The the United Nations (UN) agency for reproductive rights, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), has taken its strongest line yet on fertility decline, warning that hundreds of millions of people are not able to have the number of children that they want, citing the prohibitive cost of parenthood and the lack of a suitable partner as some of the reasons.
The UNFPA surveyed 14,000 people in 14 countries about their fertility intentions. One in five said that they have not had or expect that they will not have their desired number of children. The countries surveyed - South Korea, Thailand, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, the United States (US), India, Indonesia, Morocco, South Africa, and Nigeria - account for a third of the global population. They are a mix of low-, middle- and high-income countries and those with low- and high-fertility. The UNFPA surveyed young adults and those past their reproductive years. "The world has begun an unprecedented decline in fertility rates," said UNFPA Head Dr. Natalia Kanem. "Most people surveyed want two or more children. Fertility rates are falling in large part because many feel unable to create the families that they want. And that is the real crisis," she said.
Many respondents over 50 (31%) said that they had fewer children than they wanted. In all countries, 39% of the people said that financial limitations prevented them from having a child. In total, only 12% of people cited infertility - or difficulty conceiving - as a reason for not having the number of children that they wanted to.
Still, the UNFPA is urging caution in response to low fertility. "Right now, what we're seeing is a lot of rhetoric of catastrophe, either overpopulation or shrinking population, which leads to this kind of exaggerated response, and sometimes a manipulative response," said Dr. Kanem. "In terms of trying to get women to have more children, or fewer." She points out that 40 years ago, China, Korea, Japan, Thailand and Turkey were all worried that their populations were too high. By 2015, they wanted to boost fertility.
The UNFPA found that an even bigger barrier to children than finances was a lack of time. For Nangia, that rings true. She spends at least three hours a day commuting to her office and back. When she gets home, she is exhausted, but, wants to spend time with her daughter. Her family does not get much sleep. "After a working day, obviously you have that guilt, being a mom, that you're not spending enough time with your kid," she says. "So, we're just going to focus on one."
Millions of people are prevented from having the number of children that they want by a toxic mix of economic barriers and sexism, a new UN report has warned. Factors such as the high cost of parenthood, job insecurity, expensive housing, concerns over the state of the world and the lack of a suitable partner stop people having the families that they want, rather than any desire not to have children, the UNFPA said.
While right-wing governments, including the US and Hungary, are increasingly blaming falling fertility rates on a rejection of parenthood, the UNFPA’s 2025 State of World Population report found that most people wanted children.
The Executive Director of the UNFPA, Dr. Kanem said: “The issue is the lack of choice, not desire, with major consequences for individuals and societies. That is the real fertility crisis, and the answer lies in responding to what people say they need: paid family leave, affordable fertility care and supportive partners.”
A poll for the report carried out by YouGov in 14 countries found that almost a fifth of people said that they did not have the size of family that they desired, with one in nine believing that they would have fewer children than they wanted and 7% that they would have more. The leading barrier to having children was money, with 39% of people saying that financial constraints had either led to them having fewer children than desired or were likely to do so. Women were nearly twice as likely as men to say that an unequal division of domestic labour was a factor, while both men and women said that fears about the future, including around climate change and conflict, had meant that they limited their family size. “Many countries are grappling with ageing and shrinking populations, labour shortages, and rising healthcare and pension costs. These are real concerns, yet, they are leading some to the wrong conclusions,” said Kanem. “Rather than promoting women’s workforce participation, which is actually shown to improve economic productivity, amid population ageing, there seems to be a growing insistence that women and young people have more children. In some cases, it may be the neighbour next door urging you to get married before it’s too late. In others, it may be the government putting up advertisements that basically say the same thing. And, in some instances, it is countries imposing restrictions on the availability of contraceptives and other services.”
However, neither coercive policies aimed at increasing births (such as restrictions on abortion and contraception), nor financial incentives such as US proposals for a Dollars 5,000 “baby bonus” paid to new mothers, nor efforts to tackle decreasing fertility rates appear to have much long-term impact and could backfire, the report warns. Lack of access to safe terminations led to unsafe abortions, a leading cause of maternal death and of infections that caused infertility, Kanem said. “We also see that when people feel that their reproductive choices are being steered, when policies are even just perceived as being too coercive, people react and they are less likely to have children. Clearly, the answer lies not in limiting choice or selecting who gets to exercise choice; the answer is to expand real choice to all people.”
(British Broadcasting Corporation and The Guardian)