The global average doesn't sound that spectacular.
Each person on earth gives birth to an average of 2.5 children.
However, that is enough to let the world population continue to grow for the time being.
Only at a value of 2.1 children per woman would the number of people on our planet stagnate.
Average values say nothing about the regionally very different conditions.
While in Germany, for example, the birth rate is only 1.5, the population in some countries in Asia and Africa is still growing rapidly, given birth rates over four.
"The front runners are the three African countries Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger," explains Professor Wolfgang Lutz, Director of the Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Global Human Capital in Vienna, "there women still have an average of up to seven children."
Kenya, on the other hand, offers a completely different picture.
“On average, only 3.5 children are born there by a woman,” says Lutz, “and this country once had the highest birth rate in the world.” What is the reason for these different developments?