I earn a living using demographic data to forecast the future. 

At the end of last year, I published not one but two columns outlining my 20 predictions for 2025.

Now that the year comes to a close, it is time to review my forecasts. How did I do? 

⛔ My first forecast was a tongue in cheek prediction that Peter Dutton would become prime minister simply because he was 54 at the time. That age just happened to be the average age of new PMs at the time. Not a good start … 

✅ Second, I forecasted that more Australians than ever before would vote for third parties in the federal election. That came true as more than a third (33.6 per cent) of primary votes in May ended up with the third parties. Collectively, Labor and the Coalition have never been weaker. 

❓(likely a ✅) Third, I argued that 2025 would bring a high net overseas migration intake but the final tally will be below the 2024 figures.

The correct dataset gets published by the ABS only on December 19, which happens to be when I clock off for the year. It’s important to remember that migration data is different to the overseas arrivals data – often arrivals data is used to make migration data sound more shocking. 

The preliminary data that we have suggests that our 2025 migration intake will be well below the 2024 figure. 

Source: Matusik Missive, December 2025

✅ Birthrates continued to fall, as I predicted. Statistically, births are reported with a significant lag. This means we are comparing 2023 and 2024 data. The total fertility rate (TFR) sat at 1.499 in 2023. By 2024, this number fell to 1.481. TFR measures the average number of registered births per woman aged 15 to 49.

Counterintuitively, the midwives of Australia still had a very busy year as the total number of births went up (287,000 to 292,000).

The increase was due to the gigantic millennial generation being responsible for most of the baby-making for the next decade. As long as the millennials grow their families even at modest rates, the maternity wards of Australia will remain busy, despite falling TFR. 

✅ I predicted that the unemployment rate would comfortably remain below 5 per cent. As of October 2025, the unemployment rate sat at a low 4.3 per cent.  

✅ I argued that greenfield sites will get more population growth than infill areas in 2025. That’s simple market logic in action.

Developing a square metre of housing on the urban fringe costs about half as much as a square metre of medium- or high-density housing. The relative costs of development remained in 2025.

This was, of course, bad news for urban planners who want to densify Australian cities to optimise infrastructure use.  

❓(maybe even a ✅) I argued that Melbourne will soon be the most affordable capital city in Australia, but questioned whether this would happen in 2025.

Melbourne had the slowest annual increase in dwelling values this year. It also offers cheaper........

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