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Press Release 27/05/2016

BIRTH STATISTICS. IV/2015

Births fell by 0.4% in the 4th quarter of 2015

Births fell by 2.8% in 2015 compared to the previous year

In the fourth quarter of 2015 the number of births in the Basque Country stood at 4,615, 0.4% down on the same period of the previous year, according to Eustat data.

20.7% of women who gave birth in the Basque Country in the autumn of 2015 were of foreign nationality. Only Álava saw a larger percentage, standing at 29.5%, whereas in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa 19% and 18.8% of mothers were not Spanish nationals, respectively.

Two of the three provinces saw a year-on-year decrease in the number of registered births: Gipuzkoa, with 1,493 boys and girls, saw the biggest decrease (-2.7%), followed by Álava with 770 births and a decrease of 0.3%. On the other hand, with 2,352 births, Bizkaia registered an increase of 1% in comparison with the same quarter of 2014.

More than 80% of mothers were over 30 years of age

As regards the distribution of births according the age of the mother, there continued to be a preponderance of the 30-34 year-old age group, among which 37.8% of the births took place. This group was followed by the group immediately above it (mothers aged 35-39), which accounted for 34.9% of births, whereas the 25-29 age group accounted for 12.5%. The number of mothers above the age of 40 (8.9%) exceeded those under 25 (5.9%), in both cases the number was higher than for 2014.

The age of maternity also varied according to nationality. In fact, the average age of foreign mothers was 30.8, compared to 34.1 for mothers with Spanish nationality.

The number of births from unmarried mothers exceeded 40%

Births outside marriage in the fourth quarter of 2015 accounted for 42.8% of the total, up nearly 0.6 percentage points on the number registered for the same period in 2014.

According to the order of birth, over half (52.9%) of births, or 2,440, were first-borns; 1,685 (36.5%) were born into families that already had a child, and the number of third and subsequent children stood at 490 (10.6%).

Of the total number of births in the 4th quarter of 2015, 1,603 took place in October, 1,522 in November and 1,490 in December.

In the previous year as a whole the number of births was down in all three provinces

For 2015 as a whole, the provisional birth rate reached 18,751, which is equivalent to an decrease of 543 (-2.8%) compared to data from 2014. This decrease occurred in all three territories, though it was especially notable in Bizkaia, with 415 fewer births, equivalent to -4.3%. In Álava, the decrease was 3.6% and in Gipuzkoa it was -0.2%.