The National Institute of Statistics has published the provisional data of the natural movement of the population in Spain in 2008, and we found that the average number of children per woman rises to 1.46 and reaches its highest value since 1990. It also highlights that one in five births were foreign mothers.
However, the data regarding previous years are not so different, it is still difficult for women and couples to decide to have children.
In figures, we have that during 2008 there were 518,967 births, 26,440 more than those registered in the previous year. The gross birth rate (which reflects the number of births per 1,000 inhabitants) was 11.38.
Of the total births in 2008, one in five was from foreign mothers (20.7%). The total number of births of foreign mothers reached 107,475, with an increase of 15.0% over the previous year.
As we see, the weight of the increase is carried by foreign women. The highest birth rates were recorded in the autonomous cities of Melilla (20.87) and Ceuta (20.80), following previous trends, and in the autonomous region of Murcia (13.56).
With respect to the European Union, the countries with a higher fertility indicator are Ireland (2 children on average), France and Sweden, according to Eurostat data for 2007.
Difficult family and work conciliation, the economic crisis, the delay of motherhood ... are some of the factors that affect these low birth rates, although perhaps this small rise is an unstoppable trend. We will be attentive to the next data.
