Crude birth rate of Yemen 1925-2020

In 1925, the crude birth rate of Yemen was 47.4 births per thousand people, meaning that just under five percent of the population would be born in that year. This figure would rise steadily throughout the 1900s, most notably so following reforms by Imam Ahmed in the 1950s, which opened up the country and its economy following a long period of isolationism. As a result, the crude birth rate would rise from approximately fifty births per thousand people in 1950, to over 56 births per thousand by the mid-1970s; between the 1960s and 1990s, Yemen had the second highest crude birth rate in the world, after Niger, and the highest fertility rate in the world (the highest fertility rate ever recorded). These trends have been attributed to a combination of widespread child marriages, denial of female education and turmoil caused by multiple conflicts between the partitioned Yemeni states.

Humanitarian efforts and improvements to the Yemeni healthcare system saw the country's crude birth rate drop significantly from the 1990s onward, and it has continued its decline during the ongoing Yemeni Civil War. Despite the current humanitarian crisis, in 2020, it was estimated that there were just over thirty births per thousand people in Yemen.