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Data

Fertility rate, total

UN WPP

What you should know about this indicator

It is expressed as live births per woman. For age-specific fertility rates, it measures the number of births to women in a particular age group, divided by the number of women in that age group. The age groups used are: 15-19, 20-24, ..., 45-49. The data refer to annual civil calendar years from 1 January to 31 December.

Fertility rate, total
UN WPP
The average number of live births a hypothetical cohort of women would have at the end of their reproductive period if they were subject during their whole lives to the fertility rates of a given period and if they were not subject to mortality.
Source
UN, World Population Prospects (2024) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
July 12, 2024
Date range
1950–2023
Unit
live births per woman

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Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

World Population Prospects 2024 is the 28th edition of the official estimates and projections of the global population that have been published by the United Nations since 1951. The estimates are based on all available sources of data on population size and levels of fertility, mortality and international migration for 237 countries or areas. More details at https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/.

Retrieved on
July 11, 2024
Retrieved from
https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024). World Population Prospects 2024, Online Edition.

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Fertility rate, total”. Our World in Data (2024). Data adapted from United Nations. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

UN, World Population Prospects (2024) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

UN, World Population Prospects (2024) – processed by Our World in Data. “Fertility rate, total – UN WPP” [dataset]. United Nations, “World Population Prospects” [original data]. Retrieved December 27, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un