Table of Contents
Definition of Birth Rate
(noun) The rate of live births in a population over a year, typically expressed per 1,000.
Birth Rate Pronunciation
Syllabification: birth rate
Audio Pronunciation
Phonetic Spelling
- American English – /bUHRth rAYt/
- British English – /bUHRth rAYt/
International Phonetic Alphabet
- American English – /bɜrθ reɪt/
- British English – /bɜːθ reɪt/
Usage Notes
- Plural: birth rates
- The birth rate is one of several rates called social statistics studied by sociologists in addition to the divorce rate, fertility rate, and mortality rate.
- Not to be confused with fertility rate.
- The birth rate is contrasted to the mortality rate.
- Variant spellings:
- birth-rate
- birthrate
- Also called natality.
Related Quotation
- “The Baby Boomers are a defining feature of American society and a touchstone for research on aging and the life course. Boomers have embodied many trends, from the sexual revolution to rising women’s workforce participation to changes in intergenerational relationships. While unique for its sheer size, the cohort is also unique for its trajectory. The Baby Boomers came of age during a period of great technological and social innovation. With important implications for family life, their aging is a testing ground for theories of cohort and generation, and it underscores the importance of research on the older population and later life. To review facts well known to sociologists, the Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. Their defining feature is the cohort’s size. Much to the surprise of demographers accustomed to the low fertility of the 1930s, the U.S. birth rate remained high for nearly 20 years before it fell to the low levels we know today” (Treas and Marcum 2011:132).
Additional Information
- Death and Dying Research Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
- Family and Kinship Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
- Quantitative Research Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
- Sex and Gender Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
- Word origin of “birth” and “rate” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
Related Terms
- cohort
- cohort effect
- cohort study
- demography
- family
- population
- population composition
- population pyramid
- research
- statistics
- study
Reference
Treas, Judith, and Chistopher Steven Marcum. 2011. “Diversity and Family Relations in an Aging Society.” Pp. 131 in Handbook of Sociology of Aging, edited by R. A. Settersten, Jr., and J. L. Angel. New York: Springer.
Works Consulted
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Wikipedia contributors. (N.d.) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. (https://en.wikipedia.org/).
Cite the Definition of Birth Rate
ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “birth rate.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved April 20, 2024 (https://sociologydictionary.org/birth-rate/).
APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)
birth rate. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/birth-rate/
Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “birth rate.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed April 20, 2024. https://sociologydictionary.org/birth-rate/.
MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)
“birth rate.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2024. <https://sociologydictionary.org/birth-rate/>.