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Press Release 12/09/2014

BIRTH STATISTICS OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY (ENAC) I/2014

Births in the Basque Country rose by 2.2% in the first quarter of 2014

41.3% of mothers were aged 35 or over and 38.8% of births were outside marriage

In the first quarter of 2014 the number of births in the Basque Country stood at 4,708, which was an increase of 2.2% compared to the same quarter of the previous year, according to Eustat data. The number of births rose in the three provinces but to different degrees: in Álava the rise was 8.4%, in Gipuzkoa, 1.4% and in Bizkaia, 0.8%. Specifically, in Álava 803 girls and boys were born, 1,542 were born in Gipuzkoa and 2,363 in Bizkaia.

In the distribution of births according to the age of the mother, there continued to be a clear preponderance of the 30-34 year-old age group, in which 39.1% of births took place. This group was followed by the group immediately above it (mothers aged 35-39), which accounted for 33.3% and was ahead of the 25-29 age group, which accounted for 13.6%.

With regards to the same quarter of 2013, the number of women who became mothers aged 40 or over rose, going from 343 in 2013 to 377 in 2014. The births from these women made up 8% of the total, exceeding the 6% of births produced by mothers younger than 25.

Births outside marriage accounted for 38.8% of the total, a figure 1.4 percentage points above that for the first quarter of 2013. Bizkaia, with 40%, was the only province to post higher figures than the Basque Country as a whole, whereas Gipuzkoa posted 37.6% and Álava 37.7%. The maternity age of this group was below that of the overall group of women that had children, given that 11.5% of unmarried mothers were under the age of 25.

According to the order of birth, in the first quarter of 2014 more than half, 2,522 children, were first born; 1,764 (37.5%) arrived in families that already had another son or daughter, and the percentage of third or subsequent children stood at 9%.

18.6% of mothers were foreign nationals

In 18.6% of births in the Basque Country during the first three months of 2014, the mother was a foreign national. This figure was significantly higher in Álava where it stood at 27%, against the 16.2% in Bizkaia and the 17.8% in Gipuzkoa. This was also a growth of slightly more than one percentage point with respect to the previous year.

Table 1. Live births in the Basque Country. Comparative table
Source: Eustat. Birth Statistics of the Basque Country