Who doesn’t love babies? They’re cute and they will grow up to support us in our old age. But there’s a problem – people are having fewer of them. Global fertility rates have fallen by more than one child per woman since 1990, to 2.2 live births in 2024, according to United Nations data. The growing financial burden of people living longer has caused alarm throughout the globe. China dropped its one-child policy in 2016, relaxing it further to allow families to have three children in 2021, yet the UN still estimated China’s 2024 birth rate at only just over one child. Latest data from Britain shows fertility rates are at their lowest since records began in 1939, at 1.41 birth per woman. Other European countries have even lower rates, including countries usually regarded as family-orientated, such as Italy and Spain. But governments which have looked to replace their own populations with younger immigrants have faced pushback. The Brexit vote in Britain to separate the country from the European Union was linked to the EU’s open immigration policy towards its member countries, and anti-immigrant protests have continued in Britain this year.
However, there’s an upside to falling fertility rates. Emerging markets economist Charlie Robertson sees the lower number of births as a boon for developing countries with young populations such as Kenya.
“It’s incredibly dangerous, the Western media narrative about how awful ageing societies are, implying that high fertility rates are a good thing,” he told Yuvoice in an interview.
In Kenya, where the average birth rate has dropped to just over three, compared with nearly five 20 years ago, growth will be turbo-charged in the next few years because in smaller families, parents can afford to put aside savings. More savings mean more money in the banking system, and when the banks are flush with cash, they tend to lend to businesses at lower interest rates. This makes it easier for businesses to expand, driving economic growth. “It’s impossible to have a big banking system with high fertility,” says Robertson.
Fertility rates have played a major role in Western history. Robertson says Marx was wrong on demographics, as he assumed that the high fertility rates of mid-nineteenth century Britain would continue. This would increase competition for jobs, leaving many jobless and ultimately leading to revolution. Instead, “the fertility rate began to slow and continued to decline, we didn’t reach that tipping point”, Robertson says.
The key to lower birth rates is education. When women are educated, they often have fewer children. “You give them the possibility to have a career, to have a choice,” according to Robertson.
So which developing countries are set to benefit from lower fertility rates? In addition to Kenya, Robertson highlights Egypt as poised for take-off after its fertility rate fell in 2019 below three, the magic number for kickstarting growth. Nigeria, with a fertility rate of 4.4, will take longer to industrialise.
In Asia, a fertility rate of 2.1 in Bangladesh translates into faster growth than in Pakistan, for example, where the rate is 3.5. In Afghanistan, meanwhile, a lack of education for women will guarantee the country has “continuing decades of poverty” according to Robertson, because fertility rates will remain high.
His views are controversial with those who feel that a higher birth rate is helpful for families in countries with no social security net. A recent report from development economics platform VoxDev, for example, shows that when women in Africa have a higher income, they have more children to safeguard their long-term economic security.
On the whole, economists in developing countries are on board with the importance of lower fertility rates, according to Robertson, but “politicians don’t get it”. Maybe baby-hugging is just too attractive a photo opportunity for politicians to discard it.
Once I came across a Faisalabad slum, Garbage, mosquitoes, and flies all sum. Residents welcomed, inviting me to come, I hesitated, reluctant to sit, Forgetting it’s my own garbage, thrown in a pit.
A dirty hand offered a handshake, While a clean hand took a break. The sun blazed down like a raging fire, Amplifying my thirst, igniting desire.
A dirty glass offered me cool water, Making my ego face a slaughter. I felt ashamed a bit, Dug in the same garbage pit. Realized under the same sky, We all share the same night.
I learned that day, behind a slum, It’s me standing like scum. Once I came across a Faisalabad slum.
(Image courtesy of Photo by Eirene Thoms via Unsplash)
In my 20 plus years of existence, I have learned two important lessons: (1) if you want to succeed, you have to play the game. (2) I am not good at playing the game.
My life started out in the usual way, for a boy from a lower-middle class family in a Pakistani village. I grew up going to the village school and dreaming of joining the army. I never gave too much thought about the purpose of school or an education — I, like many of my classmates, never planned to study past the fifth or sixth grade.
But fate stepped in when I was accepted to the school run by my father’s employer. This company school was an entirely different world: there were large classrooms and playgrounds — and the language of study was English. For me, that was a major hurdle since I had only been taught in Urdu.
I was a good student, though. I worked hard, mastered English, and kept progressing in my studies. It wasn’t until I entered fifth grade that I started to question what I was being taught. In Pakistan, students in the fifth and sixth grades already have a firm understanding of politics and the country’s political parties. My loyalty lay with former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was gaining ground against Pakistan’s two-party system.
He mostly talked about changing the corrupt system and motivating youngsters to join his struggle. I was very much fascinated by his battle and political moves. This fascination strengthened the rebellious feeling that was taking root inside me.
I started to adopt a policy of applying the knowledge learned from theories and books. When I began this implementation of the knowledge I had learned from books in my practical life, I started to question my teachers for being very different in how they teach and what they do. I was criticized and disciplined. Often that meant I missed classes.
These punishments didn’t demoralize me; instead they made me stand firmer in my beliefs and committed to raising my voice against the education system in Pakistan. I started to ask teachers questions when their words contradicted their acts.
By this time, I was in eighth grade — a pivotal moment in the Pakistani system — as schooling changes from general education to specialized tracks.
I was not interested in my choices: computer science or biology. I wanted to study the arts but that was not allowed, in part because private schools in Pakistan compete for students. Children’s scores in popular and challenging subjects, like the sciences, are a critical part of attracting parents and new pupils.
(Image courtesy of Roman Mager via Unsplash)
I opted for biology, even though I was not interested in it, and passed my eighth grade exams with flying colors. I was poised for success! Except I didn’t agree with the way the school system divided ninth graders according to their exam scores. Basically, the system divides children into two groups: the “average” group — kids who can pass the national exam but are unlikely to get top scores without a lot of tutoring and support — and the “strong” group: the chosen ones the school believes can achieve national ranking scores with enough attention and guidance.
I protested this division. Even at that age, I understood it was fundamentally unfair to give one group of children more resources when all the kids would benefit from more education. Why should a child’s future be sacrificed so a school can pour its resources into a chosen few?
I refused to follow the rules for exam preparations: I firmly believed — and still believe — scores should be given based on the value of your response, not the formatting or tricks you use to present your answers. As the exam date grew closer, the school coordinator even called my father to plead with him to convince me to follow their rules and get a good score. The message was, in short, the answers don’t matter: exam graders want to see how you format your responses, not the value of your words.
I was shocked to hear that, and instead of acting upon my coordinator’s advice, I continued my rebellious policy of just writing the answers without proper presentation. I used to say I never studied for marks; I studied to learn and use the knowledge I have learned daily. That was the point of being educated. My teachers, however, believed you can only succeed by being a part of this system. Admissions to prestigious universities and jobs in Pakistan are always given to those who have good grades.
In short, I could not get good grades in 9th and 10th classes and was strictly criticized for not following my teacher’s instructions and for not bribing the exam monitor. So, I could not secure admission to top colleges like my other classmates, who also acted upon their teacher’s advice and compensated the exam monitor.
Once I finished 10th grade, however, I realized I could still shift from the biological sciences to engineering or computer sciences for 11th and 12th grade, known as college or higher secondary education in Pakistan. So, with no additional preparation, I jumped to engineering. But, unfortunately, my experience there was the same: if I didn’t play the game, I couldn’t get the grades I needed to succeed.
(Image courtesy of Nathan Dumlao via Unsplash)
I still dreamed of joining the army, so after I graduated, I went to an academy in Lahore to prepare for the military exam. There, retired army personnel coached us on how to behave in interviews and tests. There was a Catch-22, however: I needed to prepare for the exams, but the military would not accept anyone who prepared because the point of the exams was to assess a potential soldier’s natural abilities and talents. My instructors told me directly to lie to the interviewer and say, when asked, that I had not received any coaching.
But I thought, why should I start my new career by lying? In short, due to my decision to tell the truth, I was shut out of the military and my lifelong dream was crushed.
Instead, I was admitted to the food science and technology department at university and decided to get my bachelor’s degree in this field so I could continue my education. I did not like the field and did not fully understand which jobs I could get with this specialty. With little guidance and my usual critical eye toward the education system, I struggled to do well and ended up graduating with average grades.
Now, I am sitting in my bedroom writing this story, thinking about my mistakes. I don’t want a master’s degree in my field and, after almost 24 years of life, I finally understand my true calling was not engineering, the military, or biology. My passion is literature and the social sciences: international relations, regional studies, and other similar subjects best fit me. I realized this after every opportunity has gone, and now there are limited chances that I can find a master’s program in any of those fields with my current degree.
Today, I realize that if I had followed the flow and kept all these rebellious thoughts to myself until the day when I would have had some power to change the typical education process in Pakistan, it would have been a much better way to make amendments and improvements in the society and system.
Instead, however, I just kept resisting, and my resistance as a child and young adult was useless. It deprived me of every opportunity, like attending an excellent, reputable college and studying the subject of my interest and choice. I could not analyze my interests and chose only the fields that were not my cup of tea.
So, in the end, Pakistani schools taught me an important lesson: resistance at the wrong time and age is useless. If you have to change the system, just be a part of the system until the day you reach the stage when your decisions or resistance will matter. We resist at the wrong time, and this ill-timed resistance has wasted many of the talented voices that were intentionally interested in bringing a positive change in the system. Instead, it is too late when we finally realize we have resisted at the wrong moments.
It is my hope that, by reading this, other young people will learn from my mistakes and understand that there is a time for every expression of resistance and every voice to be raised. If you want to change the system, work hard to obtain a position where your words may have some power to bring about the change you desire.
