1.1 Total adolescent births per woman

Total adolescent births per woman is a measure of the total number of births women have on average before age 20. It is a powerful measure not only because it summarizes fertility throughout all adolescence (rather than averaging it across ages 15-19, as done with teen birth rates), but the measure is much more personal and tangible. That is, it is much easier for a non-expert to grasp that an average of 1.3 adolescent births per woman by age 20 is startlingly high, whereas it is less obvious that a teen birth rate of 170 is alarming. The total adolescent births per woman measure, as with all other measures proposed here, unless otherwise specified, is available for all cohorts of women twenty years and older at the time of the survey data collection. The analysis will produce both country-specific, regional and global trends.