AN X user, @Temitayomab has claimed that Nigeria is currently the country with the third highest birth rate in the world.
“Nigeria has the third highest birth rate in the world, currently,” she posted.
The claim has generated over 100 reposts and is viewed by over 300,000 users on X.
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CLAIM
Nigeria has the third highest birth rate in the world.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is FALSE.
According to the World Health Organization, birth rate also known as crude birth rate is the ratio between the number of live births in a population during a given year and the total mid-year population for the same year, usually multiplied by 1,000. It is often used interchangeably with fertility rate which is an average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime. It’s usually measured per 1,000 women of childbearing age (typically 15-49 years old) in a given population.
The FactCheckHub ran a search on the internet to ascertain the veracity of the claim. We could not find any recent credible data that ranked Nigeria as the third with the highest birth rate in the world. The most recent data found on the internet is the data by the US Central Intelligence Agency which ranks countries in the world according to their birth rates. The dataset, which was last updated in 2023, was also the 2023 estimates.
According to the data, the top ten (10) countries with the highest birth rate in the world are Niger (46.9), Angola (41.4), Benin (40.7), Mali (40.5), Uganda (40.3), Chad (39.9), Congo, Democratic Republic of the (39.6), Somalia (37.7), South Sudan (37.1), Mozambique (36.9). Nigeria (34) was ranked 17th on the list.
Another data from World Bank ranked Niger, (45.29), Somalia, (43.56), Chad, (43.36), C.A. Republic, (42.68), DR Congo, (42.05), Mali, (41.64), Angola, (38.81) as the top seven countries with the highest birth rate in the world as of 2021. Nigeria was ranked 8th on the list. The same data was also found on Macro Trends.
Similarly, data by wisevoter, a website that provides researchers with information and tools that amplify democracy show that the ten countries with the highest birth rates are Niger, Rwanda, Nicaragua, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Belize, Dominican Republic, and Anguilla. Niger remains the country with the highest birth rate on the list with a birth rate of 59.38 per 1,000. Nigeria is ranked 75th out of the 216 nations & territories on the list, though the data didn’t specify the year the information was gathered or updated.
Further checks by The FactCheckHub show that after the post went viral, the X user admitted to not being sure of the source of her claim.
“Didn’t know the tweet was going to trend. Can’t even remember where I read it. But in short – we gotta stop having so many babies,” she said.
THE VERDICT
The claim that Nigeria is the third country with the highest birth rate in the world is FALSE. Available data show that countries like Niger, Somalia, Chad, Mali and others have a higher birth rate than Nigeria.
Nurudeen Akewushola is a fact-checker with FactCheckHub. He has authored several fact checks which have contributed to the fight against information disorder. You can reach him via [email protected] and @NurudeenAkewus1 via Twitter.
