Fertility rate, total (births per woman) - Country Ranking - Central America & the Caribbean

Definition: Total fertility rate represents the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children in accordance with age-specific fertility rates of the specified year.

Source: (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2019 Revision. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Popu

See also: Thematic map, Time series comparison

Find indicator:
Rank Country Value Year
1 Haiti 2.84 2020
2 Guatemala 2.78 2020
3 Panama 2.42 2020
4 Honduras 2.39 2020
5 Nicaragua 2.35 2020
6 Dominican Republic 2.30 2020
7 Belize 2.25 2020
8 St. Kitts and Nevis 2.11 2002
9 Grenada 2.02 2020
10 El Salvador 2.00 2020
11 Antigua and Barbuda 1.98 2020
12 Jamaica 1.95 2020
13 Dominica 1.90 2003
14 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 1.85 2020
15 The Bahamas 1.73 2020
16 Costa Rica 1.72 2020
17 Trinidad and Tobago 1.70 2020
18 Barbados 1.63 2020
19 Cuba 1.59 2020
20 St. Lucia 1.41 2020
21 Puerto Rico 0.90 2020

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Development Relevance: Reproductive health is a state of physical and mental well-being in relation to the reproductive system and its functions and processes. Means of achieving reproductive health include education and services during pregnancy and childbirth, safe and effective contraception, and prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death and disability among women of reproductive age in developing countries.

Limitations and Exceptions: Annual data series from United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects are interpolated data from 5-year period data. Therefore they may not reflect real events as much as observed data.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Total fertility rates are based on data on registered live births from vital registration systems or, in the absence of such systems, from censuses or sample surveys. The estimated rates are generally considered reliable measures of fertility in the recent past. Where no empirical information on age-specific fertility rates is available, a model is used to estimate the share of births to adolescents. For countries without vital registration systems fertility rates are generally based on extrapolations from trends observed in censuses or surveys from earlier years.

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

General Comments: Relevance to gender indicator: it can indicate the status of women within households and a woman’s decision about the number and spacing of children.