The data on the first quarter of 2007 from the Birth Statistics, elaborated by EUSTAT, the Basque Statistics Office, set the amount of children born in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country at 4,858, a similar amount to that obtained during the same period of the previous year. By territories, in Alava 707 children were born, 2.462 were born in Bizkaia and 1.689 were born in Gipuzkoa.

During the first quarter of 2007, in terms of birth sequence, over half of the births, 2,778 children, were first children; 1,740 children (35,8%) came to families where there already was another child. The percentage of children who were third or later children reached 7%.

As refers to the distribution of births reference to the age of the mother, there continues to be a clear preponderance of the 30-34 year-old age group, in which almost half of the births take place. This group is followed by the next oldest group aged between 35-39 years with 27.3%. The 25-29 year-old group takes the third place with 16.8%, whereas the group of mothers below 25 accounts for 6.2 % of births, whereas mothers above 40 years old only contributes with 5% of the total of births.

The number of single mothers increases

Births out of wedlock account for 26.7% of the total, 2 points above the index registered over the first quarter of 2006. Gipuzkoa, with 25.4%, was the only territory with results below the whole of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. The age of maternity in this group is below that of the whole of the mothers who have had children, as 16.5% of unmarried mothers were below 25 years of age.

Table 1. Live born in the A.C. of Euskadi. Comparative table

Graph 1: Monthly movement of births