Since you started reading this sentence, a few babies have been born somewhere in the world. The number is hard to picture, so let's break it down first. In this article, we'll scale world births from one second up to a whole year, look at which countries contribute the most, and talk about why the number of births has started to fall. The figures are approximate values from the UN World Population Prospects 2024.
One day in numbers
According to UN estimates, about 132 million babies are born in the world each year. Divide that by 365 and you get about 360,000 babies a day. That's about 15,000 an hour, or about 250 babies a minute. Bring it down to the second and it's about 4 babies: in the time it takes you to blink, at least one more baby has been born somewhere in the world.
| Time span | Babies born (approx.) |
|---|---|
| 1 second | 4 |
| 1 minute | 250 |
| 1 hour | 15,000 |
| 1 day | 360,000 |
| 1 year | 132 million |
These babies aren't spread evenly across countries. A handful of countries make up most of the total.
Countries with the most births
In the game's dataset, the ten countries with the highest annual births are as follows (in millions, not thousands, approximate):
| Rank | Country | Annual births (approx.) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | India | 23 million |
| 2 | China | 9 million |
| 3 | Nigeria | 7.7 million |
| 4 | Pakistan | 6.9 million |
| 5 | Indonesia | 4.5 million |
| 6 | DR Congo | 4.5 million |
| 7 | Ethiopia | 4 million |
| 8 | USA | 3.6 million |
| 9 | Bangladesh | 3.4 million |
| 10 | Brazil | 2.5 million |
India alone accounts for about 17 percent of all births in the world. The top four countries together pass 46 million, more than a third of the world total. Turkey, with about 950,000 births, is outside this list, but it sits in the middle ranks among the roughly 70 countries. The US is the only high-income country in the top ten.
One thing stands out: the country with the largest population and the country where the most babies are born aren't always the same. China led this ranking for a long time; today, because its births are falling fast, India is well ahead. In countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan and DR Congo, fertility rates are high, so birth numbers stay high.
On which days are more babies born?
Dividing the annual figure by 365 gives you the average, but births aren't spread evenly through the year. In many countries, births rise slightly in late summer and fall, while numbers drop on weekends because fewer planned deliveries take place. This seasonal swing differs from country to country and stays at the level of a few percent. That's why it makes sense to read "360,000 a day" as an average. The live counter on the page also moves at a constant rate all year round; it's not a real-time count but a visualization of this average.
Fertility rates are falling
The fertility rate shows how many children a woman has on average over her lifetime. For a population to stay stable without migration, this figure needs to be about 2.1. Looking at the countries in the dataset, the extremes are far apart.
| Lowest fertility | Children per woman | Highest fertility | Children per woman |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Korea | about 0.7 | Chad | about 6.1 |
| Hong Kong | about 0.8 | Niger | about 6.1 |
| Taiwan | about 0.9 | Somalia | about 6.1 |
| China | about 1.0 | DR Congo | about 6.1 |
| Ukraine | about 1.0 | Mali | about 5.7 |
Turkey, at about 1.5, is below replacement level. Japan is at about 1.2, Germany about 1.4, Italy about 1.2 and the US about 1.6. So in most developed and middle-income countries, fertility is now below the replacement threshold. Worldwide, the figure is falling too. The reasons for this decline include urbanization, more women in education and the workforce, falling child mortality (knowing that fewer children will be lost leads families to have fewer children) and the cost of raising children.
World population from 1950 to today
The number of births and the size of the population are different things. Population grows by the difference between births and deaths. As lifespans get longer, the population grows even if the number of births stays the same. Here's a summary of the UN data (population and annual births, in millions, approximate):
| Year | World population (millions) | Annual births (millions) |
|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 2,499 | 92 |
| 1960 | 3,019 | 104 |
| 1970 | 3,695 | 122 |
| 1980 | 4,444 | 126 |
| 1990 | 5,316 | 139 |
| 2000 | 6,149 | 134 |
| 2010 | 6,986 | 140 |
| 2020 | 7,841 | 135 |
| 2025 | 8,232 | 132 |
| 2030 (projected) | 8,546 | 131 |
From 1950 to 2025, world population rose from about 2.5 billion to 8.2 billion, growing about 3.3 times. Annual births rose from about 92 million in 1950 to around 140 million around 1990 and 2010, then slowly declined. Today the figure is about 132 million, and projections say it will fall a little further by 2030.
There's an interesting detail here: although births have come down from their peak, the population is still growing. That's because more babies are born than people die, and people are living longer. According to UN projections, this will lead world population to peak sometime in the second half of this century.
Why does the population grow while births fall?
At first glance this looks like a contradiction, but the logic is simple. Population is like a pool: births add water, deaths drain it. Even though births have dropped from 140 million to 132 million, about 60 million people die in the world each year; the difference leaves a net increase of about 70 million people. And since people live longer, less water is draining out of the pool. So even though annual births have started to decline, the population keeps growing and, according to UN projections, will only reach a peak in the second half of this century. The number of deaths is approximate and varies from source to source.
The differences between countries are huge, though. In South Korea, annual births are about 230,000 and fertility is about 0.7. At this rate, a generation later the number of children born is less than half the number of their parents. In Niger, fertility is about 6.1 and annual births are about 1.2 million; at this rate, the population multiplies in a short time. The world average sits somewhere between these two extremes and moves a little closer to replacement level every year.
How these numbers connect to the game
In Birth Lottery, these birth numbers are exactly what decides which country you're born in. When you roll the dice, each country gets a chance proportional to its annual births. Your chance of being born in India is about 20 percent among the 70 countries on the list; in Japan, about 0.6 percent. The "If you were born right now" section on the home page shows the eight most likely countries with these odds. The live counter on the page also runs at the birth rate derived from the annual figure above.
Seeing how unevenly births are distributed also shows why the birth lottery matters. If you like, head to the game and draw your own country.