Changes in Spain’s birth rate and families | Key4Communications |

As a result of the difference between deaths and births, the Spanish population decreases at the rhythm of 72 people each day, so that is why between January and June 2016, Spain lost 12.998 residents. Actually, during the first semester of this year, only 195.555 babies were born, who were not enough to counteract the figure of 208.553 deaths that took place in the same period.

Birth rate: downward trend
According to the ‘Population’s Natural Movement Statistics’, published by Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE), from where those results are deduced, births of the first six months of the year suppose a 4,6% decreasing compared to those which took place during the same period of the previous year. On its behalf, the vegetative growing was negative (12.998), even though from INE they stand out that “the first semesters of each year are characterized for having a bigger mortality and a lower birth rate.

¿How the Spanish family has changed?
INE makes every ten years an analysis of the Population and home census in order to take conclusions regarding the changes in Spanish families. In that sense, from their analysis made in 1991, 2001 and 2011, we can deduce that, far away from birth rates and the vegetative balance in our country, the family structures have been changing in Spain till being totally different from how they were 25 years ago.

The most common type of family among Spaniards in 1991 was the one made up by a couple and two kids, meanwhile currently, the most popular structure is that one made up by a couple without any kid, followed by those couples with just one boy or girl. This way, the number of big families (with three or more kids) has not stopped decreasing in the last 25 years, till the point that currently there are more families made up by a mother and a kid that those with three kids.

On its behalf, families with four kids are less common, surpassed by the homes made up by a mother and two kids or a father with one or two kids. This way, families with four kids were six times more common in 1991 than now. In that sense, experts attribute this change in birth rate and family structures to the social change, started before the economic crisis, however, financial factors have also had influence in the decreasing of births in Spain.