Birth Gauge
@BirthGauge
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Tracking the global fertility decline
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Pinned Tweet
New birth update. I guess we can forget any recovery this year for now.
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Argentina has now released the age structure of its Census. All of my followers already know about the massive fertility decline after 2015, but the age pyramid shows it in another way. The country still has some time, as the biggest cohorts are between 7 and 45 years old.
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Some fun with the newly released data of the American Community Survey 2021. Fertility rate by language spoken at home:
Yiddish 6.6 kids per woman
Pennsylvania German 6.2
Somali 5.2
Spanish 2.1
English 1.7
Japanese 1.4
Chinese 1.3
Persian 1.2
Korean 1.2
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Net-migration year ending June 2023 (rate per 1000 in brackets):
USA +1,138,989 (+3.4)
Canada +1,131,181 (+28.6)
UK +672,000 (+10.0)
Australia +518,087 (+19.7)
NZ +101,518 (+19.6)
Canada now has the same absolute level of immigration as the US.
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New birth table. Many countries are experiencing another big drop of their fertility rates after the big drop of 2022.
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South Korea never fails to disappoint and starts 2024 with 7.7% fewer births in January than in 2023 (21,442 births in Jan 2024 and 23,230 in Jan 2023).
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New birth table. The fertility decline in most countries just keeps on going.
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Table of fertility rates in the world's largest metropolitan areas. Only 6 of the world's 39 mega-urban regions (with a population greater than 10M) are above replacement level.
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New age pyramid of South Korea was released. This is how a TFR of barely above 0.7 kids per woman looks like: The cohort of the 30 year olds is roughly three times the size of the newborn cohort (even larger, as there is also a big male surplus among the 30 year olds).
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The US registered 3,591,328 births in 2023, 2.1% fewer than in 2022. The TFR declined to 1.62 kids per woman from 1.66 in 2022. By race (2022 in brackets):
Non hisp. White 1.53 (1.57)
Non hisp. Black 1.57 (1.64)
Hispanic 1.95 (1.97)
Asian 1.31 (1.35)
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As I mentioned below, the TFR of Turkey declined to around 1.51 kids per woman in 2023. The age pyramid shows the steep decline in the number of births that started almost 10 years ago.
In Turkey at the end of 2023, there were 934,215 0-year-olds registered in the population register, 7.5% fewer than last year. The number of births is usually 3% higher, so around 962,000. That means that Uzbekistan had slightly more births than Turkey last year.
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China finally released the crude birth rates for the provinces for 2021, allowing me to calculate TFRs for provinces. The TFR reached from 0.69 in Shanghai and 0.73 in Heilongjiang to 1.95 in Tibet.
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Major ethnicities with the lowest fertility rates in the world, around 2020, rounded to 0.05s:
Greeks 1.30
Portuguese 1.30
Han Chinese 1.25
Thais 1.25
Koreans 1.20
Italians 1.15
Spaniards 1.15
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With a TFR of barely over 1.0 kids per woman, Thailand is at serious risk of growing old before growing rich. The age structure matches that of South Korea 10 years earlier.
The population pyramid also shows the steep decline of the number of births since 2015.
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The low fertility trap in action. The more children are excluded from everyday life and become something exotic, the harder it will get to increase the fertility rate.
What a photo. In S.Korea, a growing number of venues like cafes, casual bistros, or even public libraries ban children under the "no kids" banner, supposedly not to inconvenience other patrons. One MP criticized the "exclusionary" practice in a presser, with her toddler in tow.
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Just when you think South Korea‘s fertility rate may have bottomed out, it declines further. In Q1 2023, there were 6% fewer births than 2022. The TFR declined to 0.81 from 0.87 in Q1 2022 (in Seoul from 0.67 to 0.62).
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Last birth update for 2023! In the next one I will post the 2024 figures.
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Fertility in India by religion, 2019-21 NFHS (% change to 2015-16 NFHS):
India 1.99 (-8,7%)
Hindu 1.94 (-8.9%)
Muslim 2.36 (-9.9%)
Christian 1.88 (-5.5%)
Sikh 1.61 (+1.9%)
Buddhist 1.39 (-20.1%)
Jain 1.60 (+33.3%)
Others 2.15 (-16.3%)
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Regional fertility in Europe, 1960. Zones of low fertility include Northern Italy, the northern Balkans, Sweden, core Russia and the Baltics as well as central and eastern Ukraine.
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The age pyramid of Sweden. There is a small spike of men aged 24 that does not exist for women. During the refugee wave of 2015, quite a number of refugees declared themselves to be 17 years old in order to be considered minors (who are less likely to be deported).
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South Korea just released the final birth figures for 2022. The TFR turned out to be 0.778 kids per woman (0.808 in 2021). In Seoul, the TFR declined to 0.593 (0.626 in 2021). The lowest TFR was in the district of Gwanak, Seoul with 0.422.
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The extremely steep decline of births in Chile continued in Feburary as well: Despite the additional leap day, there were 19.5% fewer births than in 2023. This year, Chile is on course to hit a TFR of 1.0.
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New update of the birth table. The pattern of a big fertility decline in many countries this year is solidifying.
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Fertility rates by the country of birth of the mother in the EU, 2022. There are often huge differences between native-born, EU-migrants and non-EU-migrants.
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New birth table. I was finally able to add Brazil to the monthly figures and Iraq and Turkey to the experimental forecasts.
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Indians in the US pretty much don‘t have large families at all. Is this a hint for the future development of fertility levels in India? Could the ultra-low TFRs in South Korea or urban China appear in India as well in a few decades?
Proportion of total births that were fourth or higher order for mothers in the US, by birth country, Jan-Oct 2023.
Only live births with known birth order have been used. Groups for which complete birth order info was missing have been excluded.
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Thailand is the first country to report figures for February, and they show a decline of 11.9% compared to the number of births in 2023, despite the extra day February had this year. The decline for this year is 10.3% so far and Thailands TFR could fall below 1.0 this year.
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Canada is revving up its immigration machine even more: in Q3, net immigration stood at +340,666 people, bringing the total of this year to almost +740,000 people. Canada seems to be on course for an immigration of more than 800K this year.
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New edition of my table on fertility rates in the world's biggest metropolitan areas. As a bonus, I have picked a wide range of other metro areas below 10M people. The national average often masks the fact that fertility is very low in metro areas around the world.
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Are megacities a dead end for humanity? While the TFR for the world population is around 2.23 kids per woman now, it is 1.45 in the world's metropolitan areas of 10 million and more inhabitants, thereof 1.6 in those of 10-20M and 1.3 in those with 20M and more inhabitants.
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New birth update. It is now pretty certain that 2022 will end with huge declines in the number of births for many countries.
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There is no bottom in sight: In August, births in South Korea fell 12.8% compared to 2022, bringing the cumulative decline this year so far to 7.2%.
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Chile had a TFR of 1.14 kids per woman in 2023 and recorded a new massive drop of 22% in January 2024. Will Chile be the first independent country in the Americas to fall below 1.0?
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During 2023, the population of Spain increased by 508,000 people, or by 1.06%. The strong growth was mostly driven by immigration from Latin America.
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The number of births in Poland continues its steep decline: In the first quarter of 2024, there were 64,500 births, 9.8% fewer than in 2023 despite the additional leap day this year. The TFR this year could fall to 1.1 kids per woman, again the lowest value ever recorded.
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@fuxianyi
If these figures are true, China will experience a serious labor market crunch this decade (and all subsequent decades). Very low number of new entrants.
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For those who think South Korean like fertility levels aren't possible in Western countries, they should look at the Canary Islands. With a TFR of around 0.8 children per woman this year, the Atlantic archipelago has the lowest fertility level of any region in the EU.
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New tempo-adjusted fertility rates for 2020. When women shift their births to higher ages, the conventional TFR underestimates how many children they will really have in the end, which is the "tempo effect".
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The first birth update for 2024! Recovery or not? Still too early to tell, but the trend in some countries looks promising.
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Sweden just released the TFRs in 2023 by region of birth of the mother (2022 in brackets):
Whole country 1.45 (1.53)
Swedish-born 1.42 (1.47)
Foreign-born 1.57 (1.69),
thereof
EU/Nordics 1.20 (1.23)
Africa 2.12 (2.43)
Asia 1.61 (1.71)
Other Europe/Americas/Oceania 1.51 (1.62)
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China has just reported 9,020,000 births for 2023, more than what was assumed earlier, but still 5.6% fewer than in 2022.
Based on that, the TFR declined to 1.02 kids per woman (from 1.05 in 2022). Needless to say it is again the lowest value ever recorded.
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Italy counted 379,339 births in 2023, 3.6% fewer than 2022. The TFR declined to 1.20 kids per woman (1.24 in 2022), close to the all-time low of 1.19 in 1995.
The TFR ranged from 1.56 in South Tyrol to 0.91 in Sardegna.
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New birth table. Apart from more red and negative developments thus far in 2022, I have added a new table for countries that don't publish monthly/quarterly data, but some subnational regions do, allowing for an estimate to be done.
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China reported 9.56M births in 2022, 10% fewer than 2021. The TFR declined from 1.16 to 1.07 kids per woman and is now only half of China‘s replacement level (2.14).
China also recorded its first regular natural decline (absent of war and famines).
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Cities are often viewed as fertility-shredders, but it always depends on the historic and socioeconomic context. In 1970, the Mexico City metro area had almost 9 million inhabitants and a TFR of 5.5, the highest of any comparable metropolitan area in human history.
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While we eagerly wait for the first data for 2024 (will it be even worse?), here are the latest figures on the number of births for 2023. As announced, I have now added the Philippines as well.
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In 2022, the TFR of the World was around 2.23 children per woman. This was still slightly above the global replacement level of 2.18. Humanity will likely drop below replacement level this or next year.
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It seems that we have found a new small puzzle piece in explaining the steep fertility decline that started in the 2010s: The increasing divergence of political views among younger men and women. How does that work?
Young men and young women’s world views are pulling apart: the big ideology gap.
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New birth update - Ireland joined the disaster zone. Hong Kong set to fall below 0.8 this year.
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The TFR of the past often overstates how big families really were, because a significant share of kids died in infancy. In the Netherlands, the number of surviving children per woman constantly hovered around 3 from 1840 until the 1960s, while the TFR declined from 5 to 3.
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Lithuania is experiencing a fertility meltdown like no other country in the EU now. In June, births were down 21.2% compared to 2022, bringing the cumulative annual decline so far to 9.5%. The TFR could decline to 1.15 kids per woman, lower than Spain and lowest in the EU.
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New population pyramid for the United States. Still a pretty rectangular shape.
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Bulgaria is currently the country with the largest natural population decline in peacetime. Here is a historical perspective on the birth surplus/deficit since records began.
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Afghanistan is the country with the highest TFR outside of Subsaharan Africa. In 2015, a DHS survey found it to be 5.3 children per woman. In the 20 years of NATO presence, its population almost doubled to now 40 million people.
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New birth update, now including Guatemala. As
@dousris3
pointed out, many countries reported especially low numbers of births in September, which again lowered the forecasted TFRs of many countries for this year.
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The long awaited update of the birth table. Most of the EU will likely see a steep drop in fertility this year. Only France, Romania and Bulgaria in the EU are bucking the trend.
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The biggest problem when thinking about low fertility and population decline is that most people don't know how fast populations fall in the long run at certain fertility levels
At 1.8 kids per woman, the decline will be 0.5%, at 1.5 it is 1%, and at 1.3 a big 1.5% per year.
Elon Musk Is Totally Wrong About Population Collapse: “Tesla’s outspoken CEO thinks the biggest threat facing the planet is people not having enough babies. Demographers disagree”
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Russia is transitioning from a model of small families and low childlessness to a model of more larger families and higher childlessness. The overall level of fertility hasn‘t changed.
Interesting how rise in childlessness & growth of 3rd order & higher births have perfectly offset each other in RU.
1970 cohort: 7.7% childless, 12.5% 3rd order+, CCF = 1.6
1990 cohort: 20.8% childless, 21% 3rd order+, CCF = 1.62
1990 cohort is proj with data through to 2020.
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From 2022 to 2023, China's TFR declined from 1.05 to 1.02 kids per woman.
Now more and more provinces are releasing data for 2023. The TFR of Shanghai came out at just 0.61 (0.65 in 2022), the lowest ever measured for any province. Guangdong's TFR stayed at 1.12.
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It looks like Orban‘s policies had the greatest impact on rural fertility, while the increase in Budapest was the smallest.
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With a TFR of 1.5 kids per woman in the Kathmandu metropolitan area, I wonder how long it will take until it again looks like the upper picture.
Nowadays, very low TFRs can be found even in very poor countries.
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Net migration of the Anglosphere countries, year ending Jun 2022:
UK +504,000 (+7.5 per 1000)
USA +1,011,000 (+3.0 per 1000)
Canada +658,000 (+17.1 per 1000)
Australia +170,900 (+6.6 per 1000)
NZ -15,600 (-3.0 per 1000)
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Turns out the sharp fertility decline in the Philippines is real. The 2022 DHS gives a rate of 1.9 kids per woman, after 2.7 in the 2017 DHS. Urban fertility declined to 1.7 from 2.4 and rural fertility to 2.2 from 2.9 five years earlier.
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New birth and fertility rates table. Few changes from previous month and finally added Moldova back to the roster of countries.
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Fertility in Hungary in 2020 (2012 in brackets), by region:
Hungary 1.56 (1.34) +17%
Budapest 1.15 (1.16) -1%
Pest (suburbs around Budapest) 1.65 (1.40) +18%
Transdanubia 1.52 (1.29) +18%
Great Plain and North 1.73 (1.38) +26%
Fertility increased everywhere except Budapest.
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Quick update of the birth table to get back to the update rhythm of once per month. Greece and Thailand have released data from Jan-March already, allowing for the first TFR forecasts to be made.
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Spain with 2% fewer births in 2023 than in 2022. The TFR declined to 1.13 kids per woman (the same level as in 1998 and the lowest ever recorded). The TFR of the Canary islands is now South Korea tier and Ceuta and Melilla have pretty much converged to the Spanish average.
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In Turkey at the end of 2023, there were 934,215 0-year-olds registered in the population register, 7.5% fewer than last year. The number of births is usually 3% higher, so around 962,000. That means that Uzbekistan had slightly more births than Turkey last year.
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Population pyramid of Japan, the most aged country in the world.
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Due to the extremely high immigration, the age pyramid of Canada increasingly resembles a typical urban age pyramid: Few children and elderly, and a huge bulk of 18-30 year olds.
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The long awaited update of the birth table. Little change compared to the previous one: Most countries will have a strong decline in their number of births compared to 2021.
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In 2022, Canada‘s immigration broke all records. The net inflow was 1.01 million people and thus over a million for the first time in history. The population in 2022 grew at a breakneck speed of 2.7%.
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They are insane but in many cases mysterious as well, especially if you look at regions within countries. At the country level, it is easy to blame the economy, policy or technological effects, but they don't explain everything.
The fertility rate drops from 2015 -> 23 are insane in just EIGHT YEARS:
France: 1.96 -> 1.68
Sweden: 1.85 -> 1.42
America: 1.84 -> 1.64
UK: 1.78 -> 1.45
Russia: 1.78 -> 1.41
China: 1.75 -> 1.05 (wtf)
Germany: 1.50 -> 1.42
South Korea: 1.24 -> .73 (jesus christ)
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Thanks to Henry VIII, England (and lateron the UK) has the longest annual series of demographic indicators of any country. Here is the development of the TFR since 1541. Even over such a long timeframe, the recent fertility decline stands out.
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I just calculated the TFRs for the Chinese provinces for 2022. Fertility levels in Manchuria and the two most important cities (Shanghai and Beijing) are even below that of South Korea.
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Since the new World Population Prospects were now leaked a few days before the official release date (July 11), I will collect my observations in this thread.
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April brought another massive decline of births in South Korea. Compared to 2022, births declined by 12.7%, bringing the annual decline to 7.6%. In Seoul, the figures are even bleaker: -15.3% for April and -8.9% for 2023 so far.
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The Tunisia MICS survey of 2023 gives a TFR of 1.60 kids per woman for the three years preceding the survey.
The TFR was just 1.0 for the Tunis metropolitan area, 1.3 in the rest of Northeastern Tunisia and 1.9-2.0 for the other regions of the country.
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Argentina just released birth statistics for 2022, and the TFR just keeps on dropping. Last year it reached a new record low of 1.36 children per woman. Some provinces have already reched the ultra low levels common in Spain.
@BirthGauge
@BirthGauge
, tengo estadísticas oficiales de Argentina que en 2022 tuvo fecundidad (TFR) mucho mas baja de la que vos estimabas en tu cuadro. Y es de solo 1,36 hijos por mujer. Tambien esta el TFR por cada provincia. Aquí el conservadurismo social ha sido completamente derrotado!
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Map of the TFRs by US state for 2023, based on recently released birth data from January-September 2023. The TFR declined to around 1.62 kids per woman last year, but there are important regional differences. Values range from 1.99 in South Dakota to 1.19 in Washington DC.
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Ecuador just released its census results from the census that was conducted in late 2022. The population pyramid shows a rapid fertility decline in the last 10 years. The TFR of Ecuador is now around 1.7 - 1.8 kids per woman.
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New birth update with more forecasted fertility rates for this year. Most countries in this list will see another big drop this year, and not few will record the lowest values ever this year.
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New birth update, this time with the first forecasts of the fertility rates for 2023.
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Fun with the ACS 2021, part 2. Fertility rate by housing type:
Trailer 2.12 kids per woman
Freestanding single family home 1.95
Attached SFH 1.93
2-apartment home 1.74
3-4 apt. 1.80
5-9 apt. 1.53
10-19 apt. 1.52
20-49 apt. 1.39
50+ apt. 1.33
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In Q3, Canada fired up immigration even more and received a net-migration of +413,579 in that quarter alone, bringing the 12-month rolling sum to +1,223,729 people. Over those 12 months, the population of Canada grew by 3.2%.
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India hasn't released any recent birth statistics yet, so it is hard to get an estimate of how high the TFR of the World is right now. Assuming an Indian TFR of 1.9 gives a World TFR of 2.205 kids per woman in 2023, barely above replacement level (2.175).
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The fertility gap between Whites and Blacks has never been as narrow before.
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The share of births that are fourth or further kids over time in Japan and the US. Few know it, but the time of large families in Japan ended already in the early 1960s! In recent decades, the share of 4+th order births has been increasing in both countries again.
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Another way to look at demographics in Korea is the population pyramid for the whole of Korea. Among the 3-year olds and younger, North Koreans are already in the majority among all Koreans.
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Europe and Africa, demographics-wise, in a single country. The contrasts between the Turkish provinces are massive. The population is already pretty aged on the Black Sea coast, while in some Kurdish provinces the population still forms a pyramid.
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TFRs by citizenship in the Gulf countries. The overall fertility rates often mask the high fertility rates of the local population, as their share is small and the share of immigrants who tend to have few kids is high.
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Wrapping up 2022 with a new birth update. 2022 will go down as a bad year in terms of the demographic situation of many countries. 2023 could be worse or better, who knows?
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The growing fertility advantage of the Laestadians in Finland. Larsmo, a town of 5,700 people on the Baltic sea is often used as an example to study fertility trends among the Laestadians. Even though Finnish TFR declined a lot, Larsmo has maintained a TFR of ~3.6 since WWII.
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It is crazy how much GDP per capita growth is diverging between Canada and the US.
Canada is a fascinating experiment in high immigration.
Non-homeowners have suffered greatly from rising rent.
Income per person is stagnating.
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The 2022 MICS survey for Thailand found a crazy low fertility rate of 1.01 children per woman. In Bangkok city, the TFR was just 0.63 and thus barely higher than in Seoul. Thai speakers had a TFR of 0.9 and non-Thai-speakers 1.7.
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As every year, my table on immigrant and native fertility rates among the EU and EFTA members.
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The steep drop of British fertility from 2011 to 2021:
UK 1.91 to 1.53, -20%
England 1.93 to 1.55, -20%
Wales 1.90 to 1.50, -21%
Scotland 1.69 to 1.31, -22%
Northern Ireland 2.02 to 1.81, -10%
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Percentage of third and higher birth order births in England and Wales among all births, by ethnicity, 2017-2021:
Total 22.5%
White British 21.6%
White Other 15.5%
Mixed 20.8%
Bangladeshi 36.2%
Indian 14.5%
Pakistani 38.2%
Asian Other 24.0%
Black 37.2%
Other 28.8%
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How the English outgrew the Celtic nations over the last 900 years, in a graph.
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