SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being
SDG 5: Gender Equality
Institutions: Ministry of Health & Family Welfare; Ministry of Women & Child Development
The UNFPA’s 2025 report reframes the demographic discussion, not as one of under- or overpopulation, but as a crisis of reproductive agency, where individuals’ desires to have children go unrealized due to systemic barriers.
A UNFPA/YouGov survey covering 14 countries, home to over one-third of the world’s population, reveals that one in five people expect to have fewer children than they wish. Major constraints include economic insecurity, housing unaffordability, job instability, environmental anxieties, and the lack of a suitable partner. Gendered burdens further impede reproductive choices: 11 percent cite unequal caregiving responsibilities. UNFPA cautions against coercive pronatalist incentives, such as baby bonuses, which often erode reproductive autonomy. Instead, it calls for rights-based interventions - paid family leave, accessible fertility care, supportive family policies, and equitable caregiving frameworks - to empower individuals.
The report underscores that enabling true reproductive freedom, not demographic engineering, is both a human rights imperative and key to sustainable development.
Follow the full report here:
https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/EN_State%20of%20World%20Population%20report%202025.pdf