Total Fertility Rate

The total fertility rate (TFR) is the central period measure of fertility in demography: the average number of children a woman would bear over her lifetime if she experienced, at each age, the age-specific fertility rates observed in a given year. Computed by summing age-specific fertility rates across the reproductive ages, the TFR removes the influence of population age structure and gives a single, intuitive figure — children per woman — that is comparable across populations and over time.