The State of the World Population Report 2025 was presented to the local media today by the United Nations Population Fund.
Interestingly, it finds that the global trend is going from overpopulation to consistently falling birth rates - what it calls a Real Fertility Crisis. But the crisis isn't so much that people are having fewer children leading to a global population decline - it's a lack of what is called reproductive freedom.. The report finds that Many people around the world are unable to have the number of children they desire due to social, economic, and health barriers. Here's from from the country lead for Belize:
Tisa Grant, UNFPA -Head of Office - Belize
"Two years ago, UNFPA had a report that talked about the world increasing in population. Now, what we're seeing is a trend in a decline in population, in fertility rates. So there are two issues that are happening there."
"So we have a lowering of fertility and the report addresses the issue of what is that real fertility crisis, which is not that we have an increasing population or a decreasing population, is that people are denied choice."
"People do not have reproductive freedom to decide freely and responsibly if when and how many children they have. And so the report is addressing the issue of access to services, the issue of poverty, the issue of employment, the issue of childcare, all of which is contributing to people's decision whether or not to have children."
"So what we want is for there to be choice. What we want is for unintended pregnancies to be prevented. But we also would like to see that people feel that they are able to have the size of families that they would like to have."
You can find a link to the report online.
