43

Approximately 400,000 births to adolescent girls under age 15 occurred worldwide each year in the 2010s, representing a fertility rate of around 13 annual births per 10,000 girls aged 10–14. More than half of these occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, where we observe 40 annual births per 10,000 girls aged 10–14. Since the early 1970s, fertility among girls aged 10–14 has decreased sixfold worldwide. In countries of the Global South, a majority of these births occur within a union (marriage or non-marital cohabitation).