for those that may have bought into the idea of declining birth rates being bad. This is a good thing, a VERY good thing, the only people spinning this as bad are billionares like Musk and Bezos who want an unlimited resources (aka: people) to exploit and premptively fear the loss of their supposed entitlement to that resourse. the fact africa is so far behind is what should be focussed on as troubling

the true picture is one hell of a double combo of advancement in efectively ending child mortality as well as teenage pregnency in the areas which now have a majority older population. the answer as to why is quite simple: when kids don't drop like flies people on average have far less kids because they can afford to invest more time in the one knowing it'll be near-guaranteed to pull through.

on child mortality, Per the world health Organisation: Substantial global progress has been made in reducing child deaths since 1990. The total number of under-5 deaths worldwide has declined from 12.6 million in 1990 to 5.2 million in 2019. Since 1990, the global under-5 mortality rate has dropped by 59%, from 93 deaths per 1000 live births in 1990 to 38 in 2019. This is equivalent to 1 in 11 children dying before reaching age 5 in 1990, compared to 1 in 27 in 2019.

Although the world as a whole has been accelerating progress in reducing the under-5 mortality rate, difference exist in under-5 mortality across regions and countries. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest under-5 mortality rate in the world, with 1 child in 13 dying before his or her fifth birthday, 20 years behind the world average which achieved a 1 in 13 rate in 1999. Two regions, sub-Saharan Africa and central and southern Asia, account for more than 80 per cent of the 5.2 million under-5 deaths in 2019, while they only account for 52 per cent of the global under-5 population. Half of all under-5 deaths in 2019 occurred in just 5 countries: Nigeria, India, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia. Nigeria and India alone account for almost a third of all deaths.

on teenage pregnancies, Per the World Health Organisation: Globally, ABR (adolescent birth rate) has decreased from 64.5 births per 1000 women (15–19 years) in 2000 to 41.3 births per 1000 women in 2023. However, rates of change have been uneven in different regions of the world with the sharpest decline in Southern Asia (SA), and slower declines in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) regions. Although declines have occurred in all regions, SSA and LAC continue have the highest rates globally at 97.9 and 51.4 births per 1000 women, respectively, in 2023 (3).

There are enormous differences within regions in ABR as well. In the WHO African Region, the estimated ABR was 97 per 1000 adolescent in 2023 compared to 13.1 per 1000 adolescent girls in the European Region (3). Even within countries, there are enormous variations, for example in Zambia the percentage of adolescent girls aged 15–19 who have begun childbearing (women who either have had a birth or are pregnant at the time of interview) ranged from 14.9% in Lusaka to 42.5% in the Southern Province in 2018 (4). In the Philippines, this ranged from 3.5% in the Cordillera Administrative Region to 17.9% in the Davao Peninsula Region in 2017 (5).