Spain is the second country in the European Union with the lowest fertility rate, equivalent to 1.31 children per woman, only ahead of Malta (1.26), according to a study by the Eurostat community statistical office on births in the EU published this Tuesday.
Also in Italy and Cyprus women have fewer children on average together with Spain and Malta, (1.32 children in each case), as well as Greece (1.35), Portugal (1.38) and Luxembourg (1.39). , well below the European average of 1.59 in 2017 compared to 1.60 the previous year.
At the opposite pole, the countries where women have the most children on average are France (1.9 per woman), followed by Sweden (1.78), Ireland (1.77), Denmark (1.75) and the United Kingdom. (1.74).
The oldest mothers
Spanish women are among those who delay maternity the longest in the European Union, having their first child at an average age of 30.9 years, according to the study with data from 2017.
Only Italian women have their first child later, with an average of 31.1 years, but they also delay maternity, especially Luxembourg, where women have their first child at 30.8 years, in Greece (30.4 months) and Ireland (30.3 years) compared to the 29.1 years on average in the EU to have the first child, the same as in France.
Women in the Netherlands (29.9 years), Cyprus (29.7), Germany and Portugal (29.6), Denmark (29.4), as well as Austria and Sweden (29.3 years on average in each case).
The youngest new mothers, on the other hand, are Bulgarians, who have their first child at an average age of 26.1, along with Romanian (26.5 years) and Latvians (26.9 years).
In the EU as a whole, there were close to 5.07 million, slightly less than in 2016 (5.15 million), 45% of whom were the first child, 36% a second child, 12.5% were a third child and 6% corresponded to the fourth child or more.
In Spain there were 391,265 births, 49.7% of which corresponded to the first child, 38.1% to the second, 9.2% to the third and barely 3% to the fourth or more.
First timers at 40 years old
Spain is the country with the most first-time mothers aged 40 or over. 7.4% of all births in 2017 in the country were to mothers aged 40 or over, ahead of Italy (7.3%) and Greece (5.6%), while, on the contrary, more first-time adolescents, under 20 years of age, in Romania (13.9%) and Bulgaria (13.8%), a percentage that falls to 3.5% in Spain.
Regarding the number of children, they only had more second children than Spanish women in Poland (40.3% of the total), Slovenia (39.5%), Greece (38.4%), Italy (38.3%), %) and Lithuania (38.3%).
Spain is among the countries where there are fewer than three children or more. Only 9.2% of births in Spain corresponded to the third child, only ahead of Bulgaria (7.9%) and Romania (9%) and 3% to the fourth child, only ahead of Portugal (3.1 %).
Ireland and Estonia are the countries with the highest percentage of births of three children (18% and 16.6%, respectively) and Finland (10.3%) and Ireland (9%) in the case of four or more.
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