Falling fertility: why more women choose to have fewer children or none at all, while others who want them struggle to conceive
- While the world’s population continues to grow, in many countries fertility rates have fallen. Women are putting off having children, or not having any
- Infertility is also on the rise, and in Asia there’s still a stigma about it, but attitudes are changing as more couples take fertility tests
Sarah Fung is often told she would make a great mother, a comment that usually comes just after she tells people she is not having children.
“We never thought we needed children to complete us,” says British-born Fung, 45, who has been married for five years to her Austrian-born husband, Phillip. “My business and lifestyle give me purpose in life.”
Fung, who has called Hong Kong home for 13 years and is founder of Hula, an online platform for pre-owned designer clothes, says the decision whether to have children is always very personal. “It might be easier in a conversation to say that I couldn’t have children to avoid having to explain why I didn’t want them,” she says.
“The world’s population is way too big and some people have children for the wrong reasons,” Fung says. “In Asia, cultural pressure is also felt on children to look after their parents in old age and this is the reason many people bear children. This is great if it happens, but it should not be expected.”
Fung says some people are shocked when she tells them that she and her husband have decided not to have children. But the couple are not alone.