Money can’t fix a population crisis, a robot just beat Usain Bolt & an introduction to factor investing

**Alec Renehan** (0:00)
Singapore is now offering $76,000 per child to try and reverse their record low birthrate.

**Bryce Leske** (0:08)
Australia is challenged. We have dropped to a record low. We're at 1.48.
They say that 1.3 is like a demographic cliff. If you go below there, you can't recover. This is going to become an economic challenge of one of the biggest of our times.

**Alec Renehan** (0:22)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Welcome to another episode of Equity Mates, a podcast where we explore what's possible in the world of investing. If you've just joined us for the very first time, a massive welcome to our community.

**Bryce Leske** (0:35)
My name is Bryce and I'm Ren and today we're talking about fertility rates around the world dropping. We're also looking at some stocks that have dropped and some that have recovered. We're looking at China's robotics industry and the advances that are happening over there. And we're closing by talking about factor ETFs. But Bryce, before all of that, FinFest is only nine weeks away.

**Alec Renehan** (0:56)
Nine weeks. It's pretty scary, Ren, but very exciting. We want to highlight each week as we get close to some of the amazing guests and sessions that you can expect at FinFest. So today, drumroll for Scott Phillips, Chief Investment Officer, Chief Investment Officer at The Motley Fool. He has just released his book called The One Page Investing Plan, and that is what he's going to do a keynote on at FinFest.

**Bryce Leske** (1:20)
So if you don't want to miss that and all the other great sessions, make sure you grab your tickets to FinFest. Go to equitymates.com/finfest.

**Alec Renehan** (1:28)
Already more than 1500 Australians have bought a ticket. So don't miss out. They're only 55 bucks.

**Bryce Leske** (1:33)
FinFest is proudly supported by Betashares.

**Alec Renehan** (1:40)
All right. Two stories we're going to cover this morning.
Record low birthrates are becoming more common around the world and countries are spending big to try and reverse them, Ren. And where the hell is Mr. Beda? We will get to that in the second half. So let's start with the headline. Singapore is now offering $76,000 per child to try and reverse their record low birthrate. Yeah.

**Bryce Leske** (2:03)
Alternative headline. How much does the government have to pay you to have a baby?

**Alec Renehan** (2:07)
Yes. That is effectively it.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:09)
Yeah.

**Bryce Leske** (2:10)
76 grand is Singapore's starting bid. We're also going to do a little bit of around the world and look at what other governments are bidding for children.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:20)
Yep.

**Bryce Leske** (2:20)
Because global fertility rates are dropping and it's becoming a real economic challenge for a lot of these countries. So let's start with Singapore.

**Alec Renehan** (2:28)
Well, they're a record low fertility rate of 0.87 children per woman. That's down from 0.97 in 2024 So it's falling pretty quickly.

**Bryce Leske** (2:37)
And the replacement rate is 2.1. So if the population is going to remain stable, you need 2.1 kids per woman.
Singapore is a long way off that.

**Alec Renehan** (2:46)
A long way off that. They are becoming a super aged society where more than 21% of the population is aged 65 or older. So it's becoming a real issue.

**Bryce Leske** (2:56)
Yeah. Now, Singapore is not alone in trying to use government resources to boost fertility. South Korea is probably the case study.

**Alec Renehan** (3:05)
Yeah.

**Bryce Leske** (3:05)
They've spent $210 billion on fertility initiatives since 2006
Despite that, fertility rates continue to drop. In 2024, it bottomed out at 0.75 children per woman, slightly ticked up since then, but still below one.

**Alec Renehan** (3:23)
Still below one and the slight tick up appears to be driven by a wave of pandemic delayed weddings and babies.

**Bryce Leske** (3:31)
What would be super interesting is there's a huge wealth effect happening in South Korea at the moment because of these memory stocks.
There's still a lot of people that have made a heap of money on the memory stocks, but people who work for Samsung and SK Hynix also getting huge bonuses as part of the profit sharing arrangements. It will be interesting to see what effect that has on family formation and fertility rates, because obviously across a lot of the world, economic uncertainty delays family formation, high house prices delay getting into housing, and all of that delays actually having kids. So that is an interesting one. Japan also demographically challenged. They spend about $58 billion annually. They have a $7,100 cash payment per child. So far below Singapore $76,000.
They've also invested in a lot of pro-family government services, free preschool. Australian parents would love to see something similar. Japan has expanded their paid parental leave. And yet despite all of that, fertility rates dropped in the past sort of decade from 1.44 to 1.2.