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Press Release 22/05/2017

BIRTH STATISTICS. IV/2016

Births fell by 6.3% in the 4th quarter of 2016

The variation in the number of births in 2016 was also negative, falling by 3.4%

In the fourth quarter of 2016 the number of births in the Basque Country stood at 4,360, 6.3% down on the same period of the previous year, according to Eustat data.

22.2% of women who gave birth in the Basque Country in the autumn of 2016 were of foreign nationality. Only Álava saw a larger percentage, standing at 32.3%, whereas in Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia 20.6% and 19.7% of mothers were not Spanish nationals, respectively.

All provinces saw a year-on-year decrease in the number of registered births: Gipuzkoa, with 1,389 boys and girls, experienced the steepest decline (-8.3%); Bizkaia and Álava, with 2,199 and 772 births, respectively, posted downturns of 6.8% and 1%, all in comparison to the same quarter of 2015.

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 36.5% 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 13.1%. The number of mothers above the age of 40 (10.1%) exceeded those under 25 (5.4%).

The age of maternity also varied according to nationality. In fact, the average age of foreign mothers was 31, compared to 34.2 for mothers with Spanish nationality.

The percentage of births from unmarried mothers was 45%

Births outside marriage in the fourth quarter of 2016 accounted for 45% of the total, up nearly 2.1 percentage points on the number registered for the same period in 2015.

According to the order of birth, over half (51.9%) of births, or 2,265, were first-borns; 1,610 (36.9%) were born into families that already had a child, and the number of third and subsequent children stood at 485 (11.1%).

Of the total number of births in the 4th quarter of 2016, 1,604 took place in October, 1,373 in November and 1,383 in December.

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

Looking at 2016 as a whole, the provisional birth rate reached 18,204, which is equivalent to an decrease of 647 (-3.4%) compared to data from 2015. This decrease occurred in all three territories, though it was especially notable in Gipuzkoa, with 378 fewer births, equivalent to -5.9%. In Álava, the decrease was 2.7% (86 fewer births) and in Bizkaia it was 2.0% (183 fewer births).