# Fertility rate: source and method

## Citation

UN, World Population Prospects (2024) – processed by Our World in Data. “Fertility rate – UN WPP” \[dataset\]. United Nations, “World Population Prospects”; United Nations, “World Population Prospects – Interim Update” \[original data\].

## What it measures

Total fertility rate: the average number of children a woman would have if she experienced the year's age-specific birth rates throughout her childbearing years. Unit: live births per woman.

## How the data were processed

The UN doesn't publish a total fertility rate for our continental aggregates (Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Oceania), since its own regional groupings differ. We derive these by summing the age-specific fertility rates across the 5-year reproductive age groups (15–19 to 45–49) and multiplying by 5, where each age-specific rate uses regional totals for births and female population.

## Where it was taken from

- Chart: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un)
- Full metadata: [https://api.ourworldindata.org/v1/indicators/950920.metadata.json](https://api.ourworldindata.org/v1/indicators/950920.metadata.json)
- Last updated by Our World in Data: 2024-07-12. Taken for this site on 22 October 2026.

Our World in Data publishes its data under the Creative Commons BY 4.0 licence; data produced by third parties keep their own licence, given in the full metadata. [How this site takes its figures](/method) · [All fertility rate figures](/fertility).

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