Definitions

# birth rate

[burth-reyt]
birth rate: see vital statistics.

Crude birth rate is the natality or childbirths per 1,000 people per year.

It can be represented by $CBR = frac\left\{n\right\}\left\{p\right\}\left\{1000\right\}$ where n is the number of childbirths in that year, and p is the current population. This figure is combined with the crude death rate to produce the rate of natural population growth (natural in that it does not take into account net migration).

As of 2007, the average birth rate for the whole world is 20.3 per year per 1000 total population, which for a world population of 6.6 billion comes to 134 million babies per year.

Another indicator of fertility is frequently used: the total fertility rate — average number of children born to each woman over the course of her life. In general, the total fertility rate is a better indicator of (current) fertility rates because unlike the crude birth rate it is not affected by the age distribution of the population.

Fertility rates tend to be higher in less economically developed countries and lower in more economically developed countries.

The birth rate is an item of concern and policy for a number of national governments. Some, including those of Italy and Malaysia, seek to increase the national birth rate using measures such as financial incentives or provision of support services to new mothers. Conversely, others aim to reduce the birth rate. For example, the government of China has adopted a mandatory One child policy, while non-coercive measures such as improved information about and availability of birth control have achieved similar results in countries such as Iran

## Other methods of measuring birth rate

• Total number of births

General fertility rate (GFR) – This measures the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 or 15 to 49.

• Standardised birth rate (SBR) – This compares the age-sex structure to a hypothetical standard population.
• Total fertility rate (TFR) – The mean number of children a woman is expected to bear during her child-bearing years. It is also independent of the age-sex structure of the population.

## Factors affecting birth rate

• Pro-natalist policies and Antinatalist policies from government
• Existing age-sex structure
• Availability of family planning services
• Social and religious beliefs - especially in relation to contraception and abortion
• Female literacy levels
• Economic prosperity (although in theory when the economy is doing well families can afford to have more children in practice the higher the economic prosperity the lower the birth rate).
• Poverty levels – children can be seen as an economic resource in developing countries as they can earn money.
• Infant Mortality Rate – a family may have more children if a country's IMR is high as it is likely some of those children will die.
• Urbanization
• Typical age of marriage
• Pension availability
• Conflict