Half the world's people live in countries where birth rates are below replacement levels - even
Nearly half the world's people live in countries where birth rates are below replacement levels. Even in southern India birth rates are below replacement.
DIRECT QUOTES FROM SOURCES:
"Current fertility levels vary markedly among countries. Today, 42 per cent of the world population lives in low-fertility countries, that is, countries where women are not having enough children to ensure that, on average, each woman is replaced by a daughter who survives to the age of procreation. Another 40 per cent lives in intermediate-fertility countries where each woman is having, on average, between 1.0 and 1.5 daughters who will survive to the age of procreation, and the remaining 18 per cent lives in high-fertility countries where women have on average more than 1.5 daughters who will survive to the age of procreation." -UN 2010 World Pop. Prospects
"According to the third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) which was carried out in 2005-6, ten states had attained fertility at or below replacement-level, covering 35 percent of the national population." - Finnish Yearbook of Pop. Research
CITATIONS:
World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. 2011. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. 19 March 2012.
Säävälä, Minna."Below replacement-level fertility in conditions of slow social and economic development: A review of the Evidence from South India." 2010. Finish Yearbook of Population Research XLV 2010, pp. 45-66. 19 March 2012.