The total fertility rate (TFR) of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if:
# she were to experience the exact current age-specific
fertility
Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertili ...
rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime
# she were to live from birth until the end of her reproductive life.
It is obtained by summing the single-year age-specific rates at a given time. As of 2021, the total fertility rate varied from 0.81 in
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
to 6.91 in
Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languagesdeveloped countries
A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
usually have a significantly lower fertility rate, generally correlated with greater wealth, education, urbanization, and other factors. Conversely, in undeveloped countries, fertility rates tend to be higher. Families desire children for their labor and as caregivers for their parents in old age. Fertility rates are also higher due to the lack of access to
contraceptives
Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
, stricter adherence to traditional religious beliefs, generally lower levels of female education, and lower rates of female employment.
The total fertility rate for the world today (2019) is 2.4. Global TFR has been declining rapidly since the 1960s, and some forecasters like
Sanjeev Sanyal
Sanjeev Sanyal is an Indian economist and popular historian. He is a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India, and has helped prepare six editions of the Economic Survey of India starting in 2017.
Sanyal has ...
argue that the effective global fertility rate will fall below replacement rate, estimated to be 2.3, in the 2020s. This would stabilize world population sometime during the period 2050–2070. This differs from projections by the United Nations which estimates that some growth in world population will continue even up to 2100. Taken together, these projections imply that the population of this planet will reach zero growth sometime in the second half of this century.
Parameter characteristics
The TFR is not based on the fertility of any real group of women since this would involve waiting until they had completed childbearing. Nor is it based on counting up the total number of children actually born over their lifetime. Instead, the TFR is based on the age-specific fertility rates of women in their "child-bearing years", which in conventional international statistical usage is ages 15–44.
The TFR is, therefore, a measure of the fertility of an ''imaginary'' woman who passes through her reproductive life subject to ''all'' the age-specific fertility rates for ages 15–49 that were recorded for a given population in a given year. The TFR represents the average number of children a woman ''would'' potentially have, were she to fast-forward through all her childbearing years in a single year, under all the age-specific fertility rates for that year. In other words, this rate is the number of children a woman would have if she was subject to prevailing fertility rates at all ages from a single given year and survives throughout all her childbearing years.
Related parameters
Net reproduction rate
An alternative fertility measure is the
net reproduction rate
In population ecology and demography, the net reproduction rate, ''R''0, is the average number of offspring (often specifically daughters) that would be born to a female if she passed through her lifetime conforming to the age-specific fertility ...
(NRR), which measures the number of ''daughters'' a woman would have in her lifetime if she were subject to prevailing age-specific fertility ''and mortality'' rates in the given year. When the NRR is exactly 1, then each generation of women is exactly reproducing itself.
The NRR is less widely used than the TFR, and the United Nations stopped reporting NRR data for member nations after 1998. But the NRR is particularly relevant where the number of male babies born is very high due to
gender imbalance
In anthropology and demography, the human sex ratio is the ratio of male, males to female, females in a population. Like most sexual species, the sex ratio in humans is close to 1:1. In humans, the natural ratio at birth between males and fema ...
and sex selection. This is a significant factor in world population, due to the high level of gender imbalance in the very populous nations of
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
gross reproduction rate
The gross reproduction rate (GRR) is the average number of daughters a woman would have if she survived all of her childbearing years, which is roughly to the age of 45, subject to the age-specific fertility rate and sex ratio at birth throughout t ...
(GRR), is the same as the NRR, except that—like the TFR—it ignores life expectancy.
Total period fertility rate
The TFR (or TPFR—total period fertility rate) is a better index of fertility than the crude birth rate (annual number of births per thousand population) because it is independent of the age structure of the population, but it is a poorer estimate of actual completed family size than the total cohort fertility rate, which is obtained by summing the age-specific fertility rates that actually applied to each cohort as they aged through time. In particular, the TFR does not necessarily predict how many children young women now will eventually have, as their fertility rates in years to come may change from those of older women now. However, the TFR is a reasonable summary of current fertility levels.
TFR and long term population growth rate, g, are closely related. For a population structure in a steady state, growth rate equals log(TFR/2)/Xm, where Xm is the mean age for childbearing women.
Tempo effect
The TPFR (total ''period'' fertility rate) is affected by a tempo effect—if age of childbearing increases (and life cycle fertility is unchanged) then while the age of childbearing is increasing, TPFR will be lower (because the births are occurring later), and then the age of childbearing stops increasing, the TPFR will increase (due to the deferred births occurring in the later period) even though the life cycle fertility has been unchanged. In other words, the TPFR is a misleading measure of life cycle fertility when childbearing age is changing, due to this statistical artifact. This is a significant factor in some countries, such as the Czech Republic and Spain in the 1990s. Some measures seek to adjust for this timing effect to gain a better measure of life-cycle fertility.
Replacement rates
Replacement fertility is the total fertility rate at which women give birth to enough babies to sustain population levels, assuming that mortality rates remain constant and net migration is zero. If replacement level fertility is sustained over a sufficiently long period, each generation will exactly replace itself. The replacement fertility rate is 2.1 births per woman for most developed countries (2.1 in the UK, for example), but can be as high as 3.5 in undeveloped countries because of higher mortality rates, especially
child mortality
Child mortality is the mortality of children under the age of five. The child mortality rate, also under-five mortality rate, refers to the probability of dying between birth and exactly five years of age expressed per 1,000 live births.
It en ...
. The global average for the replacement total fertility rate (eventually leading to a stable global population) for the contemporary period (2010-2015) is 2.3 children per woman.
Lowest-low fertility
The term "lowest-low fertility" is defined as TFR at or below 1.3. This is characteristic of some Eastern European, Southern European, and East Asian countries. For example, in 2001, more than half of the population of Europe lived in countries with the lowest-low TFR, although TFRs there have increased slightly since then.
The lowest TFR recorded anywhere in the world in recorded history is for Xiangyang district of Jiamusi city ( Heilongjiang, China) which had a TFR of 0.41. Outside China, the lowest TFR ever recorded was 0.80 for Eastern Germany in 1994. The low Eastern German value was influenced by a change to higher age at birth, with the consequence that neither older cohorts (e.g. women born until the late 1960s), who often already had children, nor younger cohorts, who were postponing childbirth, had many children during that time. The total cohort fertility rate of each age
cohort
Cohort or cohortes may refer to:
* Cohort (educational group), a group of students working together through the same academic curriculum
* Cohort (floating point), a set of different encodings of the same numerical value
* Cohort (military unit), ...
of women in East German did not drop as significantly.
Population-lag effect
A population that maintained a TFR of 3.8 over an extended period without a correspondingly high death or emigration rate would increase rapidly (doubling period ~ 32 years), whereas a population that maintained a TFR of 2.0 over a long time would decrease, unless it had a large enough immigration. However, it may take several generations for a change in the total fertility rate to be reflected in birth rate, because the age distribution must reach equilibrium. For example, a population that has recently dropped below replacement-level fertility will continue to grow, because the recent high fertility produced large numbers of young couples who would now be in their childbearing years.
This phenomenon carries forward for several generations and is called
population momentum Population momentum is a consequence of the demographic transition. Population momentum explains why a population will continue to grow even if the fertility rate declines. Population momentum occurs because it is not only the number of children per ...
, ''population inertia,'' or ''population-lag effect''. This time-lag effect is of great importance to the growth rates of human populations.
TFR (net) and long-term population growth rate, g, are closely related. For a population structure in a steady state and with zero migration, g equals log(TFR/2)/Xm, where Xm is mean age for childbearing women and thus P(t) = P(0)exp(gt). At the left side is shown the empirical relation between the two variables in a cross-section of countries with the most recent y-y growth rate. The parameter 1/b should be an estimate of the Xm; here equal to 1/0.02 = 50 years, way off the mark because of population momentum. E.g. for log(TFR/2) = 0, g should be exactly zero, which is seen not to be the case.
Factors affecting total fertility rate
Fertility factors are determinants of the number of children that an individual is likely to have. Fertility factors are mostly positive or negative correlations without certain causations.
Factors generally associated with increased fertility include the intention to have children, very high level of gender equality, religiosity, inter-generational transmission of values, marriage and cohabitation, maternal and social support, rural residence, pro family government programs, low IQ and increased food production.
Factors generally associated with decreased fertility include rising income, value and attitude changes, education, female labor participation, population control, age, contraception, partner reluctance to having children, a low level of gender equality, and infertility.The effect of all these factors can be summarized with a plot of Total Fertility Rate against Human Development Index (HDI) for a sample of countries. The chart shows that the two factors are
inversely correlated
In mathematics, two sequences of numbers, often experimental data, are proportional or directly proportional if their corresponding elements have a constant ratio, which is called the coefficient of proportionality or proportionality constant ...
, that is, in general, the lower a country’s HDI the higher its fertility.
Another common way of summarizing the relationship between economic development and fertility is a plot of TFR against Per Capita GDP, a proxy for standard of living. This chart shows that Per Capita GDP is also inversely correlated with fertility.
The impact of human development on TFR can best be summarized by a quote from Karan Singh, a former minister of population in India. At a 1974 United Nations population conference in Bucharest, he said "Development is the best
contraceptive
Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
."
Wealthy countries, those with high per capita GDP, usually have a lower fertility rate than poor countries, those with low per capita GDP. This may seem counter-intuitive. The inverse relationship between income and fertility has been termed a '' demographic-economic paradox'' because evolutionary biology suggests that greater means should enable the production of more offspring, not fewer.
Many of these factors, however, are not universal, and differ by region and social class. For instance, at a global level, religion is correlated with increased fertility, but in the West less so: Scandinavian countries and France are among the least religious in the EU, but have the highest TFR, while the opposite is true about Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Poland and Spain.
National efforts to increase or decrease fertility
Governments have often set population targets, to either increase or decrease the total fertility rate; or to have certain ethnic or socioeconomic groups have a lower or higher fertility rate. Often such policies have been interventionist, and abusive. The most notorious natalist policies of the 20th century include those in
communist Romania
The Socialist Republic of Romania ( ro, Republica Socialistă România, RSR) was a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist One-party state, one-party socialist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989. From 1947 to 1965, the s ...
Enver Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanian communist politician who was the authoritarian ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 unt ...
respectively. The policy of Romania (1967–1990) was very aggressive, including outlawing abortion and contraception, routine pregnancy tests for women, taxes on childlessness, and legal discrimination against childless people; and resulted in large numbers of children put into Romanian orphanages by parents who couldn't cope with raising them,
street children
Street children are poor or homeless children who live on the streets of a city, town, or village. Homeless youth are often called street kids or street child; the definition of street children is contested, but many practitioners and policym ...
in the 1990s (when many orphanages were closed and the children ended up on the streets),
overcrowding
Overcrowding or crowding is the condition where more people are located within a given space than is considered tolerable from a safety and health perspective. Safety and health perspectives depend on current environments and on local cultural n ...
in homes and schools, and over 9,000 women who died due to illegal abortions.Kligman, Gail. "Political Demography: The Banning of Abortion in Ceausescu's Romania". In Ginsburg, Faye D.; Rapp, Rayna, eds. ''Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction.'' Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995 :234–255. Unique Identifier : AIDSLINE KIE/49442. Conversely, in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
the government sought to lower the fertility rate, and, as such, enacted the one-child policy (1978–2015), which included abuses such as
forced abortions
A forced abortion may occur when the perpetrator causes abortion by force, threat or coercion, or by taking advantage of a situation where a pregnant individual is unable to give consent, or when valid consent is in question due to duress. This m ...
.
Some governments have sought to regulate which groups of society could reproduce through eugenic policies of
forced sterilizations
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...
of 'undesirable' population groups. Such policies were carried out against ethnic minorities in Europe and North America in the first half of the 20th century, and more recently in Latin America against the Indigenous population in the 1990s; in Peru, President Alberto Fujimori (in office from 1990 to 2000) has been accused of genocide and
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
as a result of a sterilization program put in place by his administration targeting indigenous people (mainly the
Quechuas
Quechua people (, ; ) or Quichua people, may refer to any of the aboriginal people of South America who speak the Quechua languages, which originated among the Indigenous people of Peru. Although most Quechua speakers are native to Peru, there ...
and the Aymaras). Within these historical contexts, the notion of reproductive rights has developed. Such rights are based on the concept that each person freely decides if, when, and how many children to have - not the state or church. According to the OHCHR reproductive rights "rest on the recognition of the basic rights of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. It also includes the right to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence, as expressed in human rights documents".
History of total fertility rate and projections for the future
From around 10,000 BC to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution fertility rates around the world were high by today's standards, but the onset of the Industrial Revolution, around 1800, brought about what has come to be called the Demographic Transition, and TFR began a long-term decline in almost every region of the world, a decline that continues to this day.
Before 1800
Because all nations before the Industrial Revolution were caught in what is now labeled the " Malthusian Trap", improvements in standards of living could only be achieved by reductions in population growth through either increases in mortality rates (via wars, plagues, famines, etc) or reductions in birth rates. However, at the same time, other realities such as
child mortality
Child mortality is the mortality of children under the age of five. The child mortality rate, also under-five mortality rate, refers to the probability of dying between birth and exactly five years of age expressed per 1,000 live births.
It en ...
, that could reach 50%, and the need to produce workers, male heirs, and old-age care givers required fertility rates to be high by today’s standards.
For example, fertility rates in Europe in the years before 1800 ranged from 4.5 (Scandinavia) to 6.2 (Belgium). The Total Fertility Rate in America in 1800 was 7.0. Fertility rates in Asia during this period were similar to those in Europe. In spite of these high fertility rates, global population growth was still very slow, about 0.04% per year, mostly due to high mortality rates and the equally slow growth in the production of food.
1800 to 1950
After 1800 the Industrial Revolution got underway in some countries, particularly Great Britain, other countries in Europe, and the United States, and they underwent the beginnings of what is now called the Demographic Transition. Stage two of this process fueled a steady reduction in mortality rates due to, for example, improvements in
public sanitation
Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation systems a ...
, personal hygiene and the food supply (that, for example, reduced the number of famines).
These reductions in mortality rates, particularly reductions in child mortality that increased the fraction of children surviving, plus other major societal changes such as urbanization, then led to stage three of the Demographic Transition and a reduction in fertility rates because there was simply no longer a need to birth so many children.
The example from the US of the correlation between child mortality and the fertility rate is illustrative. In 1800 child mortality in the US was 33%. That is, one third of all children born would die before their fifth birthday. The Total Fertility Rate in 1800 was 7.0, meaning that the average woman would bear seven children during her lifetime. One hundred years later, in 1900, child mortality in the US had declined to 23%, a reduction of almost one third, and TFR had declined to 3.9, a reduction of 44%. By 1950, just fifty years later, child mortality had declined dramatically to 4%, a reduction of 84%, and TFR had declined to 3.2. By 2018 child mortality had declined further to 0.6% and TFR had declined further to 1.9, below replacement level.
1950 to the present and projections
The table shows that after 1965 the Demographic Transition had spread around the world and global TFR began a long decline that continues to this day.
Global TFR today (2019) is 2.4. Because global fertility replacement rate for the contemporary period (2010–2015) has been estimated to be 2.3, humanity is therefore approaching a major milestone.
The chart shows that the decline in TFR since the 1960s has occurred in every region of the world and that the global TFR is projected to continue to decline for the remainder of this century.
Total fertility rate by region
The United Nations Population Division divides the world into six geographic regions. The table below shows the estimated TFR for each.
Africa
This region has a TFR of 4.4, the highest in the world.
Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languagesAngola,
Congo
Congo or The Congo may refer to either of two countries that border the Congo River in central Africa:
* Democratic Republic of the Congo, the larger country to the southeast, capital Kinshasa, formerly known as Zaire, sometimes referred to a ...
Chad
Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic ...
are the highest. The most populous country in Africa, Nigeria, had an estimated TFR of 4.7 in 2021. The second most populous country, Ethiopia, had an estimated TFR of 4.1 in 2021.
The poverty of the region, and the high maternal mortality and
infant mortality
Infant mortality is the death of young children under the age of 1. This death toll is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the probability of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. The under-five morta ...
had led to calls from WHO of
family planning
Family planning is the consideration of the number of children a person wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, and the age at which they wish to have them. Things that may play a role on family planning decisions include marita ...
and encouragement of smaller families.
South Asia
India
The Indian fertility rate has declined significantly over the early 21st century. The Indian TFR declined from 5.2 in 1971 to 2.2 in 2018. According to recent surveys, TFR in India has further declined to 2.0 in 2019-2020, marking the first time it has gone below replacement level.
Bangladesh
The fertility rate fell from 6.9 during the years 1970–1975 to 2.0 in 2020, an interval of about 47 years, or a little more than one generation.
East Asia
Singapore, Macau, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea have lowest-low fertility, defined as TFR at or below 1.3, and are among the lowest in the world. Macau had a TFR below 1.0 in 2004. North Korea has the highest TFR in East Asia at 1.95.
China
The TFR of China was 1.15 in 2021. China implemented the one-child policy in 1979 as a drastic
population planning
Human population planning is the practice of intentionally controlling the growth rate of a human population. The practice, traditionally referred to as population control, had historically been implemented mainly with the goal of increasing po ...
measure to control the ever-growing population at the time. In 2015, the policy was replaced with two-child policy as China's population is aging faster than almost any other country in modern history.
Japan
Japan had a TFR of 1.4 in 2021. Japan's population is rapidly aging due to both a long life expectancy and a low birth rate. The total population is shrinking, losing 430,000 in 2018 to a total of 126.4 million. Hong Kong and Singapore mitigate this through
immigrant workers
Foreign workers or guest workers are people who work in a country other than one of which they are a citizen. Some foreign workers use a guest worker program in a country with more preferred job prospects than in their home country. Guest worker ...
, but in Japan, a serious demographic imbalance has developed, partly due to limited
immigration to Japan
According to the Japanese Ministry of Justice, the number of foreign residents in Japan has steadily increased in the post Second World War period, and the number of foreign residents (excluding illegal immigrants and short-term foreign visitor ...
.
South Korea
In South Korea, a low birthrate is one of its most urgent socio-economic challenges. Rising housing expenses, shrinking job opportunities for younger generations, insufficient support to families with newborns either from the government or employers are among the major explanations for its crawling TFR, which fell to 0.92 in 2019. Koreans are yet to find viable solutions to make the birthrate rebound, even after trying out dozens of programs over a decade, including subsidizing rearing expenses, giving priorities for public rental housing to couples with multiple children, funding day care centers, reserving seats in public transportation for pregnant women, and so on.
In the past 20 years, South Korea has recorded some of the lowest fertility and marriage levels in the world. As of 2021, South Korea is the country with the world’s lowest total fertility rate at 0.81. The TFR of the capital Seoul was 0.63 in 2021.
West Asia
In 2019, the TFR of Turkey reached 1.88.
In the Iranian calendar year (March 2019 – March 2020), Iran's total fertility rate fell to 1.8.
Europe
The average total fertility rate in the European Union (EU-27) is calculated at 1.55 children per woman in 2018. France had the highest TFR in 2018 among EU countries at 1.88, followed by Romania and Sweden (1.76), Ireland (1.75) and Denmark (1.73). Malta had the lowest TFR in 2018 among EU countries at 1.23. Other southern European countries also had very low TFR (Portugal 1.38, Cyprus, 1.32, Greece 1.35, Spain 1.26, and Italy 1.29). The United Kingdom had a TFR of 1.53 in 2021. According to 2021 estimates for the non-EU European post-Soviet states group, Russia had a TFR of 1.61, Moldova 1.57, Ukraine 1.55, and Belarus 1.49. Bosnia and Herzegovina had the lowest estimated TFR in Europe in 2018, at 1.31.
Emigration of young adults from Eastern Europe to the West aggravates the demographic problems of those countries. People from countries such as Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria are particularly moving abroad.
Latin America and Caribbean
The TFR of Brazil, the most populous country in the region, was estimated at 1.73 in 2021. The second most populous country, Mexico, had an estimated TFR of 2.17. The next most populous four countries in the region had estimated TFRs of between 1.9 and 2.3 in 2018, including Colombia (2.14), Argentina (2.2), Peru (2.0), and Venezuela (2.2). Guatemala had the highest estimated TFR in the region at 2.7 in 2018; and Puerto Rico the lowest at 1.21.
North America
United States
The total fertility rate in the United States after World War II peaked at about 3.8 children per woman in the late 1950s, dropped to below replacement in the early 70s, and by 1999 was at 2 children. Currently, the fertility is below replacement among those native born, and above replacement among
immigrant
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
families, most of whom come to the United States from countries with higher fertility. However, the fertility rate of immigrants to the United States has been found to decrease sharply in the second generation, correlating with improved education and income. In 2021, U.S. TFR was 1.84, ranging between over 2 in some states and under 1.6 in others.
Fertility and intelligence
The relationship between fertility and intelligence has been investigated in many demographic studies. There is evidence that, on a population level, measures of intelligence such as educational attainment and literacy are negatively correlated w ...
List of countries by past fertility rate
This is a list of countries showing past fertility rate, ranging from 1950 to 2015 in five-year periods, as estimated by the 2017 revision of the World Population Prospects database by the United Nations Population Division. The fertility rate
...
Zero population growth
Zero population growth, sometimes abbreviated ZPG, is a condition of demographic balance where the number of people in a specified population neither grows nor declines; that is, the number of births plus in-migrants equals the number of deaths ...