Only about 1 in 10 individuals (10.7%) in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, which includes Morocco, experienced challenges with fertility between 1990-2021, according to the World Health Organization’s 2022 report on infertility.
The term “fertility rate” –the average number of children per couple– is not considered the natural opposite of “infertility rate”.
Many Moroccan couples are starting to voluntarily limit the size of their families due to skyrocketing inflation, particularly in urban areas. As such, Morocco has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world–an average of 2.35 children per couple—yet the infertility rate of its population is also relatively low, coming in around 15%.
Contrast these numbers with what the W.H.O. delineated as the Pacific Region (23.2% infertility rate), and one can conclude that there are significant regional differences around the globe. Surprisingly though, infertility relative to personal income was fairly uniform, as high income and low income brackets yielded fertility rates within two percent of each other.
The United Nations World Health Organization released these infertility prevalence estimates with the intent of helping policy-makers, civil society organizations, health service providers, researchers, and other stakeholders understand the magnitude of infertility, which is critical for monitoring, assessing, and improving equitable access to quality fertility care services, as well as in addressing risk factors and consequences of infertility.
Over 130 studies met the criteria for inclusion in the systematic review, which estimated global infertility prevalence for the calendar year 2022 to be at 17.5 %, meaning that approximately 1 in 6 people have experienced infertility at some stage in their life.
The WHO summarized the report by noting that infertility has devastating societal and health consequences, including social stigma, economic hardship, and gender-based violence.