Using the Australian wheat belt region called the Lachlan Catchment, this
chapter analyses the causes and consequences of population decline in rural Australia.
While the Lachlan has distinct characteristics, there are general lessons to be learned for
rural areas across the developed world. The economic depression of the 1930s, the
Second World War, the march of farm mechanisation, and a drought lasting several
years, conspired to accelerate change in the 1930s and 1940s in the Lachlan. The
outcome was dislocation and severe hardship for some less mobile pockets of the
population, particularly the older members of society, at a time before the introduction
of government-provided social security. Despite an analysis of the various effects and
highlighting similarities with other regions, there remain some unanswered questions
such as why some towns in the Lachlan continue to be prosperous while others nearby
have disappeared, remaining mere ‘localities’ on the map. By contextualising the
observations in the Lachlan within the international literature, conclusions are drawn on
general concerns about the social impacts of rural decline.
Keywords: Rural towns, demographic change, aging population, isolation, farm
structure, postgraduate, undergraduate, researchers, academicians, practitioners,
professionals, dry land agriculture, wheat belt, drought, seasonal rain, migration,
rural labour market, farm consolidation, Second World War, economic depression.
