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UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Population Fund warned on Tuesday of a crisis of "reproductive agency" amid declining birth rates in many parts of the world.

Millions of people are unable to have the number of children they want, not because of unwillingness to do so. Instead, they lack reproductive agency as economic and social barriers are stopping them from becoming parents.

This is the central finding of the UN Population Fund's 2025 State of World Population report, "The real fertility crisis: The pursuit of reproductive agency in a changing world".

Drawing on academic research and new data from a UN Population Fund/YouGov survey spanning 14 countries — together home to more than one-third of the global population — the report finds that one in five people globally expect not to have the number of children they desire.

Key drivers include the prohibitive cost of parenthood, job insecurity, housing concerns, worries about the state of the world, and the lack of a suitable partner. A toxic blend of economic precarity and sexism plays a role in many of these issues, the report said.

"Vast numbers of people are unable to create the families they want," said UN Population Fund Executive Director Natalia Kanem. "The issue is 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."

The findings of the report include: More than half of people say economic issues were a barrier to having as many children as they wanted; one in five report having been pressured to have children when they did not want to; one in three have experienced an unintended pregnancy; and 11 percent say unequal caregiving burdens would undermine their ability to have children.

The report warns against simplistic or coercive responses to declining birth rates, such as baby bonuses or fertility targets, noting that these policies are largely ineffective and can violate human rights.

Instead, the UN Population Fund urges governments to empower people to make reproductive decisions freely, including by investing in affordable housing, decent work, parental leave, and the full range of reproductive health services and reliable information.

It also calls on societies to address all the ways that gender inequality undermines people's family choices, including workplace norms that push women out of paid work; lack of paid flexible leave for men and stigma against engaged fathers; lack of affordable childcare; restrictions in reproductive rights, including contraception, abortion and fertility care; diverging gender attitudes held by young men and women, contributing to singlehood.

A tailored mix of economic, social and political measures will be needed in each country to help people form the families they want, it said.

Xinhua