In 2025, the total fertility rate in Europe was estimated to be 1.41 births per woman compared with 2.7 in 1950. The fertility rate in Europe fell considerably between 1957 and 1999, falling from 2.62 to 1.4.

In 2024, Monaco was the European country estimated to have the highest fertility rate. The country had a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman. Other small countries such as Gibraltar or Montenegro also came towards the top of the list for 2024, while the large country with the highest fertility rate was France, with 1.64 children per woman. On the other hand, Ukraine had the lowest fertility rate, averaging around one child per woman.

The total fertility rate in the European Union decreased by 0.1 children per woman (-6.85 percent) in 2023 in comparison to the previous year. Therefore, 2023 marks the lowest fertility rate during the observed period. Total fertility rates refer to the average number of children that a woman of childbearing age (generally considered 15 to 44 years) can expect to have throughout her reproductive years. Unlike birth rates, which are based on the actual number of live births in a given population, fertility rates are hypothetical (similar to life expectancy), as they assume that current patterns in age-specific fertility will remain constant throughout a woman's reproductive years.

Context

The dataset is downloaded from Eurostat.

Content

This dataset contains the total fertility rate (births per woman) in European countries, by year.

The dataset is in TSV (tab delimited) format. It can be read with read_csv, specifying TAB separator.

Inspiration

Analyze this data with other social and economic data about Europe and try to find correlations, interesting patterns.

This horizontal bar chart displays fertility rate (births per woman) by countries using the aggregation average, weighted by population female in Europe. The data is about countries.

In 2023, Bulgaria ranked first by total fertility rate in children per woman among the 27 countries presented in the ranking. Bulgaria's fertility rate amounted to ****, while Romania and France, the second and third countries, had records amounting to **** and ****, respectively.

The mean number of children that would be born alive to a woman during her lifetime if she were to survive and pass through her childbearing years conforming to the fertility rates by age of a given year.

Mean number of children that a woman could have during her childbearing age, unter Berücksichtigung der aktuellen durchschnittlichen Anzahl lebend geborener Kinder in verschiedenen Altersgruppen.

Graph and download economic data for Fertility Rate, Total: All Income Levels for Europe and Central Asia (SPDYNTFRTINECS) from 1960 to 2023 about Central Asia, fertility, Europe, income, and rate.

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. In Germany in 1800, the average woman of childbearing age would have 5.4 children over the course of their lifetime. It remained around this number until the late 1820s, when it then dropped to just under five, which was a long-term effect of the Napoleonic Period in Europe. From this point until the end of the nineteenth century, Germany's fertility rate was rather sporadic, reaching it's lowest point in 1855 with an average of 4.6 births per woman, and it's highest point in 1875 (just after the foundation of the German Empire in 1871), with an average of 5.4 live births per woman. From the beginning of the twentieth century until the end of the Second World War, Germany's fertility rate dropped from around 5 children per woman in 1900, to 1.9 in 1945. The only time where the fertility rate increased was in the inter-war years. Like other countries heavily involved in the Second World War, Germany (both East and West) experienced a Baby Boom from the late 1940s to the late 1960s, however it then dropped to it's lowest point of just 1.3 children per woman by 1995, shortly after the re-unification of Germany. In recent years, Germany's fertility rate has gradually been increasing again, and is expected to reach 1.6 in 2020, its highest rate in over forty years.

Dataset replaced by: http://data.europa.eu/euodp/data/dataset/Byj3Ffio44YXKJXqITfWA The mean number of children that would be born alive to a woman during her lifetime if she were to survive and pass through her childbearing years conforming to the fertility rates by age of a given year.

Women born in and outside the Netherlands, not – Western and Western countries and Dutch women. Period 1990-2050 Amended on 18 March 2003. Frequency of appearance: Stopped.

The total fertility rate of the world has dropped from around 5 children per woman in 1950, to 2.2 children per woman in 2025, which means that women today are having fewer than half the number of children that women did 75 years ago. Replacement level fertility This change has come as a result of the global demographic transition, and is influenced by factors such as the significant reduction in infant and child mortality, reduced number of child marriages, increased educational and vocational opportunities for women, and the increased efficacy and availability of contraception. While this change has become synonymous with societal progress, it does have wide-reaching demographic impact - if the global average falls below replacement level (roughly 2.1 children per woman), as is expected to happen in the 2050s, then this will lead to long-term population decline on a global scale. Regional variations When broken down by continent, Africa is the only region with a fertility rate above the global average, and, alongside Oceania, it is the only region with a fertility rate above replacement level. Until the 1980s, the average woman in Africa could expect to have 6-7 children over the course of their lifetime, and there are still several countries in Africa where women can still expect to have 5 or more children in 2025. Historically, Europe has had the lowest fertility rates in the world over the past century, falling below replacement level in 1975. Europe's population has grown through a combination of migration and increasing life expectancy, however even high immigration rates could not prevent its population from going into decline in 2021.

Eurostat’s annual data collections on demographic and migration statistics are structured as follows:

• NOWCAST: Annual data collection on provisional monthly data on live births and deaths covering at least six months of the reference year (Article 4.3 of the Commission implementing regulation (EU) No 205/2014).
• DEMOBAL (Demographic balance): Annual data collection on provisional data on population, total live births and total deaths at national level (Article 4.1 of the Commission implementing regulation (EU) No 205/2014).
• POPSTAT (Population statistics): The most in-depth annual national and regional demographic and migration data collection. The data relate to populations, births, deaths, immigrants, emigrants, marriages and divorces, and is broken down into several categories (Article 3 of Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 and Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 862/2007).

The aim is to collect annual mandatory and voluntary demographic data from the national statistical institutes. Mandatory data are those defined by the legislation listed under ‘6.1. Institutional mandate - legal acts and other agreements’.

The completeness of the demographic data collected on a voluntary basis depends on the availability and completeness of information provided by the national statistical institutes. For more information on mandatory/voluntary data collection, see 6.1. Institutional mandate - legal acts and other agreements’.

The following statistics on live births are collected from the National Statistical Institutes:

• Live births by month of occurrence;
• Live births by mother's age, year of birth and by:
  • region (NUTS 2) of residence
  • region (NUTS 3) of residence
  • mother's country of birth
  • mother's country of citizenship
  • live-birth order
  • sex of the new-born
  • mother's legal marital status
  • employment status of the mother
  • mother's educational attainment (ISCED 2011);
• Live births by birth weight and duration of gestation;
• Legally induced abortions by mother's age and parity;
• Late fœtal deaths by mother's age.

Statistics on fertility: based on the different breakdowns of data on live births and on legally induced abortions received, Eurostat produces the following:

• Statistics available in the online table Population change - Demographic balance and crude rates at national level (demo_gind):
  • natural change of the population, crude birth rate;
• Statistics available in the online table Fertility indicators (demo_find):
  • the proportion of live births outside marriage
  • total fertility rate
  • the mean age of women at childbirth
  • the mean age of women at the birth of first / second / third / fourth and higher child
  • the median age of women at childbirth
  • the percentage of first / second / third / fourth and higher live births Fertility rates by age (demo_frate);
• Fertility rates by age and NUTS 2 region (demo_r_frate2);
• Total fertility rate by NUTS 3 region (demo_r_frate3);
• Statistics available in the online table Abortion indicators (demo_fabortind):
  • abortion rate
  • abortion ratio

Mean number of children that a woman could have during her childbearing age, taking into consideration the current average number of children born alive for different age groups.

The mean number of children that would be born alive to a woman during her lifetime if she were to survive and pass through her childbearing years conforming to the fertility rates by age of a given year.

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country would have throughout their reproductive years. In France in 1800, the average woman of childbearing age would have 4.4 children over the course of their lifetime. The beginning of the nineteenth century was a tumultuous time in France's history, involving France's revolutionary period, as well as the Napoleonic Empire. In the first decade of the 1800s, the fertility rate dropped by 0.4, before dropping more slowly, by another 0.5 between 1810 and 1850. The fertility growth rate fluctuated slightly in the late 1800s, before dropping drastically in the early twentieth century, falling from an average of 3 children per woman to less than 1.7 in 1920. France's fertility rate reached this point as a result of the First World War, and the influenza epidemic (known as the Spanish Flu) that followed. The interwar period saw a slight increase in fertility rate, before it fell again in the Second World War. Similarly to other major European countries after the war, France experienced a baby boom in the two decades following the war, before dropping again into the 1980s. The fertility rate reached it's lowest point in the post-war period, falling to 1.7 in 1995, before increasing in more recent years.

Crude birth rate : The ratio of the number of live births during the year to the average population in that year. The value is expressed per 1 000 population.

Total fertility rate : Mean number of children that would be born alive to a woman during her lifetime if she were to pass through and survive her childbearing years conforming to the fertility rates by age of a given year.

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. In the second half of the nineteenth century in Spain, the fertility rate fluctuated, but overall it had decreased from 5.1 children per woman in 1850 to 4.7 in 1905. From 1905 until 1935 the fertility decline followed a steady trajectory, falling from 4.7 to 3.5 births per woman during this time. Between 1935 and 1940, the Spanish Civil War caused the fertility rate to drop by 0.7 children per woman. The rate dropped again in the 1940s and 50s, before Spain experienced a baby boom, much like the rest of Western Europe, in the mid 1900s. Compared with the rest of Europe, Spain's baby boom was relatively small, although the population did not begin to decrease again until the late 1970s. Spain had one of the lowest fertility rates in the world at the end of the 1900s, and at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the fertility rate was at it's lowest point ever, reaching just 1.2 children per woman in 2000. This number has increased slightly in the past two decades, and is expected to be just over 1.3 in 2020.

In the mid-1800s, women in Ireland could expect to have over four children throughout the course of their reproductive years. More so than most European countries, the total fertility rate of Ireland would be influenced not only by the number of births, which would remain largely high compared to much of the continent, but would rather be influenced by emigration from the country. While the largest wave of Irish emigration (driven by the Great Famine) occurred before the years shown, the spikes in 1870, and particularly the spikes of the 1940s to early 1960s, can be attributed in part to significant declines in emigration among young adult females (rather than an increase in the number of births).

Another significant impact on Ireland's fertility rate in the 20th century was the influence of the Catholic Church in Irish society, education and healthcare. The church controlled the majority of primary and secondary education establishments, as well as hospitals; their influence on government meant that contraception and divorce remained illegal until 1985 and 1996 respectively, while the prohibition of abortion was not repealed until 2018. The promotion of traditional Catholic family values saw Ireland's fertility rate peak at over four children per woman in the early 1960s (double replacement level), however the gradual liberalization of Irish society and the decline of the church's influence, saw Ireland's fertility rate drop below two births per woman by the 1990s. (below replacement level). While fertility has remained below replacement level in the past three decades, the country still remains above the European average, with a total fertility rate of more than 1.8 children per woman in 2020, compared to the continental average of 1.6 children.