Total fertility rate
The total fertility rate (TFR) of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if: 1. * she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime 2. * she were to live from birth until the end of her reproductive life. It is obtained by summing the single-year age-specific rates at a given time. As of 2021, the total fertility rate varied from 0.81 in South Korea to 6.91 in Niger. Fertility tends to be correlated with the level of economic development. Historically, developed countries usually have a significantly lower fertility rate, generally correlated with greater wealth, education, urbanization, and other factors. Conversely, in undeveloped countries, fertility rates tend to be higher. Families desire children for their labor and as caregivers for their parents in old age. Fertility rates are also higher due to the lack of access to contraceptives, stricter adherence to traditional religious beliefs, generally lower levels of female education, and lower rates of female employment. The total fertility rate for the world today (2019) is 2.4. Global TFR has been declining rapidly since the 1960s, and some forecasters like Sanjeev Sanyal argue that the effective global fertility rate will fall below , estimated to be 2.3, in the 2020s. This would stabilize world population sometime during the period 2050–2070. This differs from projections by the United Nations which estimates that some growth in world population will continue even up to 2100. Taken together, these projections imply that the population of this planet will reach zero growth sometime in the second half of this century. (Wikipedia).
