The statistic shows the 20 countries with the lowest fertility rates in 2024. All figures are estimates. In 2024, the fertility rate in Taiwan was estimated to be at 1.11 children per woman, making it the lowest fertility rate worldwide. Fertility rate The fertility rate is the average number of children born per woman of child-bearing age in a country. Usually, a woman aged between 15 and 45 is considered to be in her child-bearing years. The fertility rate of a country provides an insight into its economic state, as well as the level of health and education of its population. Developing countries usually have a higher fertility rate due to lack of access to birth control and contraception, and to women usually foregoing a higher education, or even any education at all, in favor of taking care of housework. Many families in poorer countries also need their children to help provide for the family by starting to work early and/or as caretakers for their parents in old age. In developed countries, fertility rates and birth rates are usually much lower, as birth control is easier to obtain and women often choose a career before becoming a mother. Additionally, if the number of women of child-bearing age declines, so does the fertility rate of a country. As can be seen above, countries like Hong Kong are a good example for women leaving the patriarchal structures and focusing on their own career instead of becoming a mother at a young age, causing a decline of the country’s fertility rate. A look at the fertility rate per woman worldwide by income group also shows that women with a low income tend to have more children than those with a high income. The United States are neither among the countries with the lowest, nor among those with the highest fertility rate, by the way. At 2.08 children per woman, the fertility rate in the US has been continuously slightly below the global average of about 2.4 children per woman over the last decade.

In 2024, the Italian region that registered the highest fertility rate was Trentino-South Tyrol, where the average number of children born per woman reached 1.39 infants. Over the last years, the fertility rate in Italy has constantly decreased, except for 2021, when a slight increase of 0.01 points was recorded. Fewer and fewer children born per womanThe average number of children born per woman significantly varied from the middle of the twentieth century to the present day. In 2017, Italian women were on average a mother of one child, whereas about seven decades earlier, females had on average at least two kids. The lowest fertility rates worldwide From the global perspective, Italy was one of the world's twenty countries with the lowest fertility rate in 2024. This figure in Taiwan reached only 1.11 children per woman, placing the territory on top of the ranking.

Over the past decade, the birth rate in Italy has constantly decreased – in 2024, 6.3 children were estimated to be born per 1,000 inhabitants, three infants less than in 2002. The region with the highest birth rate in the country was Trentino-South Tyrol, where 7.6 children were born per 1,000 residents. Italian mothers are older and older Similar to citizens of other European countries, Italians also postpone parenthood to a later age. While the average age of an Italian mother at childbirth in the 1990s was 29.9 years, in 2024 females giving birth were roughly 32.6 years. Italy, a country with one of the lowest fertility rates in the world If compared with the fertility rates around the world, Italy was one of the 20 countries which registered the lowest fertility rate in 2024. The leader of the global ranking was Taiwan, where only 1.11 babies were born per woman.

Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a common atopic disease worldwide, and it was found that babies with constipation in their early life might have an increased risk of atopic diseases, including AR. Furthermore, recent studies also indicate that the maternal gut microbiota may influence babies. Thus, we extended the definition of early life in utero and evaluated the association between maternal constipation and the risk of AR in their babies. Using the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database, a subset of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database, we identified 102,820 constipated mothers and 102,820 matched controls between 2005 and 2015. Propensity score analysis was used to match birth year, child sex, birth weight, gestational age, mode of delivery, maternal comorbidities, and children antibiotics taken. Multiple Cox regression and subgroup analyzes were conducted to estimate the adjusted hazard ratio of childhood AR. The incidence of childhood AR was 83.47 per 1,000 person-years in constipated mothers. Adjusting children’s sex, birth weight, gestational age, mode of delivery, maternal comorbidities, and children antibiotic use, the results showed that the children whose mothers had constipation had a 1.20-fold risk of AR compared to children of mothers without constipation. Maternal constipation was associated with an increased risk of AR. Therefore, it is important to pay close attention to pregnant mothers with constipation.

Demographic characteristics of maternal constipation group and non-constipation group.

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women had the highest fertility rate of any ethnicity in the United States in 2022, with about 2,237.5 births per 1,000 women. The fertility rate for all ethnicities in the U.S. was 1,656.5 births per 1,000 women. What is the total fertility rate? The total fertility rate is an estimation of the number of children who would theoretically be born per 1,000 women through their childbearing years (generally considered to be between the ages of 15 and 44) according to age-specific fertility rates. The fertility rate is different from the birth rate, in that the birth rate is the number of births in relation to the population over a specific period of time. Fertility rates around the world Fertility rates around the world differ on a country-by-country basis, and more industrialized countries tend to see lower fertility rates. For example, Niger topped the list of the countries with the highest fertility rates, and Taiwan had the lowest fertility rate.

Subgroup analysis of the association between maternal constipation and development of AR in offspring.

aPresented as the mean ± SD or number (percentage).bp-value for difference between male and female newborns using t-test for continuous variables and χ2 or Fisher's exact test for categorical variables. The p-value was bolded when