at the end of the
(35:31):
series where I'm going to gothrough each different thing and
what sort of things I wouldchange in the world if I could.
Obviously I'm not a magic man,I can't do it.
So, yeah, it's just a bit ofinteresting things to think
about, a little bit ofconversation to have and, who
knows, if enough of you listenand enough of you can you know,
process what is being said andthink about the changes that can
(35:52):
be made, then maybe that willmake a difference.
Who knows?
But I'll catch you next time.
Ciao, that will make adifference, who knows?
But I'll catch you next time.
Ciao, darling.
As always, we hope you enjoyedthe episode and if you did, you
know exactly what needs to bedone.
Hit that follow button,subscribe, share it to friends,
family or even your co-workers,as sharing this podcast helps
(36:13):
not just us, but everyone in theworld to learn about more
finances.
Thank you, darling.
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