Fertility rate

The number of births per year per 1000 women aged 15-44 years, total fertility rate.

The number of live births occurring in a year per 1000 women of child-bearing age (usually 15 to 44 years of age). A less reliable measure of fertility can be obtained from the live birth rate (the number of live births per 1000 of the population) or the natural increase (the excess of live births over deaths). More rarely quoted are the gross reproduction rate (the rate at which the child-bearing female population is reproducing itself) and the net reproduction rate, which takes into account female mortality before the age of reproduction. Other measures of fertility include the legitimate birth rate (the number of live births per 1000 women married once and aged 16 to 44) and the illegitimate birth rate (the number of illegitimate births per 1000 unmarried women and widows aged IS to 44).

The number of live births that occur in a year for every 1,000 women of childbearing age (this is usually taken as 15—44 years of age). The fertility rate in the UK in 2007 (all ages) was 1.9. This represents 1.9 children per woman, down from a peak of 2.95 in 1964.

The number of births per year per 1000 women between ages 15 and 44 in a given population.