comparing fertility rates and
populations in europe and beyond

a briefing document

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Comparing fertility rates and populations in Europe and beyond is part of a series of briefing documents on sustainable futures.
This grouping is contained within a set of documents on global concerns at abelard.org.

comparing fertility rates and populations in europe and beyond	tragedy of the commons	land conservation and food production	On housing and making living systems ecological
sustainable manufacture	GDP and other quality of life measurements	ecologically collapsing and retrenching civilisations: written sources	global warming briefing documents
pressure on water resources	power, ownership and freedom		energy briefing documents

index
comparing fertility rates and populations in Europe and beyond
comparing fertility replacement rates
calculating population replacement rates
country area comparison
on arms expenditure by nations
population density

site map

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comparing fertility rates and populations in europe and beyond

Do you know that Britain has been the source of most scientific advance, and it has spread civilisation around the world?
The United States of America, Canada, Australia, India, eastern and southern Africa, and many other places owe their administrative structure, education and language ability, industries and so on to British (English) explorers and entrepreneurs.

Do you know that virtually all the war-like countries that killed tens of millions are aging and shrinking rapidly?

comparing fertility replacement rates

population replacement fertility rates
world ranking	country	total fertility rate	world ranking	country	total fertility rate
179	Russia	1.61	201	Austria	1.43
185	China	1.55	202	Czech Republic	1.43
195	Belarus	1.47	203	Germany	1.43
196	Estonia	1.46	204	Italy	1.42
197	Cuba	1.46	205	Serbia	1.42
199	Croatia	1.45	206	Hungary	1.42
200	Bulgaria	1.44	208	Japan	1.40
Data source: CIA Factbook

As you can see, most of these countries are, or were, Socialist states.

It is little wonder that Germany is trying to get replacement population.

calculating population replacement rates

"If you're looking for fertility data, a good place to start is total fertility rate (TFR), which is the average number of children born to each woman. In 1960, women worldwide had an average of 5 children. The rate has since halved, and in 2012, women had an average of 2.5 children across all regions." [Quoted from blogs.worldbank.org]

world comparative total fertility rates

If no females died until they could no longer produce children, the total fertility replacement rate [TFR] would be very close to 2.0. (The age for the end of childbearing is generally assumed to be between 45 and 50, but there are some exceptions.)

Fertility replacement occurs at a rate of about 2.1 births per woman in most industrialised countries. Approximately 5 to 10% of females are infertile to varying degrees. As you can notice, 0.1 is 5% of 2, hence the figure of 2.1.

By example, fertility replacement in the UK is 2.075. In comparison, because of their higher mortality rates, developing countries have fertility replacement rates that range from 2.5 to 3.3. Globally, the total fertility replacement rate is 2.33 children per woman. [2003 figures]

world fertility replacement rates

country area comparison

Do you realise that Russia is the largest country on earth, more than 70 times the size of the UK! Russia still has only twice the population of the UK, while the UK produces over 50% more per capita, and therefore its people are considerably more wealthy. China still has only about one third of the standard of living in the UK.	country	area in km²	gdp per capita
	Russia	17,098,242	$24,800
	China	9,596,960	$12,900
	United Kingdom	243,610	$37,700
Data source: CIA Factbook

on arms expenditure by nations

Before World War Two, both major socialist regimes, Germany and Russia, were arming to the teeth. Here is a summary of military expenditure in 1937:

state	%age of income spent on arms	expenditure in $000,000
British Empire	5.7	1,263
France	9.1	909
Germany	23.5	909
Italy	14.5	870
Japan	28.2	1,130
U.S.A.	1.5	992
U.S.S.R.	26.4	5,026
Data source: CIA Factbook

[For more detail, see Allies - Russia and Germany.]

population density
[27 December 2013, so already out of date]

England is now more densely populated than the Netherlands.

number of people expected to be living per square kilometre in 2015 - by country
country	people per km²
England	419
Netherlands	408
Wales	258
Germany	226
Italy	205
N. Ireland	130
France	103
Spain	94
Ireland	69
Scotland	67 [2011]
Data source: CIA Factbook

England had 374 people per km² when 'New' Labour took power in 1997. They then signed Britain up to open-door policies.

And here are some other countries, their numbers provide interesting comparisons.

number of people expected to be living per square kilometre in 2015 - by country
country	people per km²
U.S.A.	32
China	141
Russia	8
India	376
Brazil	24
Australia	3
Data source: CIA Factbook

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