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Press Release 07/12/2020

INDICATORS FOR ANALYSING DEMOGRAPHIC PHENOMENA. 2019

The life expectancy of men and women in the Basque Country reached its historic high in 2019

The life expectancy of women exceeded that of the European Union as a whole by almost 3 years

According to Eustat data, the results from Indicators for analysing demographic phenomena predict that a male newborn in the Basque Country will live 80.8 years and will have a 47% probability of getting married. If the newborn were female, her life expectancy would be prolonged to 86.6 years, her probability of marriage would be slightly higher than 50% and she would have only one child. In both cases, they would change their place of residence just over ten times in their lifetime.

Both men and women in the Basque Country have experienced a constant increase in their life expectancy. Compared to the indicators observed in 1976 (a life expectancy of 69.6 years for men and 76.9 years for women), life expectancy has increased by 9.7 years for women and 11.2 years for men. Men have gained 3.1 more months of life per year, reaching 80.8 years, while women enjoy 2.7 more months per year, reaching 86.6 years. The gap between the life expectancy of the two sexes has narrowed to 5.8 years, from a maximum of 8.7 years difference 25 years earlier. In any case, very few developed countries have such a high life expectancy, particularly for women.

Tumours are the main threat to the years of life expectancy. If tumours were completely eliminated, men would prolong their lives 4.4 years and women 3 years. However, external causes of death are less detrimental, taking 7 months from the lives of men and 3 months from women. These figures drop to just 1 month in the case of traffic accidents for men and a negligible amount for women.

Fertility combined a low index of births per woman and a high average maternity age

Fertility in the Basque Country was at exceptionally low levels in comparative terms, given that in 2019 the average number of children per woman was 1.3, below the 1.6 seen in the European Union and a long way from the average of 2.7 children in 1976 and the 2.1 required for generational replacement. The lowest index was in Bizkaia, with 1.2 children per woman, whereas Álava reached 1.4 and Gipuzkoa stood at 1.3.

On the basis of the data from the Indicators for analysing demographic phenomena, it was predicted that women would have an average of 0.6 first children, assuming that almost a third of women would have none; 0.5 second children; and 0.2 third or subsequent children. Saying that almost two out of ten women will give birth to a third or subsequent child represents a decrease of 80% compared to 1976.

Another fertility characteristic of Basque women was their high average maternity age, which stands at 33 years, almost 3 years above the European Union average and 4.4 years more than in 1976. The average maternity age was lower in Álava (32.6 years) than in the other two provinces, whilst in Bizkaia it stood at 33.1 years and in Gipuzkoa it was 32.9.

The average age at marriage exceeded 35 for both sexes

The percentage of first marriages according to the marriage rates for 2019 stood at 46.7% for men and 50.5% for women, meaning a large drop compared to 2001 rates, which were 56.1% and 59.5%, respectively, not to mention those of 1977 –the oldest available– which approached 100% for men and exceeded 93% for women. From the other point of view, these data meant that more than 53% of men and slightly less than half of women remained single.

An analysis of the marriage rate showed that the age for marriage continued to rise. The average age for the first marriage was 37.4 years for men (10.7 years later than in 1977) and 35.5 years for women (11.3 years later than in 1977).

As in the case of the fertility rate, a considerable number of marriages took place at specific ages. In just 6 years, between the ages of 29 and 35, 42.4% of men and 45.8% of women got married.

On average, an inhabitant of the Basque Country will emigrate just more than 3.5 times in their lives

Normally, emigration is intra-provincial. In other words, the municipality of destination is in the same province as the municipality of origin. Such is the case of more than half of the migrations (2 out of a total of 3.7 for men and out of a total of 3.6 for women). In contrast, on average men emigrated 1.5 times to destinations outside of the Basque Country, which represented 41% of the total number of emigrations, whereas women emigrated this way 1.3 times, which represented 36% of the total.

By province there was quite a pronounced difference between Bizkaia and Álava: Álava had an average number of emigrations of 2.9, whilst in Bizkaia it was 3.9 per person; Gipuzkoa stood in the middle with 3.6 emigrations. These differences were due to intra-provincial mobility, as Bizkaia had 2.3 movements, whereas in Álava it represented only 0.9. Álava stood out in terms of movements between provinces, with 0.4 per person, double those in Bizkaia (0.2); Gipuzkoa stood in the middle with 0.3.

Amongst women, as the distance covered by the emigrants increases, so does their average age. Thus, those who moved within the same Province were the youngest, 33 years, and those who emigrated outside of the Basque Country did so with an average age of 34.7. Amongst men, the youngest, with an average age of 33.7, were those who emigrated to another province, and also the oldest, 35 years, were those who moved outside of the Autonomous Region.

With regards to changes of residence within the same municipality, the men and women of Álava show the highest mobility rate, with 7 and 7.2 movements on average, respectively, a distance from Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, with averages of around 6.3 transfers per person.

If the number of emigrations are added to changes of address, both sexes will change their place of residence 10.2 times during their lives, either within their municipality or outside of it.