Uploaded August 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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World worst total fertility rates ranking: which country's fertility is worst in the world? South Korea's fertility rates is worst. This video shows top 10 countries showing the lowest fertility rates from 1994 ~ 2017. To show comparison of countries' total fertility rate, we used data from OECD.

The total fertility rate (TFR), sometimes also called the fertility rate, absolute/potential natality, period total fertility rate (PTFR), or total period fertility rate (TPFR) of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime

It is obtained by summing the single-year age-specific rates at a given time.

Developed countries usually have a significantly lower fertility rate, often correlated with greater wealth, education, urbanization, or other factors. Mortality rates are low, birth control is understood and easily accessible, and costs are often deemed very high because of education, clothing, feeding, and social amenities. With wealth, contraception becomes affordable. In countries like Iran where contraception was subsidized before the economy accelerated, birth rate also rapidly declined. Further, longer periods of time spent getting higher education often mean women have children later in life. Female labor participation rate also has substantial negative impact on fertility, but not in all countries (for countries in the OECD, increased female labor participation has been associated with increased fertility).

In undeveloped countries on the other hand, families desire children for their labour and as caregivers for their parents in old age. Fertility rates are also higher due to the lack of access to contraceptives, stricter adherence to traditional religious beliefs, generally lower levels of female education, and lower rates of female employment in industry. The total fertility rate for the world has been declining very rapidly since the 1990s. Some forecasters like Sanjeev Sanyal argue that, adjusted for gender imbalances, the effective global fertility will fall below replacement rate in the 2020s. This would stabilize world population by 2050. This differs from projections by the United Nations who estimate that some growth will continue even in 2100. If the global TFR falls as much as it did from year 1995 to 2000, by 0.25 points, in 2015 to 2020, then that would result in global TFR being 2.11 by year 2020 (it was 2.36 in 2010–2015 period). 2.11 is the exact global replacement rate of humanity. However, if it falls as much as it did from 1975 to 1980, by 0.61 points (it was 4.45 TFR in 1975 and 3.84 TFR by 1980), then the global TFR would be low at 1.75 children per woman, well below replacement level, by year 2020.

This situation of wealthy countries usually having a lower fertility rate than poor countries is part of the fertility-income paradox, as the very high fertility countries are very poor, and it may seem counter-intuitive for families there to have so many children. The inverse relationship between income and fertility has been termed a demographic-economic "paradox" by the notion that greater means would enable the production of more offspring, as first suggested by demographic scholar Thomas Malthus in 1798.

South Korea's total fertility rates fall to a record low.
Total fertiliy rate of South Korea droped to 0.98 in 2018 and 0.88 in 2019 3/4.

Specialists had been suggested several causes for South Korea's lowest fertility rate:
1. Sex preference
2. Education Cost
3. Female labor force
4. Increased divorce rate