By Dr Saswati Pattanaik, Nandana S Nair & Durgesh Jaiswal
The Children We Want, The Families We Can’t Have: there is a silence that no one talks about. It is not the silence of an empty house after everyone has left, nor the silence that follows an argument or a loss. It is something quieter. It lives deep inside the hearts of millions of young people who once imagined a child calling them “Mama” or “Papa” but are no longer sure that day will ever come.
There are no photographs of these children because they were never born. There are no birthdays to celebrate, no tiny shoes waiting by the front door, no school uniforms hanging neatly in a cupboard. There are only dreams that have been postponed so many times that they have slowly begun to disappear.
Every year on July 11, the world observes World Population Day. For decades, the conversation has revolved around numbers. How many people are being born? Which country has the fastest-growing population? Will there be enough food, water and resources for everyone? These are important questions because numbers help governments make policies and researchers understand change. Yet numbers have a strange habit of hiding the people behind them.
A falling birth rate is not just a line on a graph. It may represent a young couple who dreamed of raising two children but eventually decided they could afford none. A growing population is not merely another statistic. It is a reminder that every child deserves healthcare, education, safety and hope.
This year’s World Population Day asks us to stop looking at people as numbers and start listening to their stories. Its message is simple, yet deeply unsettling:
Are young people able to build the families they dream of?
At first, the question feels surprising. Many of us grew up believing that the world’s biggest challenge was “too many people.” We were warned about overcrowded cities, shrinking natural resources and increasing pressure on the environment. It became easy to think that population was only about controlling numbers.
Today’s reality, however, is far more complex.
Across many parts of the world, fewer children are being born than ever before. Countries that once worried about rapid population growth are now concerned about ageing societies, empty classrooms and villages where there are more grandparents than grandchildren.
The first reaction is often to blame young people. We hear familiar comments: “They are too busy chasing careers.” “They don’t want responsibility.” “They only care about travelling.” These statements are repeated so often that they begin to sound like facts.
But are they really true?
Imagine a young couple in their late twenties. They studied hard because they believed education would give them a secure future. After years of effort, they finally found jobs. Like countless others, they dreamed of a modest home filled with laughter, bedtime stories and the joyful chaos that every family brings.
They never dreamed of luxury. They simply wanted an ordinary life.
Then reality arrived.
Rent increased. Groceries became more expensive. Fuel prices continued to climb. Education loans demanded monthly repayments, while the cost of childcare seemed almost impossible to manage. A single medical emergency wiped out the savings they had worked so hard to build.
One partner worried that taking maternity leave might affect future career opportunities. The other feared losing a job in an uncertain economy. Each challenge, by itself, seemed manageable. Together, they became overwhelming.
“Let’s wait another year,” they told each other.
One year quietly became two. Two became five.
Without even realising it, the conversation changed. It was no longer, “When should we have children?” Instead, it became, “Can we?”
No government report records that moment. No population chart captures the tears that sometimes follow it. Yet this quiet conversation is taking place in countless homes across the world.
This is not a story about selfishness.
It is a story about uncertainty.
A generation that was raised to believe hard work would guarantee stability now finds itself navigating rising living costs, unpredictable employment, expensive housing and a future that often feels beyond its control. For many, the question is no longer whether they would make loving parents. The real question is whether they can afford to become parents at all.
That is a heartbreaking question for any society to ask its young people.
Perhaps the saddest part is that these dreams rarely disappear all at once. They fade quietly—a crib that is never bought, a bedroom that remains a study, a list of baby names tucked inside a notebook and grandparents waiting for grandchildren they may never hold.
None of these moments appear in population statistics.
Yet together, they tell one of the most important stories of our time.
World Population Day 2026 invites us to see that story not through percentages or charts, but through the lives of ordinary people trying to balance hope with reality. Because population has never been only about how many people live on Earth. It has always been about whether people have the freedom, the security and the confidence to build the lives they dream of.
When the Future Feels Too Expensive
The story of that young couple is not unique. It reflects the reality of millions of young people across the world who are trying to build a future in uncertain times. Every generation has faced its own struggles. Our grandparents worried about finding enough food after difficult years. Our parents worked tirelessly to ensure that their children received better education and lived more comfortably than they had. Every generation has carried its own burdens with courage.
Today’s generation, however, carries a different kind of burden. It is not simply the burden of hard work but the burden of uncertainty.
Many young adults have done everything society expected of them. They studied hard, earned degrees, learnt new skills and searched tirelessly for employment. Yet even after doing everything “right,” many still feel as though life is standing on uncertain ground. A good salary today may not guarantee financial security tomorrow. Permanent jobs have become temporary contracts, and buying a home has become a dream that seems to move further away with every passing year. Even planning for the future has become difficult because the future itself feels unpredictable.
For previous generations, having a child was often seen as the natural next step after marriage. Today, for many couples, it has become one of the biggest financial decisions they will ever make. Raising a child is no longer just about buying toys or paying school fees. It means asking difficult questions every single day.
Will we be able to afford quality healthcare? Will we have enough savings for our child’s education? What happens if one of us loses our job? Can we give our child opportunities that we ourselves never had?
These are not selfish questions. They are questions asked by people who want to become responsible parents. Ironically, the very people who think carefully before bringing a child into the world are often criticised for waiting too long. Perhaps we should admire them instead, because choosing to become a parent is not merely an emotional decision—it is a lifelong promise. It is a promise to protect, to nurture and to stand beside another human being through every stage of life.
Young people are not afraid of making that promise.
They are afraid of breaking it.
The Invisible Burden Carried by Women
Perhaps no one experiences these pressures more intensely than women.
Over the past few decades, women across the world have achieved remarkable progress in education, employment and leadership. They are excelling as doctors, scientists, engineers, teachers, entrepreneurs, administrators and public leaders. This progress deserves to be celebrated.
Yet inside many homes, an old expectation remains unchanged.
When a child is born, it is still most often the woman who is expected to pause her career, reduce her working hours or leave employment altogether. She is expected to balance sleepless nights with professional responsibilities, care for ageing parents, manage household work and raise children—often all at the same time.
Many women shoulder these responsibilities with extraordinary strength. But strength should never be mistaken for an endless capacity to bear more.
The real question is not whether women can do everything.
It is whether they should have to.
A society that celebrates women in classrooms and workplaces must also support them at home. Hospitals, childcare centres, employers and communities all have a role to play. Parenthood should never be treated as a professional setback or a personal sacrifice carried by one parent alone. It should be recognised as a shared responsibility, supported fairly and respected equally.
The Dreams That Statistics Cannot Measure
Population experts often speak about fertility rates, demographic transitions and ageing societies. These concepts are important, but behind every graph lies something far simpler and far more human.
Hope.
Hope that one day there will be enough savings.
Hope that the next job will be more secure.
Hope that the economy will improve.
Hope that life will finally feel stable enough to welcome a child.
Unlike birth rates or census figures, hope cannot be measured. No graph records how many young couples postponed parenthood this year because they were afraid of an uncertain future. No chart tells us how many parents quietly wonder whether their own children will ever experience the joy of raising families.
Statistics can tell us how many children are born.
They cannot tell us about the children who remained only dreams.
Perhaps those unseen stories deserve just as much attention as the numbers we count.
When Population Becomes a Matter of Choice
One of the biggest misconceptions about population is the belief that every country faces the same challenge. The reality is far more complex.
In some parts of the world, classrooms are becoming smaller because fewer children are being born. Villages are growing older as young people move to cities and families become smaller. Governments worry about who will care for ageing populations, who will make up tomorrow’s workforce and how their economies will continue to grow.
Elsewhere, the picture is very different. Hospitals struggle to meet the needs of growing populations. Schools are overcrowded, employment opportunities are limited and many families work tirelessly just to provide the basic necessities for their children.
At first glance, these appear to be opposite problems. In truth, they are connected by the same fundamental question:
The World We Built—And the World We Forgot to Build
Humanity has achieved extraordinary progress.
We have built towering cities, connected continents through technology and placed satellites beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. We can communicate with someone on the other side of the world within seconds. Scientific discoveries and artificial intelligence continue to transform the way we live and work.
Yet, despite all this progress, millions of young people still struggle to answer a much simpler question:
“Can we afford to raise a child?”
It is a painful contradiction.
We celebrate economic growth while millions struggle to find secure employment. We construct luxury apartments while ordinary families find even modest housing beyond their reach. We encourage higher education, yet countless graduates spend years searching for stable careers. We applaud women for breaking barriers in the workplace, yet many still carry the greater share of childcare and household responsibilities.
Progress should make life easier.
For many young families, however, life feels increasingly difficult.
Perhaps the problem is not that today’s generation expects too much. Perhaps they are asking for things that should never have become luxuries in the first place—a secure job, affordable healthcare, safe maternity care, reliable childcare and a home where a family can grow.
These are not extravagant dreams.
They are the foundations upon which every healthy society should be built.
Did we build a world where young people had the freedom to dream, the courage to hope and the confidence to welcome a new life?
Because, in the end, the strength of a nation is not measured by the number of people who live within its borders.
It is measured by whether its people believe the future is worth passing on to their children.
And perhaps the real population crisis was never about having too many people or too few.
Perhaps it was about something far quieter.
A world where millions of young people never stopped dreaming of becoming parents.
They simply stopped believing the world was ready for their children.
Maybe the greatest population story of our time is not the child who was born.
It is the child who was deeply wanted, deeply loved, and never had the chance to exist—not because love was absent, but because hope became too expensive.
As we observe World Population Day 2026, perhaps the question before us is no longer “How many people are there?”
Perhaps the question we should be asking is far more human:
What kind of world are we creating for those who dream of becoming parents—and for the children they still hope to welcome?
The answer to that question will shape not only our population, but also our humanity.
(The writers are from the College of Community Science, Tura, Meghalaya)
