Visualizing Over A Century of World Fertility

In just 50 years, world fertility rates have been cut in half.

This sea change can be attributed to multiple factors, ranging from medical advances to greater gender equity. But generally speaking, as more women gain an education and enter the workforce, they’re delaying motherhood and often having fewer children in the process.

Today’s interactive data visualization was put together by Bo McCready, the Director of Analytics at KIPP Texas. Using numbers from Our World in Data, it depicts the changes in the world’s fertility rate—the average number of children per woman—spanning from the beginning of the 20th century to present day.

A Demographic Decline

The global fertility rate fell from 5.25 children per woman in 1900, to 2.44 children per woman in 2018. The steepest drop in this shift happened in a single decade, from 1970 to 1980.

In the interactive graphic, you’ll see graphs for 200 different countries and political entities showing their total fertility rate (FTR) over time. Here’s a quick summary of the countries with the highest and lowest FTRs, as of 2017:

Top 10 Countries	Fertility rate	Bottom 10 Countries	Fertility Rate
Niger	7.13	Taiwan	1.22
Somalia	6.08	Moldova	1.23
Democratic Republic of Congo	5.92	Portugal	1.24
Mali	5.88	Singapore	1.26
Chad	5.75	Poland	1.29
Angola	5.55	Greece	1.3
Burundi	5.53	South Korea	1.33
Uganda	5.41	Hong Kong	1.34
Nigeria	5.39	Cyprus	1.34
Gambia	5.29	Macao	1.36

At a glance, the countries with the highest fertility are all located in Africa, while several Asian countries end up in the lowest fertility list.

The notable decade of decline in average global fertility can be partially traced back to the actions of the demographic giants China and India. In the 1970s, China’s controversial “one child only” policy and India’s state-led sterilization campaigns caused sharp declines in births for both countries. Though they hold over a quarter of the world’s population today, the effects of these government decisions are still being felt.

Population Plateau, or Cliff?

The overall decline in fertility rates isn’t expected to end anytime soon, and it’s even expected to fall past 2.1 children per woman, which is known as the “replacement rate”. Any fertility below this rate signals fewer new babies than parents, leading to an eventual population decline.

Experts predict that world fertility will further drop from 2.5 to 1.9 children per woman by 2100. This means that global population growth will slow down or possibly even go negative.

Africa will continue to be the only region with significant growth—consistent with the generous fertility rates of Nigeria, the DRC, and Angola. In fact, the continent is expected to house 13 of the world’s largest megacities, as its population expands from 1.3 billion to 4.3 billion by 2100.