Maybe it's a standard term, but I find "fertility rate" very misleading. Why not just say birth rates ?
The fall in fertility rate is not down to sperm counts or any of the things that normally come to mind when thinking of fertility. Instead it is being put down to three key factors:
1) Fewer deaths in childhood meaning women have fewer babies
2) Greater access to contraception
3) More women in education and work
In many ways, falling fertility rates are a success story.
There has been a remarkable global decline in the number of children women are having, say researchers. Their report found fertility rate falls meant nearly half of countries were now facing a "baby bust" - meaning there are insufficient children to maintain their population size.
Prof Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, told the BBC: "We've reached this watershed where half of countries have fertility rates below the replacement level, so if nothing happens the populations will decline in those countries. "It's a remarkable transition. It's a surprise even to people like myself, the idea that it's half the countries in the world will be a huge surprise to people."
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46118103
It's probably the standard term because those factors weren't a thing when they came up with the term.
ReplyDeleteYou're totally correct "birth rate" would be better.
A study was done in the late 1980s: comparison, Kerala in India and PRC. Kerala had been returning communists to India's parliament for decades. Kerala also had one of the highest rates of literacy in India. And birth rates were falling.
ReplyDeletePRC was communist, and all communists educate girls. But in PRC, often as not, those girls stop going to school long before they matriculate, especially in rural areas. And though the birth rate was falling somewhat, as a result of the draconian One Child Rule, it wasn't falling as fast as in Kerala.
The difference was how long girls were being educated. It turns out, statistically, if a girl child receives just over 11 years of education, she will have somewhat fewer than two children. She will have them somewhat later in life, their survival rates are much better and those children go on to be better-educated.
It's happening all over the world. Educated women are simply having fewer children.
Given the impact we’re having on the planet, reducing the population is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteIt will also reduce the conflict over resources (another good thing).
It’s bad news for business models that rely on one-widget-per-head.
It is a standard term. It doesn’t mean the same as birth rate. Birth rate is number of births per thousand people. Fertility rate is number of births per thousand women between 15-44. So if you calculated each you would get two different numbers.
ReplyDeleteyes, this has been done since the 60s. Educated women, women who have control over their own lives, choose to have fewer children.
ReplyDeleteone of the best effective things we can do for global warming is emancipate women.
ReplyDeleteFrom the article
ReplyDeleteThe total fertility rate is the average number of children a woman gives birth to in their lifetime ( it's different to the birth rate which is the number of children born per thousand people each year ).