Total fertility rate of Spain 1850-2020

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. In the second half of the nineteenth century in Spain, the fertility rate fluctuated, but overall it had decreased from 5.1 children per woman in 1850 to 4.7 in 1905. From 1905 until 1935 the fertility decline followed a steady trajectory, falling from 4.7 to 3.5 births per woman during this time. Between 1935 and 1940, the Spanish Civil War caused the fertility rate to drop by 0.7 children per woman. The rate dropped again in the 1940s and 50s, before Spain experienced a baby boom, much like the rest of Western Europe, in the mid 1900s. Compared with the rest of Europe, Spain's baby boom was relatively small, although the population did not begin to decrease again until the late 1970s. Spain had one of the lowest fertility rates in the world at the end of the 1900s, and at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the fertility rate was at it's lowest point ever, reaching just 1.2 children per woman in 2000. This number has increased slightly in the past two decades, and is expected to be just over 1.3 in 2020.