A quick look at birth rates for G7 countries plus India and China for the last 5 years – all about sources and methods!

Using data from here and here, who in turn have their own sources and methods, we can construct this table:

List of countries by birth rate - Wikipedia It is expressed as number of births per 1,000 population.

Fertility Rate - Our World in Data  The metric demographers use to measure offspring per parent is the Total Fertility Rate. The TFR is defined as the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if the woman were to experience the current age-specific fertility rates throughout her lifetime.

I have multiplied the number of births by ten to make a comparison with the TFR easier.

So you might expect there to be an approximate doubling of OirWorldInData (OWinD) figures in the four left hand columns of the table below, relative to the two right hand columns (assumes most children are born to two married/co-habiting parents – with a further adjustment not made for divorces/tragedies/preferences).

The Fertility Rate - Our World in Data page – four left hand columns – has a number of sources. How these are combined will be down to the preferences of the compilers of the data on the web page – Oxford University. The two right hand columns use different methods. Presumably the CIA World Fact Nook estimates are based on intelligence not intentions!

It looks as if the comparisons are wholly different for most countries, but not for India. Odd!

This year and next year estimates

Eyeballing the two right hand columns for 2022 and 2023, whilst making the dangerous assumption that the sources and methods are comparable, what stands out is a 21% increase in the Chinese birth rate and the 11% increase in the US birth rate -and  - a 10% decline in the birth rate for Germany and a whopping 17.5% decline in the Indian birth rate.

Psst year numbers.

The two most populous countries in the world with 1.4 billion each (a combined 35% of the world’s 8 billion people – have the lowest and highest birth rate of the 9 countries in the list.

China’s total fertility rate over the last four years has fallen to around 11.6, whilst India’s remains a little over 20.

For a little context, OWinD states “50 years ago the average woman had five children, since then the number has halved”.

It shows this chart:

Ans makes this comment:

“From 1950 onwards we have very good data from the UN Population Division. The chart here shows the average across the world: the global Total Fertility Rate. Up to 1965 the average woman in the world had more than 5 children. Since then we have seen an unprecedented change. The number has halved. Globally, the average per woman is now below 2.5 children.”

No doubt a microscope will be applied to the rates and definitions of abortions, stillbirths and so on with [possible links to  C19 mRNA injections – especially in countries ln Scandinavia.

Onwards!

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