The global decline in birth rates, often termed a "fertility crisis," has sparked alarm among policymakers, economists, and commentators like Elon Musk, who warn of its economic and societal consequences. A 2025 Sky News article, drawing on a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) survey of 14,000 people across 14 countries, highlights that the crisis stems not from a lack of desire for children but from barriers preventing people from achieving their reproductive aspirations. Economic constraints, health issues, and global uncertainties are key obstacles, with significant variations across countries like South Korea, Nigeria, and Sweden. South Korea, with the world's lowest fertility rate (0.72 in 2023), has spent over $270 billion since 2006 on pro-natalist policies, yet its birth rate continues to plummet. This blog post evaluates the UNFPA survey's explanation of the global birth rate decline, assesses its applicability to South Korea's experience, and considers whether it fully accounts for the "birth crash" in light of South Korea's substantial investments.
The UNFPA survey, conducted in countries representing a third of the global population, reveals that "lack of choice, not desire" drives declining birth rates. Two in five people over 50 report having fewer children than desired, with over half citing financial barriers such as unaffordable housing, childcare costs, and job insecurity. One in four mention health issues, including infertility, while one in five express fears about global challenges like wars, and pandemics. The survey also notes that one in eight respondents experienced both unintended pregnancies and barriers to desired pregnancies, indicating widespread reproductive agency challenges.
The report notes that barriers are ubiquitous, affecting high- and low-fertility countries alike. For instance, in Nigeria, where fertility rates are among the highest globally, a third of men (but only 21% of women) want four or more children, yet economic and social constraints limit family size. In South Korea, three in five respondents cite financial limitations, while in Sweden, despite generous parental leave policies, concerns about time, energy, and climate change deter parenthood. The UNFPA argues that the crisis requires political interventions but warns against coercive or short-term fixes, like baby bonuses, which often fail to address root causes.
This explanation reframes the fertility crisis as a matter of structural and systemic barriers rather than a cultural shift away from wanting children. It suggests that enabling reproductive agency, through paid family leave, affordable fertility care, and supportive partnerships, could align actual family sizes with desired ones, potentially stabilising birth rates.
South Korea's fertility rate, at 0.72 children per woman in 2023, is the lowest globally, far below the replacement level of 2.1. Since 2006, the government has invested over $270 billion (approximately 1% of GDP annually) in pro-natalist measures, including subsidised housing, tax breaks, childcare support, and even matchmaking services. Despite these efforts, the birth rate has continued to decline from 1.13 in 2006 to its current historic low. Posts on X highlight the scale of this spending, with one user noting that $286 billion, including subsidies for healthcare and IVF, has yielded "zero" results. Another points to a 2022 fertility rate of 0.78, underscoring the persistent downward trend despite massive investment.
The UNFPA survey's findings align with South Korea's situation in several ways. The report notes that 60% of South Korean respondents cite financial limitations as a primary barrier, reflecting the high cost of living, particularly in urban centres like Seoul. Private education costs, which can consume a significant portion of household income, further deter couples from having children. Job insecurity and long working hours, as mentioned in X posts, exacerbate these pressures, leaving little time or resources for family life. The survey's emphasis on reproductive agency resonates here: South Koreans may want children but feel unable to afford or manage parenthood under current conditions.
However, South Korea's case also exposes limitations in the UNFPA's explanation. The survey suggests that addressing financial barriers could unlock desired fertility, yet South Korea's extensive subsidies have not reversed the decline. This discrepancy raises questions about whether financial constraints are the sole or primary driver. X posts suggest deeper cultural and societal factors, such as materialism, consumerism, and anti-natalist attitudes, which may outweigh economic incentives. One user argues that 40 years ago, when South Korea was poorer, its fertility rate was nearly 3, implying that values, not just economics, shape reproductive choices.
The UNFPA survey provides a robust framework for understanding the global fertility crisis by highlighting universal barriers to reproductive agency. Its findings explain much of South Korea's predicament: high financial costs, intense work culture, and societal pressures align with the survey's identified obstacles. However, South Korea's failure to boost birth rates despite massive spending suggests that the survey's focus on economic and structural fixes may be incomplete. Several factors warrant further consideration:
1.Cultural Shifts and Values: The UNFPA report focuses on external barriers but underplays internal cultural shifts. In South Korea, as noted on X, materialism and career-driven lifestyles may deprioritise family life. The rise of singlehood, with 41.93% of young Chinese women (a comparable context) choosing to stay single, suggests similar trends in South Korea, where traditional pressures to marry and procreate are waning. These value changes may reduce the desire for children more than the survey acknowledges.
2.Policy Effectiveness and Coercion: The UNFPA warns against coercive policies, yet South Korea's non-coercive subsidies, housing, childcare, and tax breaks, have had minimal impact. Empirical evidence cited in web sources indicates that pro-natalist policies rarely increase total fertility rates (TFR) by more than 0.2 children per woman, insufficient to reach replacement levels. This suggests that financial incentives alone cannot overcome deeper societal disincentives, such as the opportunity cost of parenting in competitive economies.
3.Global and Psychological Factors: The survey's mention of global fears (climate change, wars) is relevant but underexplored in South Korea's context. South Korea faces unique geopolitical tensions, such as North Korean threats, which may amplify existential concerns about bringing children into an uncertain world. Additionally, the survey's finding that a third of Swedes cite time and energy constraints suggests psychological barriers, stress, burnout, and work-life imbalance, that are acute in South Korea's high-pressure society.
4.Gender Dynamics and Partnerships: The UNFPA emphasises supportive partnerships, but South Korea's declining marriage rates (noted in X posts) indicate a lack of suitable partners, driven by gender role tensions and economic expectations. Women's increasing economic independence may reduce willingness to enter traditional family structures, a factor the survey could address more explicitly.
To fully explain the birth crash, particularly in South Korea, the UNFPA's framework must be supplemented with broader perspectives:
Technological and Social Isolation: Web sources suggest that excessive screen time and hyper-engaging media, observed globally from Mexico to India, may reduce romantic partnerships, a key precursor to parenthood. In South Korea, where digital culture is pervasive, this could exacerbate fertility declines by limiting social interactions.
Long-Term Demographic Momentum: As noted in web sources, global population growth persists due to past high birth rates, masking the severity of current declines. South Korea's rapid transition from high to low fertility within decades amplifies this effect, creating a demographic cliff that subsidies struggle to mitigate.
Policy Misalignment: South Korea's policies focus on financial relief but may neglect structural reforms, like reducing work hours or addressing educational competition. The UNFPA's call for holistic interventions, paid leave, fertility care, aligns here, but South Korea's implementation may lack the cultural resonance needed to shift behaviors.
The UNFPA survey offers a compelling explanation of the global fertility crisis, framing it as a lack of reproductive agency driven by economic, health, and global barriers. Its findings resonate with South Korea's experience, where financial constraints and societal pressures deter parenthood despite widespread desire for children. However, South Korea's $270 billion investment with minimal results challenges the survey's optimism about addressing barriers through policy. Cultural shifts toward materialism, declining marriage rates, and psychological stressors like burnout and geopolitical fears suggest that the birth crash is more complex than economic fixes alone can resolve.
To fully account for South Korea's fertility decline, the UNFPA's framework must integrate cultural, psychological, and structural factors beyond financial incentives. Policies should address work-life balance, gender dynamics, and societal values while fostering environments where parenthood feels feasible and fulfilling. The global birth crash, as exemplified by South Korea, underscores the urgency of rethinking how societies support baby making. The same applies to the West.
"Two in five people over 50 say they have not had as many children as they wanted - with economic issues, health concerns and fears about the state of the world among the main barriers.
More than half said financial factors such as affordable housing, childcare options and job security were things that had limited, or would limit, their ability to grow their families.
One in four said health issues were holding them back, while a fifth of respondents mentioned fears about global issues including climate change, wars and pandemics.
The findings come from a new survey of over 14,000 people by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) - spanning 14 countries on five continents that are home to a third of the world's population.
Birth rates have been declining across almost all regions of the world, while life expectancy continues to grow.
There are concerns, from politicians and commentators like Elon Musk, that future generations of working age people will find it more difficult to economically support people of pension age as the ratio of workers to pensioners shifts.
"Vast numbers of people are unable to create the families they want," said Dr Natalia Kanem, executive director of the UNFPA.
"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."
Differences around the world
The survey was carried out in four European countries, four in Asia, three across Africa and three from the Americas.
The countries were picked to try and represent "a wide variety of countries with different cultural contexts, fertility rates and policy approaches", according to the report's editor Dr Rebecca Zerzan.
It includes, for example, the country with the lowest fertility rate in the world - South Korea. It also includes country with a birth rate among the highest in the world, which also happens to be the most populous country in its continent - Nigeria.
The others, in order of population size, are India, the US, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, Thailand, South Africa, Italy, Morocco, Sweden and Hungary.
In many cases there were significant differences in responses depending on which country people were reporting from.
For example in Nigeria, a third of men (although only 21% of women) reported that they wanted to have four or more children. The numbers were similar in South Africa. However in South Korea, Thailand, Italy, Germany and Hungary, no more than 5% agreed.
Fertility issues were twice as likely in the US (16% of respondents) as in neighbouring Mexico (8%).
In South Korea, three in five respondents reported financial limitations as an obstacle.
But in Sweden, where both men and women are entitled to 480 days of paid parental leave per child (which can also be transferred to grandparents), fewer than one in five said the same.
Birth rates in Sweden are still among the lowest in the world, however. Dr Zerzan told Sky News that this shows that no one factor alone contributes to people feeling empowered to have children at the right time.
"A third of people in Sweden say they think raising a child will take up too much time and energy. And a higher number of people there, compared with other countries, are also concerned about climate change and bringing a child in to an uncertain world."
Unintended pregnancies vs not as many children as wanted
A curious finding from the survey is that, while there has been much discussion around declining fertility rates, almost a third of people said they or their partner had experienced an unintended pregnancy.
Globally, as people who become pregnant unintentionally often do so more than once, half of all pregnancies are unintended.
In Morocco and South Africa, around half of people had experience of an unintended pregnancy. In the same two countries, more than half of people had experience of being unable to have a child at their preferred time.
Overall, one in eight people had experienced both an unintended pregnancy and barriers to a desired child.
"Everywhere we look, people are struggling to freely realise their reproductive aspirations," explains the report.
People who had more children than they wanted, and people who had fewer, were present in countries with high and low fertility rates.
"That indicates that barriers to achieving one's ideal family are ubiquitous."
The report says that the crisis does require political interventions, but warns against policies that often amount to short-term fixes, or those designed to coerce people to either use or not use contraception.
"Whether the policies are coercive or not, there are real risks to treating fertility rates as a faucet to be turned on or off. Many of the countries that are today seeking to increase fertility have, within the last 40 years, sought to decrease birth rates.
"For example, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Thailand and Türkiye all reported in 1986 an intention to lower their national fertility rates through policy interventions, deeming their respective fertility rates at that time as 'too high'. By 2015, however, all five countries had switched to policies designed to boost fertility.
"Today all five have total fertility rates below two children per woman."