Treasury released the 2026 Intergenerational Report in September, its first since 2023. Three assumptions moved. The long-run fertility rate fell from 1.62 to 1.34 births per woman, participation is now assumed to keep rising through the 2030s, and the tax-to-GDP ceiling was reset to 24.2 per cent. Anyone holding a long-dated view of Australia is now working from a different national picture.

We ran Recon, our economic forecasting platform, against the new baseline. On the size of the economy the two agree, within one index point of Treasury’s real GDP path at every point to 2052. On its composition they diverge. Recon projects 1.3 million more people by 2052 and an older population that reaches Treasury’s 2062-63 old-age dependency ratio roughly a decade early. This paper sets out where each of those differences comes from.

The IGR stops at the boundary between the capital cities and the rest of each state. Recon keeps going, across 2,439 SA2 regions, 501 industries and 1,345 occupations.

Download the full report below. For questions about Recon or the analysis, contact Eamon McGinn, Executive Director and Service Line Lead, Economics, Reform and Sustainability.