A new report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), released in June 2025, warns that the world is facing a global fertility crisis, not due to personal preferences, but because of systemic barriers like financial hardship, health challenges, and social inequality.
The State of World Population 2025 report, based on a 14-country survey conducted with YouGov, reveals economic pressure, health barriers, and social inequality as key reasons millions are unable to fulfil their reproductive goals – thereby providing a growing gap between the number of children people want and what they have.
“The real crisis is not overpopulation or underpopulation — it’s unmet reproductive desires,” says UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem.
Key findings at a glance
- 1 in 5 adults aged 18–50 say they don’t expect to have the number of children they desire.
- Among adults 50 and older, 31% had fewer children than they wanted, while only 12% had more.
- 32% of respondents have experienced an unintended pregnancy.
- 23% have experienced infertility or failed attempts to conceive, with over 40% of them abandoning their hopes altogether.
UNFPA finds that people are not choosing smaller families simply by preference, but are held back by real-life constraints:
- 39% cite financial limitations
- 21% blame unemployment or job insecurity
- 19% report housing issues
- 24% mention health-related obstacles like infertility or poor care access
- 19% express fear about war, pandemics, and climate change
- 14% say a lack of a partner or unequal domestic burdens stops them from having children
“I want children, but it’s becoming more difficult with time. Housing is unaffordable. I don’t want to raise a child in a world full of crisis,” said a 29-year-old woman in Mexico.
The report challenges the popular narrative that women are choosing careers or personal freedom over motherhood.
UNFPA calls this “a deeply flawed and damaging myth.”
In reality, 1 in 4 women globally cannot make decisions about their own healthcare, and 24% cannot refuse sex, based on UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators.
The report also highlights historic and recent policy failures where governments tried to engineer fertility outcomes through coercion:
- China’s one-child policy (1980–2015) led to forced abortions, gender imbalance, and undocumented “ghost children.”
- Romania’s abortion ban (1966–1989) caused thousands of unsafe abortion deaths and a surge in abandoned children.
- Italy’s 2016 “Fertility Day” posters, encouraging women to reproduce early, backfired and drew public ridicule.
- South Korea’s “birth map”, which tracked women of childbearing age, was shut down after public outrage.
“Before I bring a child into this world, I have to fight for the right to do so on my own terms,” said Roman, a 26-year-old man in Azerbaijan. “This isn’t just my fight — it’s the fight of billions of young people.”
UNFPA urges governments to stop manipulating birth rates and instead focus on rights-based policies that empower people to make informed, voluntary decisions.
The report calls for:
- Access to affordable healthcare and contraception
- Economic and housing support for families
- Gender equality and shared parenting
- Non-coercive, evidence-based reproductive policies
Dr. Kanem emphasizes:
“Millions still cannot exercise their reproductive rights and choices. This is the real fertility crisis.”
The UNFPA concludes that the only sustainable population policy is one that centres people, not numbers.
