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The term “Total fertility rate” also often abbreviated to TFR is a widely used, though somewhat misunderstood term today. The term has often been twisted and maligned in the press by reporters who have not understood the essence of the term. But what exactly is a total fertility rate? To put it in simple terms, the term “total fertility rate”, (which is a purely synthetic rate) in the average number of children a woman in a given society or culture could be expected to bear in her lifetime based on age specific birth rates, assuming that she lives till the end of her childbearing age. The total fertility rate depends on a large number of factors including social, cultural and economic factors and varies widely from country to country, and region to region. It ranges from a high of 6.6 children per woman in Niger, (the TFR there has been more than 7.0 for most of this century) to 0.90 children per woman in South Korea (both figures are estimates for 2024 by the United Nations population fund). There are of course, several variants of the basic theme. Sometimes, age group-specific fertility rates are also calculated, though this is relatively less common. Total fertility rates are computed or calculated annually for different countries, territories, or geographical areas, and mid-year estimated values are most commonly taken into consideration for this purpose. Total fertility rates may often be used to prepare population projections for a given region, and commonly low variant, medium variant, and high variant projections are also prepared....