Just a few decades ago, women in the Middle East had an average of seven children each. Now they're barely having enough babies to maintain current population levels. Why and what impact could that have in the future? There's what experts have called a "quiet revolution" underway in the Middle East, one that doesn't involve protests on the street or the toppling of governments. This revolution, happening in the privacy of locals' own homes, is concerned with fertility rates in the region. Because in almost all countries in the Middle East, the number of babies a woman has during her childbearing years has fallen dramatically over the past two to three decades. The total fertility rate, or TFR — the rate refers to how many babies a female has between the ages of 15 and 49 — has more than halved in the Middle East since the 1960s. Women in the region used to have around seven children each but by the early 2010s, they were only having three. Falling fertility rates are a global phenomenon. But by 2016, researchers reported that the Middle East was seeing "the greatest fertility decline in the world over the past 30 years." Over the past decade, those numbers have kept falling. As a study published in the Middle East Fertility Society journal in October last year showed, countries in the region saw a decline in TFR of anywhere between 3.8% and 24.3% between 2011 and 2021, with the biggest drops in Jordan, Iraq and Yemen. A woman handles a baby at a camp for the displaced damaged by torrential rains in the Jarrahi district of Yemen's war-ravaged western province of Hodeida on August 19, 2022. A woman handles a baby at a camp for the displaced damaged by torrential rains in the Jarrahi district of Yemen's war-ravaged western province of Hodeida on August 19, 2022. Between 1975 and 1980, Yemeni women had an average of nine children each, now they only have around five — that's still the highest TFR in the regionImage: Khaled Ziad/AFP/Getty Images According to World Bank statistics, in 2023, five of the 22 member states of the Arab League were operating with a TFR below 2.1, the number of babies per woman required to maintain population levels, and another four were coming close. For example, the United Arab Emirates has a TFR of just 1.2, well below population replacement levels. That's even lower than some European states: In 2024, Germany's national TFR is estimated at 1.38 children per woman of childbearing age.