Spain Records Lowest Number Of Births In 20 Years
Health News
Published: 17 December 2019 13:42 CET
Updated: 17 December 2019 14:42 CET
Spain has recorded its lowest number of births since 1941 according to new figures published by the country’s National Statistics Institute (INE).
The data revealed that the number of babies born in Spain in the first six months between January and June of 2019 was 170,074, a 6.2% reduction on the same period in 2018, which saw 181,366 registered births.
In total there were 372,777 births recorded nationally in 2018, which was the lowest number in over 20 years.
Andalucia saw the largest number of registered births with 32,264, followed by Catalunya with 28,714 and Madrid with 28,352.
Experts believe that the fall can be attributed to a number of factors including a negative financial outlook for many younger couples and a decrease in population groups of childbearing age.
Another major factor is that couples now have their first child later in life, reducing the probability that they will have additional children.
Furthermore, records show that first-time mothers are getting older, in turn producing a drop in the country’s fertility rates.
The average number of children per woman has also fallen with an average of 1.26, the lowest figure since 2002 and lower than the ‘desired’ number of children on average of two.
What’s more, the number of recorded deaths has also grown with more registered deaths than births. In the first six months of the year there were 215,478 deaths meaning that Spain is fast becoming an ageing population.
Despite the reduction in births, the country’s population continues to grow due to immigration with over 47 Million registered citizens.
Data suggests that one in five (21.5%) of current births are to mothers who were not born in Spain.
You can read the full INE report here https://ine.es/en/prensa/mnp_1s2019_p_en.pdf
Image by esudroff from Pixabay
