was born. But it always comes back to one question: 'Can we afford it?' She lives in Mumbai and works in pharmaceuticals, her husband works at a tyre company. But the costs of having one child are already overwhelming - school fees, the school bus, swimming lessons, even going to the GP is expensive. It was different when Namrata was growing up. "We just used to go to school, nothing extracurricular, but now you have to send your kid to swimming, you have to send them to drawing, you have to see what else they can do."

According to a new report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN agency for reproductive rights, Namrata's situation is becoming a global norm. The agency has taken its strongest line yet on fertility decline, warning that hundreds of millions of people are not able to have the number of children they want, citing the prohibitive cost of parenthood and the lack of a suitable partner as some of the reasons. UNFPA surveyed 14,000 people in 14 countries about their fertility intentions. One in five said they haven't had or expect they won't have their desired number of children.

The countries surveyed - South Korea, Thailand, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, US, India, Indonesia, Morocco, South Africa, and Nigeria - account for a third of the global population. They are a mix of low, middle and high-income countries and those with low and high fertility. UNFPA surveyed young adults and those past their reproductive years. "The world has begun an unprecedented decline in fertility rates," says Dr Natalia Kanem, head of UNFPA. "Most people surveyed want two or more children. Fertility rates are falling in large part because many feel unable to create the families they want. And that is the real crisis," she says. (BBC/ Getty Images)