The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released a study report on the drastic decline in birth rates in the world. The report is called 'The Real Fertility Crisis.'

  This report prepared on the basis of the study conducted in 14 countries of the world, including the neighboring country India, says - 'The world is changing at a very fast pace. Global fertility rates are declining. Human population will peak within this century and decline within this century.' 

  According to the projections made by the United Nations, the world's population will peak in 2080. At that time the world population will be 10.3 billion. Although the fertility rate is decreasing, it is estimated that the population will decrease by about 3 billion by the end of this century due to 'population momentum' (the process of increasing the population for some time due to the high fertility rate in the past). 

Currently, the total fertility rate of women in the world is on average 2.3. But the fertility of African countries is double that of the world. The total fertility rate there is 4.6 per woman. But interestingly, more than half of the world's population lives in countries with replacement levels (total fertility rates below 2.1).

Population growth, once the world's biggest problem, why is high fertility rate becoming a concern now? Less than seven years after the end of World War II, the size of the world's population became a matter of concern. Since that time, family planning programs started by developed countries were aggressively implemented in underdeveloped third world countries like Nepal.

The main goal of this program was to forcefully reduce the fertility rate. At that time, there was no mention of women's rights in family planning. In this context, countries like Europe and America adopted the two-child policy. China went further than that 

Since 1970, the 'Single Baby' campaign has prevented millions of babies from being born. India had adopted a policy of population control through family planning since 1952. Coincidentally, India is the first country in the world to implement a population control program. At that time, a woman in India used to give birth to 6 children. According to macro trends, today that situation has changed and India's total fertility rate has reached the replacement level ie 2.1 per woman.

However, India's population growth rate is still high. Among the SAARC countries, India has the highest fertility rate graph after Afghanistan and Pakistan, two Muslim-majority countries. According to which, Afghanistan is 4.8, Pakistan is 3.6 and India is 2.0. The world population, once concentrated in Europe and America, has recently become concentrated in Asia.

Among them, almost the base part of the world's population is occupied by our two big neighboring countries. According to which India has the largest population in the world with 1.6 billion and China with 1.5 billion. China's population growth rate has fallen into negative territory. Due to the impact of the one child policy, China has started to suffer from a large population of senior citizens.

to get rid of which he is constantly practicing fertility rate increase. South Korea, Japan, most of the countries in Europe are now trying like China. But the couples in those countries are not accepting the government's request to increase the fertility rate. Because of this, those countries are constantly moving towards demographic decay. 

The world which is experiencing 'fertility crisis' has now taken the policy of 'Fertility Increase'. But how is this possible? World Population Day is also being celebrated on June 11. The interest of starting to celebrate this day is also associated with high fertility rates. In 1989, when the world's population reached 5 billion, everyone panicked. In the 1950s and 1960s, the world was terrorized by the 'baby boom', a figure that would terrorize the world for the second time, with a population of 5 billion.

The United Nations requested its member states to celebrate this day since 1990 to make the issue of population growth more sensitive around the world. This day, which was once celebrated with great fanfare, has become dull with the drastic changes in fertility rates.

From donors working in Nepal in the field of population, the Ministry of Health and Population of Nepal has also put this day on the last list of priorities. What can be said about this neglect of the stakeholders if the population day was only for the transfer of fertility rate (fertility 

shifting)? Isn't discussion necessary for the quality of the population? Gender issues, age group issues are issues that will survive as long as there is a population. From the donors to the indigenous bodies, they cannot turn a blind eye to this. The 'fertility crisis' report and the current fertility debate in the world do not seem to have that parallel.

Although the countries that have very low fertility rates in the world but are gaining prosperity want to increase the fertility rate with many attractive facilities, the efforts made by the countries are not matching with the needs and wishes of the couple. Many childbearing countries have called on couples to increase the number of children.

The 'Fertility Crisis' report, on the other hand, considers other socio-economic reasons to be more important than the reluctance of couples due to low birth rates. As mentioned in the report, one out of every five people showed that they did not have as many children as they wanted. 

Nepal's fertility situation is also facing crisis. The National Census 2078 has shown that Nepal's fertility rate is below the replacement level (2.1 per woman). This means that 10 women should have 21 children, but currently only 19 (1.9 per woman) have children. This data has indicated that Nepal has entered into a 'fertility crisis'.

Provinces like Bagmati and Gandaki have even lower fertility rates. There are various reasons for not being able to give birth to as many children as you want in Nepal. Parents do not want to have more children due to the increasing number of young people working abroad, being forced to live apart due to work and study even though they are in the country, increasing expenses for raising children, and children who went abroad on student visas not returning.

This means, now the parents are starting to understand and feel the children as 'future support'. Regarding the declining fertility rate of Nepal, it is appropriate to remember the words of Young Hong, the former representative of Nepal of UNFPA. In an event held a few months ago, she said, 'People all over the world are not able to create the family they want.

Nepal's situation is no different. Some people are deprived of becoming parents and some people are forced to become parents. This is not a debate about whether the population has increased or decreased, it is about the availability of favorable environment and easy opportunities for young people to build the family they envision.

Family leave with pay, easy access to reproductive health services, child care facilities and supportive spouses are not a matter of luxury, these are the foundations of family building.'

31 percent of couples in the world say that they do not have as many children as they want, while 12 percent lament having more children than they want. The reasons for the second type of couple are lack of knowledge about family planning tools, lack of access to such tools, lack of women's education, etc. In the case of Nepal, the couple living in Bagmati Province said that they were not able to give birth to the number of children they wanted, while in Madhes they said that they had to give birth to more children than they wanted.

It was the conclusion of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994 that reproduction should be interpreted as a demographic issue along with a gender issue. The topic has become more relevant recently. The fertility rate has not been increased due to the fact that women have more responsibility for taking care of children, and they feel that giving birth to more children does not help in character development. 

It has not been long since the birth rate started to decline in Nepal. But in the span of four decades, this picture changed radically. According to the 2038 census, the total fertility rate of Nepali women was 6.39. In 2078, this rate has dropped to 1.94. Similarly, the Kora birth rate which was 50 in 2009/011 has dropped to 14.2 in 2078. The fertility rate of the age group of 20-24 years, which is known as the most fertile reproductive age, has dropped from 202 per thousand women in 2058 to 149 in 2078.

Nepali women's childbearing age is also increasing every decade. In 2058, the age of Sardar who gave birth to their first child was 22.9 years, but in 2078 it has increased to 25.6 years. It is not difficult to understand why women give low priority to the issue of late marriage and childbearing. Another strange behavior that Nepali couples have recently shown in reproductive behavior is the desire for more sons.

The sex ratio at birth in Nepal two decades ago was 99.8, that is, when 100 boys were born, about the same number of girls were born. But the present scenario is different. According to the National Census 2078, when 100 girls are born, 112 boys are born. In the districts of Madhesh, the gap in this ratio is even deeper. In districts including Dhanusha, when 100 girls are born, up to 133 boys are born. There is no doubt that this will cause widespread upheaval in our social structure.