Sovereign and dependent territory rows of the World Bank “Fertility rate, total (births per woman)” indicator (top 30 by most recent year). Aggregates (region.id === “NA”) excluded.
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How to use this chart
Play/Pause starts and stops the year-by-year animation, the year slider jumps to any year, and the speed selector (0.5×, 1×, 2×) changes playback speed. Each year shows the top 12 entries out of the 30 held in the dataset.
About this ranking
About this metric. “Fertility Rate by Country (Time Series)” reformats data published by the World Bank (World Bank indicator code SP.DYN.TFRT.IN). Values are expressed in births per woman.
What to watch. The drama is at the bottom: South Korea falls from around 6 in the early 1960s to 0.72 in 2023, the world’s lowest, while Niger still sits near 6. Two generations were enough to split the world into opposite demographic futures.
Caveats. The total fertility rate is a synthetic snapshot of one year’s age-specific rates, so it understates lifetime births while childbearing is being postponed. Small countries swing a lot year to year — read the long slope rather than single values.
Trends in the data
The 30-country average started at 6.63 in 1960, peaked at 6.97 in 1979, and has fallen since to 4.61 in 2024. In other words the 1960s were still a rising phase. The ordering of the demographic transition — infant mortality improving first, fertility following later — shows up in that delayed turn. The 2.36-point fall over 45 years still leaves the group at more than twice the replacement level of 2.1.
How far individual countries fell varies enormously. The largest decline is Yemen’s −3.49 (7.99 → 4.50), followed by Côte d’Ivoire −3.46 (7.69 → 4.23), Madagascar −3.43 (7.34 → 3.91) and Comoros −2.97 — each roughly halving in half a century. At the other extreme, the Central African Republic moved from 5.95 to 5.95, not at all, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo fell 0.13 and Chad 0.22. Among countries all labelled “high fertility”, some travelled a long way in 64 years and some did not move.
The result is a wholesale reshuffle. Chad, 21st in 1960, leads in 2024; the DRC went from 25th to 3rd and the Central African Republic from 28th to 4th. Meanwhile Yemen, first in 1960, is 13th; Côte d’Ivoire second then, 18th now; Madagascar 4th to 28th; Comoros 12th to 30th. Countries whose decline was shallowest move up — the characteristic rank behaviour of an indicator where everyone is heading the same way.
What is striking is how little the spread has changed. The gap between top and bottom was 2.34 in 1960 and 2.21 in 2024 — 0.13 narrower after 64 years. The level fell by more than two points across the board, yet the dispersion within these 30 countries has not converged. Note finally that the total fertility rate is a cross-section built from that year’s age-specific birth rates, and differs from the number of children a woman actually bears over her life; where childbearing is being postponed it reads lower than reality. Because the top 30 is cut by latest value, only countries at or above 3.82 in 2024 appear here — very-low-fertility countries such as South Korea, Japan and China are not in this table.
Trivia quiz
What does the "total fertility rate" measure?
The number of children a woman would be expected to have over her lifetime, computed by summing a year's age-specific birth rates. (Source)
Roughly what fertility level (the replacement level) keeps a population stable long term?
About 2.1 (2.07 in low-mortality countries). Below it, a population shrinks over time absent migration. (Source)
What is the shift from high birth/death rates to low birth/death rates, accompanying development, called?
The demographic transition, the process through which fertility falls as countries develop. (Source)
Source
World Bank — Fertility rate, total (births per woman) (SP.DYN.TFRT.IN)