Child-Woman Ratio

The child-woman ratio is the number of young children, usually those under five, per woman of reproductive age in a population. Computed from a single census age-sex distribution, it is the simplest indirect indicator of fertility, designed for settings where birth registration is absent or unreliable. Because young children are the surviving product of recent births, their number relative to potential mothers serves as a rough proxy for the level of childbearing over the preceding few years.