China fertility rate, 1960 to 2024
China fertility rate stood at 1 in 2024, up 1.4% on the previous period.
Women in China would average 1.01 births over a lifetime at 2024's age-specific birth rates, against 4.45 in 1960. The series fell through the 2.1 replacement level in 1991.
How it is measured
The figures come from the World Bank's World Development Indicators (indicator SP.DYN.TFRT.IN). The total fertility rate is a synthetic measure: take this year's birth rates at every age of a woman's reproductive life and add them up, as if one woman lived through all of them. Like life expectancy, it is a thermometer for the present, not a forecast of completed families. The data behind it is birth registration where complete, and censuses and surveys aligned with the UN World Population Prospects elsewhere.
What the curve shows
The number to hold against this curve is 2.1, the replacement level at which a generation exactly replaces itself in low-mortality societies. China is below it and has been since 1991: absent immigration, each generation born at 1.01 is smaller than its parents' generation, and the effects compound quietly for decades before they show in the total population count.
Why is 2.1 the replacement level and not 2.0?
Is this a prediction of family sizes?
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