https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/falling-fertility-rates/> Demographers cite access to education as the strongest predictor of fertility rates. Oxford researcher Max Roser, for example, has documented a 40-80 percent reduction in fertility rates associated with 0 to 6 years of primary schooling. The corollary proves the point: Birth rates are dramatically higher among women with less education. In Chad, for example, women attend school for an average of just three years, and only 14 percent complete middle school.
> Similarly, critics cite abortion as a factor in declining fertility rates. But the demographic literature is decidedly mixed about any such association. To the extent that studies have documented a correlation between higher rates of abortion and lower fertility rates, the effect appears to be insubstantial.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/05/19/5-facts-a...
> Still, Africa is seeing a decline in fertility. The UN projects that its fertility rate will decline from 3.9 to 2.8 by 2050, dropping to 2.0 births per women by the end of the century. The region’s fertility has already fallen substantially from its peak of 6.7 births per woman in 1972.
African abortion laws are… not very permissive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Africa
> As of 2019, 45% of women of reproductive age in Sub-Saharan Africa live in countries with highly restrictive laws, 47% are under moderately restrictive laws, and 8% in countries where abortion is broadly legal.