Declining fertility rates, driven by improved education, empowerment, gender equality, family planning and other shifting social norms, reshaping the world’s demographics while promising environmental benefits, pose challenges, making access to fertility care a policy consideration.
A recent study, published in the journal Human Reproduction Update, by fertility specialists from around the globe, including Australia, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, Greece, The Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, predicts that without accounting for migration effects, more than 50 percent of countries are expected to experience a population decline from 2017 to 2100.
The paper, titled “Declining Global Fertility Rates and the Implications for Family Planning and Family Building,” warns that by 2050, 77 per cent of high-income countries, and by 2100, 93 per cent of all countries, will have a total fertility rate below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman.
The investigation attributes this trend to factors such as economic development, urbanisation, improved education, secularisation, gender equity and family-planning policies, all contributing to the slowing growth of the world population.
“Global TFR (Total Fertility Rate) is decreasing, which will eventually result in a declining global population and radically changed demographics in most countries worldwide during this century. Although all are declining, major regional differences in absolute TFR numbers remain. While a beneficial impact on the environment is anticipated, these drastic changes will have major societal and economic implications that will severely challenge nations and the global community.
Policies will need to be developed to optimise the management of these changes. More focus on developing effective family-building policies should represent an important component of such strategies,’ the researchers noted.
The researchers further stated that infertility, a chronic disease globally, affects both men and women of reproductive age, with known risk factors and a significant global burden.
“Success and safety of infertility treatments have improved significantly in recent decades. More recently, these technologies are also increasingly applied in other populations of individuals and the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning) community in need of fertility care to form a family. Since the right to raise a family is fundamental to every person, appropriate funding should be provided for fertility care, evaluation, and treatment. Because of a lack of awareness and appreciation of the prevalence and burden of infertility, however, only a few countries globally meet these needs. Fertility care, including infertility treatment, should be considered a principal component of family building and family planning.’
According to the United Nations (UN), fertility care has achieved significant success, warranting its broad availability globally for individuals requiring reproductive assistance to fulfil their family aspirations and enhance personal well-being: “Doing so will also help mitigate the declining TFR. This mitigation can be achieved in harmony with goals related to climate change, since it is human activity—linked to rising gross domestic product per capita and resultant consumption—rather than human numbers per se that does the greatest damage to the environment.
“The economic benefits to society of providing fertility care clearly exceed the cost of treatment, and these benefits will only increase as populations become more aged. The medical profession, policymakers, other stakeholders, and the public can use the information provided to increase their understanding of fertility care. Such increased understanding will enable the development of integrative family-planning policies that meet the needs of those needing fertility care to establish their family, while also helping societies manage the decreasing TFR and resulting demographic and societal challenges.”
