The world is transforming at a breathtaking scale and pace: Global fertility rates are declining. The human population is projected to reach its crest within the century and then to fall (UN DESA, 2024). One in four people currently live in a country where the population size is estimated to have already peaked. The result will be societies as we have never seen them before: Communities with larger proportions of older persons, smaller shares of young people, and, possibly, smaller workforces.

With UNFPA State of World Population Report 2025, titled 'The Real Fertility Crisis', we shine a much-needed light on the individual realities of vast numbers of people who are unable to create the families they want.

We asked people – across 14 countries, which together represent more than a third of the global population – what they actually want for their reproductive lives and futures, and whether they believe they will be able to realize those ambitions. What we find is that too few people are able to exercise true choice when it comes to some of the most intimate and consequential decisions in their lives.

Millions and millions of people still, therefore, cannot exercise their reproductive rights and choices. This inability of individuals to realize their desired fertility goals is the real fertility crisis – not overpopulation or underpopulation – and we see it everywhere we look.