SARAJEVO, July 17 (FENA) – Young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina value marriage, family and parenthood, but face structural barriers and feel that institutions and employers offer them very little support – new national data reveals, drawn from a survey conducted by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

The survey, part of the global Demographic Futures Survey, was conducted in 2025 among 758 respondents in Bosnia and Herzegovina aged 18–39 (471 women and 287 men), as part of a regional sample of more than 13,500 respondents.

The findings show that young people in BiH are not turning their backs on family life – marriage and parenthood remain central life values – but, unlike most countries in the region, Bosnia and Herzegovina stands out as the country with the lowest confidence in the future and the weakest perceived institutional support for young people.

Lowest perceived support and opportunities in the region: While young people in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are, on average, strikingly more optimistic than their peers in Western Europe and East Asia, Bosnia and Herzegovina departs from this regional pattern.

BiH records the lowest level of agreement that the government supports young people (8 per cent), the lowest level of agreement that employers support work–life balance (10 per cent), and the lowest perceived opportunity for young people anywhere in the region (31 per cent).

Only 26 per cent of young women in BiH believe young people have many opportunities in life, and just 23 per cent describe themselves as “very positive” about their own future – both among the lowest figures recorded in the survey.

Marriage and family remain a core life value: Despite this lack of confidence in institutions, young people in BiH continue to strongly aspire to marriage and family life.

Some 76 per cent of women and 82 per cent of men in BiH aspire to marry – close to the regional average of 79 per cent. BiH also records the highest share in the region (48 per cent) of respondents who consider gaining respect in the community a “very important” reason for marriage or a stable relationship.

Parenthood driven by personal, not social, motivations: Young people in BiH stand out for placing the least importance in the region on social expectations and community pressure as a reason for parenthood (just 8 per cent rate it as “very important,” as low as in Serbia). The findings suggest that personal, intrinsic motivations such as love, joy and happiness are the dominant drivers of the desire for children, rather than social pressure or tradition.

This is consistent with the regional finding that 87 per cent of young people cite joy and happiness as an “important” or “very important” reason for parenthood.

Gap between desired and actual number of children: With around 1.2 children per woman of reproductive age, Bosnia and Herzegovina belongs to the group of ‘lowest-low’ fertility countries globally.

The survey found that more than one in five women (22 per cent) aged 35 to 39 across the region are childless – and 95 per cent of them did not intend this.

Childlessness at these ages is largely involuntary. The mean ideal number of children in the region was found to be 2.6 for women and 2.9 for men, meaning the gap between desired and actual number of children stands at 1.25 children among women and close to 2 among men.

Money, jobs and partners – not housing – are the biggest barriers in BiH: Unlike the region as a whole, where housing is one of the leading barriers to both marriage and parenthood, in BiH it plays a smaller role.

Only 18 per cent of young people in BiH cite lack of suitable housing as a very important barrier to marriage (the lowest in the region, alongside Serbia, against a regional average of 27 per cent), and 24 per cent cite it as a barrier to parenthood (against an average of 34 per cent).

Instead, the biggest barriers to marriage in BiH are financial insecurity (32 per cent) and difficulty finding a partner who shares the same values (22 per cent), while the biggest barriers to parenthood are financial reasons (36 per cent), difficulty finding a suitable partner (35 per cent) and health issues (33 per cent).

UNFPA’s regional report concludes that policies trying to influence young people’s decisions about having children through incentives or pressure do not work, because they arrive at the end of this sequence of life steps, at a point where the earlier steps have not been fulfilled.

What is needed instead are policies that remove the barriers that precede the decision to marry and have children – in employment, housing, health and gender roles within the family – so that young people can achieve their life and family goals