By Muhammad Munaeem Jamal
In Karachi, a conversation about children rarely begins with a population chart. It begins with a rent payment, a school bill, or a relative asking a newly married couple when they will have their first baby. Notice who usually has to answer that last question. The woman does.
Across the world, officials look at falling birth rates and ask a larger version of the same question. Who will work when the present workforce retires? Who will support older people? The worry is real, but the question can quietly turn a woman's private decision into a public obligation.
A 2021 television commentary presented falling fertility as an era in which women were “opting out.” It cited South Korea, China, India and the United States, then asked whether governments could expect women to replace their populations. Its final question was sharper than much of its evidence. The issue deserves another look in 2026, because a falling birth rate cannot tell us whether someone freely chose a smaller family or could not have the family they wanted.
What the number actually measures
The United Nations' 2024 population projections put the global total fertility rate at 2.25 births per woman, down from 3.31 in 1990. Total fertility rate is an estimate based on the birth rates observed at different ages in a given period. It does not count what each individual woman has had, or what she must have.
The familiar replacement level of roughly 2.1 is also a population measure. In a low-mortality society without migration, a rate around that level would, over time, allow one generation to replace another. It is no instruction to every household. Nor does a country immediately lose population the day its fertility rate slips below 2.1. Age structure, life expectancy and migration still matter.
The UN estimates that more than half of countries and areas were already below 2.1 in 2024. Yet its central projection still has the world's population rising from 8.2 billion in 2024 to a peak around 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s. A global average conceals very different national paths. It also cannot explain why people have fewer children.
Consider South Korea. The UN placed fertility there and in Hong Kong below 0.75 in 2024. A figure that low raises hard questions about future schools, pensions and care for older people. Still, calling it evidence that women have rejected motherhood would read a motive into a statistic. We need to ask what people wanted, what they could afford and who would do the unpaid work once a child arrived.
A decision and an obstacle are different things
The United Nations Population Fund's 2025 report asked people in 14 countries about their family aspirations. Nearly one in five reproductive-age respondents believed they would be unable to have the number of children they desired. Thirty-nine percent said financial limits had affected, or would affect, their ability to reach their desired family size. The survey covers countries that together account for more than a third of the world's population; its results should not be treated as a precise census of every person on earth.
Those findings complicate the phrase “opting out.” Someone may want no children and have the means to follow that wish. Another may want two but stop at one after losing a job. A third may face infertility, poor access to care or no suitable partner. They may all appear in a fertility chart as fewer births. Their experiences call for different responses.
The United States offers a useful check against an equally simple claim that nobody wants children anymore. In a 2024 Pew Research Center survey, 57% of adults under 50 without children who said they were unlikely ever to have them named “just don't want to” as a major reason. Thirty-six percent named the cost of raising a child. Respondents could give more than one reason, and the sample was a specific group of Americans, not all young adults or all women worldwide.
Both answers matter. Respecting someone who does not want a child need not mean ignoring someone who cannot afford one. A good policy must leave room for each. If officials announce a cash payment and births still fall, the result does not prove young people are selfish. The payment may be too small, or the problem may lie elsewhere. If births rise, that alone does not prove parents gained more freedom.
I think of the ordinary arithmetic behind a family decision. A couple may be able to pay for a baby's first year while fearing the next eighteen. Housing, reliable income and the ability to take time away from work change the calculation. So does the expectation that one parent will abandon a career or absorb most of the care at home. In many places that parent is still the mother. The balance is an argument about institutions, not women's character.
Pakistan asks the question from another direction
Pakistan makes an essential contrast. Its 2023 census counted about 241.5 million people. Public debate here often worries about rapid growth and the pressure it puts on schools, housing and health services. Elsewhere, governments worry about too few births. The slogans point in opposite directions, but either can override a person's wishes if the state treats women as instruments of a population target.
At the launch of its 2025 report in Pakistan, UNFPA said only one in three women could make decisions about their reproductive health. It reported that 32% of married women aged 15–49 used modern contraception and that more than 16% had an unmet need for family planning. These are measures of access and autonomy, not a call to impose a particular family size.
That distinction matters in a city like Karachi. A woman who wants to delay a pregnancy needs trustworthy information and services she can reach without pressure. A woman who wants a child needs safe maternal care. If a family wants fewer children, its decision deserves respect; if it wants more, that decision deserves respect too. Neither a national growth target nor a lecture from a relative should make the choice for them.
The debate also places too much responsibility on women while giving men too little to do. A father's share of daily care, an employer's treatment of parents and the quality of public services can alter the real cost of raising a child. Those are practical conditions. They will not change because a politician calls motherhood patriotic or a commentator calls childlessness selfish.
What a serious response would test
Governments should start by listening to people whose plans and outcomes differ. How many wanted children but could not have them? How many had a pregnancy earlier than they intended? How many freely prefer no children? A fertility rate by itself answers none of these questions. Surveys also need careful wording, because a wish expressed today may change with age, income or a relationship.
Next comes the work of removing obstacles people actually identify. UNFPA recommends affordable housing, decent work, parental leave and access to reproductive health services. The details must fit each country. A childcare service that exists on paper but closes before parents finish work will solve little. Leave that employees fear taking may be just as ineffective. In Pakistan, access to contraception and respectful maternity care belongs in the same discussion as household income.
Low-fertility countries also need plans for ageing that do not depend entirely on a sudden baby boom. Children born today will not join the workforce tomorrow. Governments can examine productivity, employment, migration and the design of pensions and care. Each choice has costs and political limits. Pretending that a higher birth rate alone will repair every institution delays those decisions.
There is a test I would put to any proposal: does it help a person follow a considered choice, or does it push that person toward the number the government wants? Subsidised childcare can help parents who want children. Reliable contraception can help people avoid a pregnancy they do not want. Better medical care can serve both goals. Their common measure is agency, even if they move a national fertility rate in different directions.
Back in Karachi, the question at the family table can sound affectionate. It can also carry a heavy expectation. A statistic cannot hear the difference. Public policy should try harder than the statistic: ask people what kind of family they want, notice what stands in their way, and leave the final answer with them.