Fertility Rate: South Africa

## What this measures

The total fertility rate of South Africa: the average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime at that year's birth rates, from the UN World Population Prospects 2024.

## Why it matters

Fertility decides whether a population grows or shrinks in the long run, and so the future size of the workforce and the burden on pension and health systems.

## How to read it

About 2.1 births per woman replaces a population in the long run where child mortality is low. Below it, a population eventually shrinks without migration. Each point is a calendar year, dated December 31.

## What it does not say

It is a period rate (one year's birth pattern), not how many children any group of women actually had. These are estimates through 2023.

## Source

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024). World Population Prospects 2024, Online Edition. https://population.un.org/wpp/ Licence: © 2024 by United Nations, made available under a Creative Commons license CC BY 3.0 IGO (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/). Palanor's copy is unchanged except where this section says otherwise. The UN revises the whole series every two years; the next revision replaces these figures back to 1950.