Female fertility

Definition

The fertility rate, sometimes simply called the fertility, of an individual female is defined as the number of children conceived by the female.

We use the term completed fertility rate to describe the fertility for females who will not have any more children. Completed fertility may be computed for females who have died, are no longer biologically capable of conceiving, or have decided not to have any more children.

We use the term expected fertility rate to describe the sum of the number of children the female has already conceived and the number of future children the female expects to conceive.

There are many different ways of aggregating fertility across populations.