Australia along with many other Western nations are wrestling with the challenge of falling birth rates: the result of shifting cultural attitudes around how we view having and raising children. And while immigration can be a short term economic solution, it comes with demographic challenges of its own.

As Australia considers implementing a universal childcare policy, Erica Komisar, Virginia Tapscott and Peter Costello discuss the merits of different pro-natal approaches and the drawbacks of encouraging greater levels of institutional care for young children.