My friend is studying abroad in South Korea and, more than once, she’s told me, “You really don’t see any children here. There are more dogs on the streets than children.”
This reminded me of the data of the country’s diminishing birth rate. Numbers show that even outside of Korea, there’s a huge trend of having fewer babies on a worldwide scale. The main factors behind this shift appear to be economic pressure, societal expectations placed on women to bear children, and environmental threats. These factors have collectively shaped a world in which having children no longer feels like a viable or safe option.
According to a (United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report, economic constraints are seen as the main barrier to childbearing, accounting for 39% of responses. Other factors include unemployment, job instability and high housing costs. Over the past century, fertility rates in high-income countries have generally shown a sustained downward trend. Economists have proposed two main theoretical frameworks to explain this phenomenon.
First, the quantity versus quality trade-off. As a family’s income increases, parents tend to prioritize improving the quality of their children’s lives. The costs of such investments on academics and hobbies constrain the possibility of having additional children. This mechanism is supported by cross-national and longitudinal data, showing that fertility rates have consistently exhibited a significant negative correlation with per capita GDP.
Second is the time-related opportunity cost. High wages mean that the opportunity cost of caring for children rises for parents, especially mothers. This not only reduces fertility intentions, but also increases women’s labor force participation rates. The two factors combined exhibit a stable negative correlation globally. The overall pressure from finance leads to a result of having fewer kids.
The UNFPA report also highlights that women, in particular, worry that their partners will not share responsibilities associated with child rearing. For example, the feminist movement in South Korea gave rise to the 4B movement, which follows the practices of no dating men, no sex with men, no marriage to men and no children with men as a form of protest.
The 4B movement stems from a cultural perception that women are expected to rely on men for financial support, emotional care and a secure life, yet men rarely fulfil their responsibilities in life. The 4B movement is a radical way for women to regain autonomy, which also means abandoning many important milestones associated with heterosexual relationships — one of which is having children.
This movement gained popularity in the U.S. after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election. Given that he was found responsible for sexual abuse, yet still won the election, women started sounding the alarm regarding reproductive rights. Many are opting out of having children because they worry that their children will live in a world where sexual abuse is treated lightly due to the perpetrator’s position of authority. Whether they give birth to a boy or a girl, they will either become victims or perpetrators. Neither of these outcomes is what they want.
If governments truly wish to increase the birth rate, they should provide women with support in terms of funding, technology, emotional and social systems. For example, they could reduce the risks of childbirth through safer medical procedures, ensure that women can find employment after giving birth and fully acknowledge the efforts women put forth in childbirth and reproduction labor. Also, governments could strictly crack down on domestic violence and refuse to downplay those crimes simply because they occur within the family.
Additionally, legal protections remain insufficient in many countries with low fertility rates. In China, even years after the implementation of the Anti-Domestic Violence Law, law enforcement agencies still generally exhibit a passive and evasive attitude when handling domestic violence cases. For example, some public security bureaus refuse to file cases, categorizing domestic violence as family disputes rather than acts of violence. Courts also face significant challenges in issuing protection orders, often requiring extensive evidence. This phenomenon indicates that the lack of legal support in countries with low birth rates has led to women lacking sufficient security to start families and have children.
Finally, environmental factors that discourage people from having children are worsening and, consequently, fears surrounding these factors are growing. Nearly one-fifth of people say that their concerns about the future — for example, relating to climate change, environmental degradation, war and epidemics — will lead them to have fewer children.
Besides the potential harms towards future children, present harms are already affecting adults. Studies suggest that environmental pollution is a notable, growing threat to human fertility. Approximately one-sixth of the global reproductive-aged population will experience infertility at some point in their lives, but this issue is only growing as a maladaptive result of our worsening climate crisis.
Reproductive health is declining for both men and women, particularly in industrialized regions. While unhealthy lifestyles negatively affect fertility, exposure to environmental pollutants and toxic substances can directly damage reproductive mechanisms like oocytes and sperm, leading to reductions in their quantity and quality, resulting in infertility. Living under a cleaner and more stable environment is important to human health in general, which is also a key element in having healthy babies.
Finally, low fertility rate is often seen as a red flag of demographic crisis. But in reality, it reflects more about sustainability, and social and economic inequality, and more than one might expect. People choose not to have kids based on rational estimations about these concerns. If countries really want to make a change, they should rebuild the broken systems that prospective parents fear. They should focus on people’s actual needs instead of shifting blame and giving insignificant support.
Lynn Lin is an Opinion Intern for the Summer 2025 quarter. She can be reached at baoyinl1@uci.edu.
Edited by Casey Mendoza, Xinyu Zhang