Spain’s Birth Rate Falls by 23 Per Cent in Past Year

SPAIN’S birth rate has fallen by 23 per cent in the past year.

According to new figures, Spain’s birth rate fell by 23 per cent in the year following the beginning of the pandemic.

In December and January, 13,141 fewer births were registered than in the same period the previous year, a drop of 22.6 per cent.

Other countries in Europe have reported similar drops in birth rates.

In total, 45,054 babies were registered in December and January, according to information from 3,929 computerised civil registries in Spain, covering 93 per cent of the country’s population.

The drop follows an ongoing decrease in the number of births in Spain, with the 360,617 births in 2019 being the lowest figure since records began at the Spanish National Institute of Statistics in 1941.

Guillermo Antiñolo, director of the maternal-fetal unit at the Virgen del Rocio Hospital, in Sevills, said he had seen a 40 per cent reduction in deliveries attended in the last 12 years, from 9,000 in 2008 to just over 5,000 in 2020.

At Hospital La Paz, in Madrid, they were registered in 2020 up to 14% fewer consultations from the first three months of pregnancy.

Diego Ramiro, director of the Institute of Economics, Geography and Demography of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), said: “It will be the INE who will give the real figure, but the data agrees with what we expected and what we are seeing in other countries.”

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