I understand that many women will not have kids or will have only one kid, or that child mortality is involved but still a fertility rate of 2 means that ON AVERAGE every woman will have 2 kids. This means that every woman and man will be replaced, including the children that die young if the rate of 2 lasts (the newborn females will also have on average two kids). So why isn’t a fertility rate of 2 enough to replace the population?
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Because sometimes children die before reproductive age or simply unable or unwilling to do so. So if you always only have 2 offspring, some of them will not have time reproduce and you’ll eventually die be up with a dwindling population. It’s a rounding to .1 for simplicity, death rates/loss rates to missed reproductions differ in different populations.
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