Total fertility rate of Germany 1800-2020

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. In Germany in 1800, the average woman of childbearing age would have 5.4 children over the course of their lifetime. It remained around this number until the late 1820s, when it then dropped to just under five, which was a long-term effect of the Napoleonic Period in Europe. From this point until the end of the nineteenth century, Germany's fertility rate was rather sporadic, reaching it's lowest point in 1855 with an average of 4.6 births per woman, and it's highest point in 1875 (just after the foundation of the German Empire in 1871), with an average of 5.4 live births per woman. From the beginning of the twentieth century until the end of the Second World War, Germany's fertility rate dropped from around 5 children per woman in 1900, to 1.9 in 1945. The only time where the fertility rate increased was in the inter-war years. Like other countries heavily involved in the Second World War, Germany (both East and West) experienced a Baby Boom from the late 1940s to the late 1960s, however it then dropped to it's lowest point of just 1.3 children per woman by 1995, shortly after the re-unification of Germany. In recent years, Germany's fertility rate has gradually been increasing again, and is expected to reach 1.6 in 2020, its highest rate in over forty years.

一个国家的生育率是指该国女性在其生育年限内平均生育子女的数量。在1800年的德国，育龄女性的平均生育子女数为5.4个，这一数字一直维持至1820年代后期，随后降至略低于五个，这是欧洲拿破仑时期长期影响的体现。从此时至19世纪末，德国的生育率波动不定，其最低点出现在1855年，平均每名女性生育4.6个孩子，最高点则在1875年（德国帝国于1871年成立之后），平均每名女性生育5.4个活产婴儿。从20世纪初至第二次世界大战结束，德国的生育率从1900年的每名女性平均生育5个孩子降至1945年的1.9个。唯一一次生育率上升是在两次世界大战之间。与其他深陷第二次世界大战的国家一样，德国（包括东西两部分）在1940年代末至1960年代末经历了婴儿潮，但随后生育率降至1995年的最低点，即每名女性平均生育1.3个孩子，这一数字出现在德国重新统一之后不久。近年来，德国的生育率逐渐回升，预计到2020年将达到1.6，这是四十多年来的最高生育率。