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 United States in 1800, the average woman of childbearing age would have seven children over the course of their lifetime. As factors such as technology, hygiene, medicine and education improved, women were having fewer children than before, reaching just two children per woman in 1940. This changed quite dramatically in the aftermath of the Second World War, rising sharply to over 3.5 children per woman in 1960 (children born between 1946 and 1964 are nowadays known as the 'Baby Boomer' generation, and they make up roughly twenty percent of todays US population). Due to the end of the baby boom and increased access to contraception, fertility reached it's lowest point in the US in 1980, where it was just 1.77. It did however rise to over two children per woman between 1995 and 2010, although it is expected to drop again by 2020, to just 1.78.

In the United States, the crude birth rate in 1800 was 48.3 live births per thousand people, meaning that 4.8 percent of the population had been born in that year. Between 1815 and 1825 the crude birth rate jumped from 46.5 to 54.7 (possibly due to Florida becoming a part of the US, but this is unclear), but from this point until the Second World War the crude birth rate dropped gradually, reaching 19.2 in 1935. Through the 1940s, 50s and 60s the US experienced it's baby boom, and the birth rate reached 24.1 in 1955, before dropping again until 1980. From the 1980s until today the birth rate's decline has slowed, and is expected to reach twelve in 2020, meaning that just over 1 percent of the population will be born in 2020.

Chart and table of the U.S. birth rate from 1950 to 2025. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100.

The total fertility rate of the world has dropped from around five children per woman in 1950, to 2.3 children per woman in 2023, which means that women today are having fewer than half the number of children that women did 75 years ago. 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.

When broken down by continent, Africa is the only region with a fertility rate above the global average, while it and Oceania are the only regions with above replacement level fertility rates. Until the 1980s, women in Africa could expect to have almost seven children throughout the course of their lifetimes, and there are still eight countries in Africa where the average woman of childbearing age can still expect to have five or more children in 2023. Historically, Europe has had the lowest fertility rate 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.

This dataset includes birth rates for females by age group in the United States since 1940.

The number of states in the reporting area differ historically. In 1915 (when the birth registration area was established), 10 states and the District of Columbia reported births; by 1933, 48 states and the District of Columbia were reporting births, with the last two states, Alaska and Hawaii, added to the registration area in 1959 and 1960, when these regions gained statehood. Reporting area information is detailed in references 1 and 2 below. Trend lines for 1909–1958 are based on live births adjusted for under-registration; beginning with 1959, trend lines are based on registered live births.

Between 1939 and 1950, the Soviet Union's fertility rate underwent the most drastic change of all the major Allied Powers; falling from 4.9 births per woman in 1939 to just 1.7 births in 1943. In Russia alone, this decline was even greater, falling from 4.9 to 1.3 births in the same time period. After the war's conclusion in 1945, there was an observable increase in fertility in all the given countries, and this marked beginning of the global baby boom of the mid-twentieth century.

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country would have throughout their reproductive years. In the United Kingdom in 1800, the average woman of childbearing age would have five children over the course of their lifetime. Over the next 35 years the fertility rate was quite sporadic, rising to over 5.5 in the 1810s and 1820s, then dropping to 4.9 by 1835. This was during and after the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 with the US, which was a time of increased industrialization, economic depression and high unemployment after the war. As things became more stable, and the 'Pax Britannica' (a period of relative, international peace and economic prosperity for the British Empire) came into full effect, the fertility rate plateaued until 1880, before dropping gradually until the First World War. The fertility rate then jumped from 2.6 to 3.1 children per woman between 1915 and 1920, as many men returned from the war. It then resumed it's previous trajectory in the interwar years, before increasing yet again after the war (albeit, for a much longer time than after WWI), in what is known as the 'Baby Boom'. Like the US, the Baby Boom lasted until around 1980, where it then fell to 1.7 children per woman, and it has remained around this number (between 1.66 and 1.87) since then.

This dataset includes birth rates for unmarried women by age group, race, and Hispanic origin in the United States since 1970.

Methods for collecting information on marital status changed over the reporting period and have been documented in:

• Ventura SJ, Bachrach CA. Nonmarital childbearing in the United States, 1940–99. National vital statistics reports; vol 48 no 16. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2000. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf. • National Center for Health Statistics. User guide to the 2013 natality public use file. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/VitalStatsOnline.htm.

National data on births by Hispanics origin exclude data for Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma in 1989; for New Hampshire and Oklahoma in 1990; for New Hampshire in 1991 and 1992. Information on reporting Hispanic origin is detailed in the Technical Appendix for the 1999 public-use natality data file (see (ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Dataset_Documentation/DVS/natality/Nat1999doc.pdf.)

All birth data by race before 1980 are based on race of the child. Starting in 1980, birth data by race are based on race of the mother.

Between 1939 and 1950, Japan's annual fertility rate fluctuated between 3.1 and 4.4 births per woman, before spiking to 4.6 in 1947. This was the highest of the Axis powers listed, as European figures were generally much lower at this point in history. The increase in fertility that followed the Second World War was part of the global baby boom of the mid-twentieth century.

This dataset includes number of births to unmarried women by age group in the United States since 1940.

Methods for collecting information on marital status changed over the reporting period and have been documented in:

• Ventura SJ, Bachrach CA. Nonmarital childbearing in the United States, 1940–99. National vital statistics reports; vol 48 no 16. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2000. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf. • National Center for Health Statistics. User guide to the 2013 natality public use file. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/VitalStatsOnline.htm.

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.

Analysis of ‘NCHS - Birth Rates for Unmarried Women by Age, Race, and Hispanic Origin: United States’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/05adf260-cbad-4811-996b-35427e1c800c on 27 January 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

This dataset includes birth rates for unmarried women by age group, race, and Hispanic origin in the United States since 1970.

Methods for collecting information on marital status changed over the reporting period and have been documented in:

• Ventura SJ, Bachrach CA. Nonmarital childbearing in the United States, 1940–99. National vital statistics reports; vol 48 no 16. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2000. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf. • National Center for Health Statistics. User guide to the 2013 natality public use file. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/VitalStatsOnline.htm.

National data on births by Hispanics origin exclude data for Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma in 1989; for New Hampshire and Oklahoma in 1990; for New Hampshire in 1991 and 1992. Information on reporting Hispanic origin is detailed in the Technical Appendix for the 1999 public-use natality data file (see (ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Dataset_Documentation/DVS/natality/Nat1999doc.pdf.)

All birth data by race before 1980 are based on race of the child. Starting in 1980, birth data by race are based on race of the mother.

SOURCES

CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, birth data (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/births.htm); public-use data files (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/Vitalstatsonline.htm); and CDC WONDER (see http://wonder.cdc.gov/).

REFERENCES

1. Curtin SC, Ventura SJ, Martinez GM. Recent declines in nonmarital childbearing in the United States. NCHS data brief, no 162. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db162.pdf.

2. Martin JA, Hamilton BE, Osterman MJK, et al. Births: Final data for 2015. National vital statistics reports; vol 66 no 1. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2017. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_01.pdf.

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

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.

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. From 1840 until 1910, Russia's fertility rate was relatively consistent, remaining between 6.7 and 7.4 children per woman during this time. Between 1910 and 1920, the fertility rate drops sharply as a result of the First World War and Russian Revolution (for individual years of WWI, the fertility rate dropped as low as 3.4). From 1920 to 1930 the fertility rate returns above 6 again, however a gradual decline then begins, and by the end of the Second World War, the Russian segment of the Soviet Union's fertility rate was below 2. The population experienced a relatively small 'baby boom' in the two decades following the war, but then the fertility rate dropped again, most sharply between 1990 and 1995 at the end of the Soviet Union's reign. Russia's fertility rate reached its lowest point in 2000 when it fell to just 1.25 children per woman, but in the past two decades it has risen again, and is expected to reach 1.8 in 2020.

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. From 1800 until today, Poland's fertility rate has gradually declined, however it was very sporadic along the way. Poland's fertility rate reached it's highest point in the early 1860s, where it was 6.4 children per woman. Between 1795 and the end of the First World War there was no official country of Poland, and this is a tumultuous time in the area's history, and many different factors would have affected the fertility rate. In the Second World War, Poland's lost a higher percentage of people than any other nation in the world, and the fertility rate dropped to just over 3 children per woman during this time. Poland did experience a brief 'baby boom' during the two decades after the war, before the rate fell to it's lowest point ever in 2005, where it was below 1.3 children per woman, and this number is expected to rise slightly by 2020, to 1.4.

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. In 1860, Canadian women of childbearing age would go on to have 5.7 children on average, however this number dropped significantly by 1925, where it was just 3.3. It then plateaued in the late 1920s, before dropping again, to 2.7 in 1940. Similarly to the United States, Canada experienced a large baby boom after the Second World War, rising to 3.9 in 1960, before declining again into the 1980s, and then plateauing between 1.5 and 1.7 until today. Canada's fertility rate is expected to be 1.5 children per woman in 2020.

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. From 1800 until 1865, Japan's fertility rate grew quite gradually, from 4.1 children per woman, to 4.8. From this point the fertility rate drops to 3.6 over the next ten years, as Japan became more industrialized. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Japan's fertility rate grew again, and reached it's highest recorded point in the early 1920s, where it was 5.4 children per woman. Since this point it has been gradually decreasing until now, although it did experience slight increases after the Second World War, and in the early 1970s. In recent decades Japan's population has aged extensively, and today, Japan has the second oldest population and second highest life expectancy in the world (after Monaco). In contrast to this, Japan has a very low birth rate, and it's fertility rate is expected to fall below 1.4 children per woman 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.

In 1800, the total fertility rate in the region of present-day Latvia was 5.2 children per woman; meaning woman born in Latvia in that year could expect to have just over five children on average during the course of their reproductive years. Fertility in Latvia would decline steadily in the 19th century, primarily due to advancements in healthcare and declining child mortality rates, and also due to economic improvements in the years following the agricultural reforms of 1849, which would see a significant improvement in the living standards of the country’s peasantry. Fertility would decline faster in the 1930s and 1940s, due to the instability and devastation caused by the Second World War and Great Depression.

Following the end of the war, fertility would resume its steady decline until the 1970s and 1980s, when Latvian authorities promoted population growth and implemented financial incentives for mothers. However, with the demographic shifts following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and economic downturn following the adoption of the market economy, women across most former-Soviet states were much more reluctant to have children in the 1990s. By the turn of the millennium, Latvia's fertility rate had fallen to just over one child per woman in 2000. While fertility has recovered somewhat following Latvia’s ascension to the European Union in 2004, total fertility remains below replacement level in the country, and in 2020, it is estimated that the average woman born in Latvia will have just over 1.7 children over the course of her reproductive years.

In the past four centuries, the population of the United States has grown from a recorded 350 people around the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1610, to an estimated 331 million people in 2020. The pre-colonization populations of the indigenous peoples of the Americas have proven difficult for historians to estimate, as their numbers decreased rapidly following the introduction of European diseases (namely smallpox, plague and influenza). Native Americans were also omitted from most censuses conducted before the twentieth century, therefore the actual population of what we now know as the United States would have been much higher than the official census data from before 1800, but it is unclear by how much. Population growth in the colonies throughout the eighteenth century has primarily been attributed to migration from the British Isles and the Transatlantic slave trade; however it is also difficult to assert the ethnic-makeup of the population in these years as accurate migration records were not kept until after the 1820s, at which point the importation of slaves had also been illegalized. Nineteenth century In the year 1800, it is estimated that the population across the present-day United States was around six million people, with the population in the 16 admitted states numbering at 5.3 million. Migration to the United States began to happen on a large scale in the mid-nineteenth century, with the first major waves coming from Ireland, Britain and Germany. In some aspects, this wave of mass migration balanced out the demographic impacts of the American Civil War, which was the deadliest war in U.S. history with approximately 620 thousand fatalities between 1861 and 1865. The civil war also resulted in the emancipation of around four million slaves across the south; many of whose ancestors would take part in the Great Northern Migration in the early 1900s, which saw around six million black Americans migrate away from the south in one of the largest demographic shifts in U.S. history. By the end of the nineteenth century, improvements in transport technology and increasing economic opportunities saw migration to the United States increase further, particularly from southern and Eastern Europe, and in the first decade of the 1900s the number of migrants to the U.S. exceeded one million people in some years. Twentieth and twenty-first century The U.S. population has grown steadily throughout the past 120 years, reaching one hundred million in the 1910s, two hundred million in the 1960s, and three hundred million in 2007. In the past century, the U.S. established itself as a global superpower, with the world's largest economy (by nominal GDP) and most powerful military. Involvement in foreign wars has resulted in over 620,000 further U.S. fatalities since the Civil War, and migration fell drastically during the World Wars and Great Depression; however the population continuously grew in these years as the total fertility rate remained above two births per woman, and life expectancy increased (except during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918).

Since the Second World War, Latin America has replaced Europe as the most common point of origin for migrants, with Hispanic populations growing rapidly across the south and border states. Because of this, the proportion of non-Hispanic whites, which has been the most dominant ethnicity in the U.S. since records began, has dropped more rapidly in recent decades. Ethnic minorities also have a much higher birth rate than non-Hispanic whites, further contributing to this decline, and the share of non-Hispanic whites is expected to fall below fifty percent of the U.S. population by the mid-2000s. In 2020, the United States has the third-largest population in the world (after China and India), and the population is expected to reach four hundred million in the 2050s.