Spain, at the bottom of Europe in terms of natality | Key4Communications |

‘Instituto de Política Familiar’ presented this may the report ‘Informe de Evolución de la Familia en España 2016’, in which they analyse the deterioration of the birth rates in Spain, apart from other important topics related to the family. In that sense, the study reveals that there are currently 143.423 births less than in 1980, which supposes a 25,4% fall in natality statistics .

Furthermore, the study explains that even the population increasing (approximately 9 million citizens more than in the last 35 years), and either the natality boost which suppose the foreign mothers (76.289 births in 2014) are enough in order to reach the ideal figure of births and move forward some positions in the European countries ranking.

The difficulties of reconcile family and work
With a fecundity index of 1,32 children per woman, Spain is far away from the needed level for the generational replacing (2,1) and is located at the bottom of natality queue of Europe, with Portugal, which supposes a huge inversion of the population pyramid. One of the main reasons that the study attributes to this fact is the difficulties for reconcile family and work, due to the lack of supporting measures to maternity, such as flexibility and rationalisation of schedules or reduction of work days.  

In that sense, Spain occupies the last position of the European Union in terms of help and family protection, destining only the 1,3% of its Gross Domestic Product, compared to 2,2% of the GDP which the average of the UE member states destine.

The late maternity
Those data are getting worse by the fact that, in Spain, mothers have children later every time (at the age average of 31,78). From the IPF report we can also highlight that communities such as El País Vasco, Galícia and Castilla y León are the zones in which citizens have got children in an age average of 32,4. In that sense, Spanish women are also the EU woman which decide to reach the latest to maternity, which difficulties the possibility of a birth increasing in the next years, according to the report.