Delayed maternity in Spain | Key4Communications |

Spanish women continue being the ones who delay the most their maternity in the whole Europe Union, so they get pregnant for the first time with an average of 30,6 years old, according to a EU birth rate study from Eurostat. The average age which is registered in the European Union is 28,8 years old and Spanish women are only followed by Italian, who firstly get pregnant at 30,7 average age.

In that sense, maternity is also delayed more than in the whole EU in Luxemburg (age of 30,2) and Greece (30). Contrary, we find the youngest mothers in Bulgaria and Rumania, where the first birth of a woman is on the age of 25,8 and 26,1 respectively. Moreover, the birth rate comes early also in Leetonia (26,3), Estonia (26,6), Lithuania and Slovakia (27 years old in both cases).
 
Fertility in the EU

The study, based in the European Union registered fertility statistics during 2014, ratifies that, despite Spain was the fifth country where more children were born in 2014, Spanish women don’t have many children: an average of 1,32, compared to the whole EU average (1,58). The Spanish tax has grown only 0,08% since 2001, when the country average was situated in 1,24 children per woman.

Even though, the lower fertility taxes of 2014 were registered in Portugal (1,23 children per woman), Greece (1,30) and Cyprus (1,31), meanwhile in Poland we can see the same tax as in Spain (1,32). In the other side, Italy and Slovakia register an average of 1,37 children.

According the EU calculation, the fertility tax should be around the 2,1 children per woman in order to assure the generational replace and the develop of those countries which have no immigration. Only France, with an average of two children per mother, almost reaches that tax, and countries such as Ireland (1,94), Sweden (1,88) and the United Kingdom (1,81) are also near.  

Birth rate evolution

In the whole EU a total of 5,13 million babies were born, concretely, 68.552 more than in 2001, which supposes an increasing of 0,12%. In that period, the fertility tax loss specially in Cyprus (-0,26%), Portugal (-0,22%) and Luxemburg (-0,16%). Contrary, where increased the most was in Latvia (0,43%), Cheque Republic (0,38%) and Slovenia (0,37%).

Between 2001 and 2014, Sweden was the country where the birth rate increased the most (+25,6%), followed by Cheque Republic and Slovenia (+21%). Meanwhile in Portugal it decreased –27% and in Netherlands –13,1%.