The number of children born in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country in the second quarter of 2007 amounted to 5.063, according to data from Eustat, the Basque Statistics Office. This was a slightly higher amount than that registered during the same period in the previous year. By territories, 751 children were born in Alava, 2562 in Bizkaia and 1750 in Gipuzkoa.

Children born out of wedlock amount to 27.1% of the total, which means an increase of almost five points with respect to the second quarter of 2006. Bizkaia, with 29.4%, was the only territory with results above those of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country as a whole. In Alava and Gipuzkoa the percentages were slightly inferior, 26.6% and 24%, respectively.

As refers to birth sequence, over half of the children, 2862, were first children in the second quarter of 2007; 1818 children (35.9%) came to families where there already was another child and the percentage of third or later children reached 7.6%. Bizkaia (40.2 %) was the only Historical Territory in which the proportion of second or later children was below that of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country as a whole, which amounted to 43,5%. On the other hand, Alava and Gipuzkoa were above that percentage, reaching 44.6% and 47.8%, respectively.

In three out of every four births mothers were above 30 years of age

As refers to the distribution of births reference to the age of the mother, there continued 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, amounting to 26.1%. The 25-29 year-old group takes the third place with 17.5%, whereas the group of mothers below 25 accounts for 6% of births, and mothers above 40 years old only contributes with 4.5% of the total of births.

Single mothers give birth when younger than the rest of women with children as a whole. 15.7% of unmarried mothers were aged below 25 and 22.7% were aged between 25 and 29 years old.

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

Graph 1: Monthly movement of births

Base 100 = average. Source: EUSTAT