PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Henry Herrera
Telephone: +1-301-801-0608
Email: info@menandboys.net
UN Urged to Treat the Global Collapse in Birth Rates as a Demographic Emergency
June 24, 2026 — Across the developed world, inadequate numbers of children are being born to sustain the population. On every continent, birth rates have fallen below replacement levels of 2.1 children per woman (1), leaving nations to shrink, shutter schools, and worry how to financially sustain elderly populations. But inexplicably, the United Nations has done little to address the decline. The International Council for Men and Boys (ICMB) is calling on the UN to confront the collapse as the demographic emergency it has become.
Fertility across the developed world has dropped to about 1.5 children per woman. The decline spans every region:
- East Asia: South Korea recorded just 0.75 births per woman in 2024, the lowest in the world, and 0.58 in Seoul (2, 3).
- Europe: The EU fertility rate has sunk to its lowest in more than 60 years, with Spain at 1.1 and Italy at 1.2 (4).
- North America: The United States fell to 1.6 births per woman in 2024, an all-time low (5).
In short, most of the world’s population now live in countries with below-replacement fertility levels (6).
The arithmetic is unforgiving. Fewer children today mean fewer workers tomorrow and more retirees for each to support. The fertility decline also tracks the worldwide retreat from marriage, which precedes most childbearing. Experts warn that fertility will not recover until family formation does (7).
Yet the UN’s own machinery points the other way. For 50 years the focus of the UN Population Fund, known as the UNFPA, has centered on contraception and family planning, its largest budget item (8). The UNFPA built no comparable effort to help families form.
The United Nations has called the family “the natural and fundamental group unit of society,” (9) but now the UN has no plan for its renewal.
At a minimum, ICMB calls on the United Nations and its member states to:
- Recognize sustained below-replacement fertility as a demographic emergency that warrants UN attention.
- Direct DESA to study why birth rates are falling and which policies help families form, balancing the UN’s reproductive agenda with an equal commitment to family formation.
- Report fertility and family-formation trends among the indicators the UN already tracks.
A society that stops having children cannot renew itself. We ask the United Nations to take the question seriously, and to act before the cost becomes irreversible.
This is the second of three statements ICMB is issuing this month on the family, following marriage and preceding fathers.
The International Council for Men and Boys is a non-governmental organization working to end the 12 sex disparities that affect men and boys worldwide. The ICMB is a leader of the emerging global movement to address these disparities. https://www.menandboys.net/
Links:
- https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/11/pensions-at-a-glance-2025_76510fe4/full-report/fertility_ae615db2.html
- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=KR
- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/birth-rate-south-korea-worlds-lowest-rises-first-time-9-years-rcna193777
- https://www.eunews.it/en/2025/03/07/record-decline-in-birth-rate-hits-eu-in-2023-italys-fertility-rate-among-the-lowest/
- https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr038.pdf
- https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/which-countries-have-fertility-rates-above-or-below-the-replacement-level
- https://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/report/saving-america-saving-the-family-foundation-the-next-250-years
- https://www.unfpa.org/about-us
- https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
