Revealed: Countries with the Highest Fertility Rates (by Births Per Woman), 2024

Every country’s population is growing or shrinking at a different rate, even as the world’s daily birth rate continues to exceed the daily death rate. It’s important to understand how quickly a country’s population is growing or shrinking, ranked from most developed to least developed. The fertility rate is one of the key indicators used to quantify this growth.

The fertility rate is simply defined as the average number of children born to women in a given nation who are of reproductive age. The birth rate, which is the number of live births per 1,000 people in a country each year, is closely associated with the fertility rate. The replacement rate of a nation, which determines whether the number of new citizens born each year is greater or less than the number of citizens who pass away each year, is often calculated using the fertility and birth rates. Changes in a country’s population can have a significant impact on its development and economic stability.

Standards for fertility rates: It’s common to make two assumptions to simplify the computation of fertility rates. First, it’s assumed that during a woman’s reproductive years, her fertility will generally follow age-specific fertility trends, which typically peak in her early 30s. Second, it’s assumed that every woman will survive those years of childbirth, which are usually considered to be ages 15 to 44 (or in some cases, ages 15 to 49). The fertility rate isn’t an exact count of the number of children that each woman in a given nation has at any given moment. Instead, it’s the estimated mean number of children that a woman in that nation is expected to have in her lifetime. Another name for this is the “total fertility rate.”

Peaks and valleys in fertility rates: In 2023, the average number of children born per woman worldwide was 2.3118. This rate is almost half of what it was in 1950 when it was 4.7. Generally, countries with higher levels of economic development, such as South Korea, Australia, and most of Europe, have lower fertility rates than less-developed or low-income nations. The decline in the global fertility rate is due to three primary factors: an increase in education among women that leads them to pursue careers before or instead of starting a family. Fewer childhood deaths, and increased access to contraception.

A society needs an average of 2.1 children per woman to maintain its population size, which is known as the population replacement rate. If the fertility rate falls below this level, it can cause a decline in population and an increase in the number of older people. In some countries, especially those that are already overpopulated, lower fertility rates and the resulting population decline can be advantageous because they reduce the strain on social services and infrastructure. However, lower birth rates can also lead to problems such as a shrinking workforce that’s unable to replace the retired population or a shortage of workers contributing to social programs that support the unemployed and retired people, such as Social Security in the US.

Countries with the Highest Fertility Rates (by Births Per Woman), 2024

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