When Julia Brandner recently presented her book "I'm Not Kidding," the 30-year-old influencer and comedian was confronted by a barrage of insults. One 72-year-old mother of three children took to the floor and attacked her in front of the audience as an egoist, Brandner told DW.

However, the book, in which the Austrian-born and Berlin-based Brandner explains, with great humor and frankness, why she never wanted to become pregnant and underwent sterilization for that reason, also drew many positive reactions.

Speaking about the hate that she has experienced from several quarters, she said: "You get stamped as a revolutionary. If you say you don't want children, you are very quickly blamed for sabotaging the pension system and the intergenerational contract, and actually for singlehandedly bringing about the extinction of the human race."

This criticism is fueled by a number that many young women celebrate as a sign of progress in female self-determination, but that others see as a fearful portent of dwindling prosperity and a continuously shrinking population: 1.35.

That's the average number of children had by women in Germany in 2024, according to the Federal Statistical Office. The average birth rate for women with German nationality was just 1.23, a figure that rose to 1.89 for non-German nationals. In total, 677,117 children were born in Germany in 2024, a decrease of 15,872 from the year before.

Far-right AfD calls to boost birth rate

Brandner was 28 years old when she was sterilized. Her gynecologist demanded a psychiatric assessment of her mental capacity before carrying out the operation.

Brandner was surprised by the controversy caused by her book. She said she is noticing an increasing rightward shift in these tumultuous times, along with a return to more "traditional" values, where women stand at the stove and are supposed to look after the children.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has also latched onto the topic of the sinking fertility rate and is calling for more children instead of immigration as a way to combat the lack of skilled workers.

Brandner feels that even in 2025, the topic of children is still very widely seen as something that concerns just women. "The many single mothers are being left to cope on their own, while fathers are often let off the hook. For women, having children puts them at huge risk of poverty. It can't be that even today a woman has to give up her prosperity to ensure the prosperity of society," she said.

Fertility rates sinking worldwide

But Germany isn't the only country experiencing a sinking fertility rate, by far. Numbers are going down drastically across the world, reaching as low as 0.75 in South Korea. Vietnam rang alarm bells earlier this year, when its birth rate hit a record low. The only exception is the Sahel zone, where women are still having more than five children on average.

Michaela Kreyenfeld is a sociologist and was one of the experts behind the German government's family report. She sees a growing connection between economic crises and uncertainties and the birth rate. "Is it egoism or simply autonomous behavior that women don't want to have any children? We have been talking about that since the 1970s at least, so it's nothing new," she told DW.

What is new, she said, are the multiple crises: "The COVID pandemic, rampant climate change and high inflation. For the young generation in particular, that is a new situation," said Kreyenfeld.

A countermovement in the US is trying to buck the trend, with the richest man in the world as its most prominent representative: Pronatalists and Elon Musk want to bring as many children into the world as possible.

However, Kreyenfeld pointed to Romania as an example from eastern European history that can serve as a warning. "President Ceausescu used extreme measures, such as limiting access to contraceptives and imposing draconian penalties for abortions, to push the birth rate from 1.8 to four within a year. The result was the 'lost generation' in Romania: the generation in which parents didn't look after their children because they didn't want them."

How can Germany bridge the 'fertility gap'?

So, what can be done to raise the birth rate again without state pressure? Martin Bujard, the deputy director of the Federal Institute for Population Research, has the answer.

Bujard, an expert on the birth rate in Germany who knows the statistics of the last two decades down to the last decimal place, said the debate about women like Brander, who have deliberately chosen to remain childless, is missing the real point.

"If someone doesn't want to have any children, it's their decision. This shouldn't be stigmatized, and, indeed, it is becoming increasingly acceptable to lead a childless life," he said.

What is really at issue here is something else, he said. "We have asked how many children people want, and this showed that in 2024 both women and men wanted about 1.8 children on average — in other words, well over the birth rate of 1.35. If this existing desire for children was fulfilled, we would have fewer demographic problems and much more prosperity in the long run."

"Fertility gap" is the term used for the difference between the desired number of children and the birth rate, such as when many women perhaps have just one child instead of the two they would like to have. This can be because they don't find a stable partnership until later in life, because children are increasingly being seen in social debates as a problem and not an asset and/or because the state could do more than it is doing to make it easier to have a family.

Germany needs to improve work-life balance

Bujard praises the family-friendly policies implemented by the German state in the past, such as increasing the number of child care centers and all-day schools and introducing the parental allowance in the early 2000s.

He said this had been a paradigm shift that was widely noticed internationally, with Germany having had one of the lowest birth rates in the world. However, he takes a critical view of the current situation. 

"Since 2013, we have had a legal right to child care, but this is no longer very reliable, as such care is often canceled. There is a shortage of child care workers, and the system receives too little money in the end. If there was enough money there, one could talk about higher pay for child care staff," he said.

Germany needs to make a bigger effort again with its family policies, as the current trend is worrying: 22% of women and 36% of men between 30 and 50 years of age do not have children, according to the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. Figures from the Federal Statistical Office show that men in Germany had just 1.24 children on average in 2024.

Above all, young female academics are increasingly remaining childless. For this reason, Bujard said, the only way is to improve the compatibility of work and family.

"The worst-case scenario is that there will be even more serious problems with social insurance in the long term with a continually sinking birth rate in 2030. That would cause serious harm to prosperity: Contributions for social insurance would have to go up, pensions would be lower, and there would also have to be more cuts in the health system and the care sector," he said.

This article was originally written in German.

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