Wednesday, 19 May 2021, 12:59 pm New Zealand's fertility rate has reached an all-time low, with an average of 1.60 births per woman in the year ending March 2021, well below the population replacement level of 2.1 required. Statistics NZ also says that there does not appear to have been an increase in births as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown during the first half of 2020. “This should be sounding alarm bells for politicians and policymakers in New Zealand. With a declining fertility rate comes a reliance on migration to provide for an aging population – but all countries around the world will be competing for that migration, because most countries are facing the same