Press Release 12/12/2024

INDICATORS FOR ANALYSING DEMOGRAPHIC PHENOMENA. 2023

The life expectancy of men and women in the Basque Country reached record highs in 2023

Fecundity was down for yet another year, dropping to 1.15 births per woman, far from the 2.1 needed for generational replacement

In 2023, life expectancy in the Basque Country reached record highs, according to Eustat data, following the decreases seen in the years marked by the pandemic (2020-2022). With regard to men, it increased by seven tenths over the last year, reaching an all-time high of 81.2 years. For women, it rose by five tenths to reach 86.6 years, equalling the maximum recorded in 2019.

Life expectancy in the Basque Country continued to be higher than in the European Union as a whole, exceeding it by 2.3 years in the case of men and 2.4 years in the case of women. Life expectancy in Spain, which was one of the highest in Europe, was one tenth lower for men and three tenths lower for women.

Both men and women in the Basque Country have seen an increase in life expectancy over the last nearly 50 years, despite the decline in the years around the pandemic (between 2020 and 2022). Compared to the data for 1976 (a life expectancy of 69.6 years for men and 76.9 years for women), life expectancy increased by 9.7 years for women and 11.6 years for men.

This is a gain of 3 months of life per year for men and 2.5 months per year for women. The greater increase in the life expectancy of men reduced the difference between male and female life expectancy, or the gender gap, to 5.4 years in 2023. The largest gap was seen in 1991 and 1994 and stood at 8.7 years.

Tumours were the main threat to years of life expectancy. If tumours were to be completely eliminated, men would prolong their lives by 3.9 years and women by 2.9 years. External causes of death, on the other hand, were less detrimental, taking 9 months from the lives of men and just over 3 months from women. These figures dropped to almost two months in the case of traffic accidents for men and a negligible amount for women.

Fecundity declined, while the average age of maternity remained high

Fecundity in the Basque Country was at exceptionally low levels in comparative terms, given that in 2023 the average number of births per woman was 1.15, five tenths less than in the previous year, and below the 1.46 seen in the European Union (latest data, 2022) and a long way from the average of 2.7 births in 1976 and the 2.1 required for generational replacement. The lowest rate was in Bizkaia, with 1.10 births per woman, while in Álava and Gipuzkoa it stood at 1.21 and 1.20, respectively.

On the basis of the data from the Indicators for analysing demographic phenomena, it was predicted that women would have an average of 0.59 first children, assuming that 41% of women would have none; 0.41 second children; and 0.15 third or subsequent children. In other words, in the latter case, fewer than two out of ten women will give birth to a third or subsequent child, representing a decrease of 81% compared to 1976.

Another characteristic of the fecundity of Basque women was their high average maternity age, which stood at 33.3 years, more than 2 years above the European Union average (31.1 in 2022) and 4.7 years more than in 1976. The average maternity age was slightly lower in Álava (32.9 years) than in the other two provinces, whilst in Bizkaia it stood at 33.4 years and in Gipuzkoa it was 33.3. The very low level of fecundity has meant that the average age at the birth of the first child was almost 7 years higher than in 1976, standing at 32.4.

The marriage rate exceeded pre-COVID-19 levels

The percentage of first marriages according to the aggregate marriage rate for 2023 stood at 48.5% for men and 51.4% for women. After the drop suffered by this indicator in 2020 and 2021, the years with the highest incidence of COVID-19, these rates exceeded the figures for 2019. It can be assumed that some of the marriages postponed in previous years took place in 2023 and that, when added to the marriages celebrated in a normal year, they led to the rates above, which surpassed the figures for 2019.

An analysis of the marriage rate showed that the average age at which people entered their first marriage in 2023 was 38.2 for men and 35.5 for women. This average age was similar to the figure seen for men in 2022, but was one year lower for women.

As in the case of fecundity, a considerable number of marriages took place at specific ages. In just 10 years, between the ages of 30 and 39, 54% of men and 53% of women got married.

On average, an inhabitant of the Basque Country will emigrate around 4 times in their life

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 emigrations (2 out of a total of 3.9 for men and 2 out of a total of 3.7 for women). In contrast, on average, men emigrated 1.7 times to destinations outside of the Basque Country, which represented 42% of the total number of emigrations, whereas women emigrated in this way 1.5 times, which represented 40% of the total.

By province, there was quite a pronounced difference in the case of men between Bizkaia and Álava: Álava had an average number of emigrations of 3.2, whilst in Bizkaia it was 4.2 per person; Gipuzkoa stood in the middle with 3.8 emigrations. These differences among men were due to intra-provincial mobility, as Bizkaia had 2.4 movements, whereas men in Álava had just 0.9 movements on average. Álava stood out in terms of movements between provinces, with 0.5 per person, double those in Bizkaia (0.2); Gipuzkoa was in the middle with 0.3. Women had the same ratios, but with lower rates.

Among women, those who emigrated outside of the Basque Country were the oldest, at 35.0 years of age on average, and those who moved within the same province did so with an average age of 33.7, while the youngest, at 32.8 years old on average, moved to another province. Among men, those who emigrated outside of the Autonomous Region continued to be the oldest at 35.7 years old, and the youngest were those who moved between the provinces, at 33.6 years old, 7 months younger than those who moved within their province.

With regard to changes of residence within the same municipality, the men and women of Álava showed the highest mobility rate, with 4.7 on average for both men and women, some way ahead of Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, with averages of around 4 moves per person.

For further information:

Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Basque Statistics Institute C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-GasteizPress service: servicioprensa@eustat.es Tel.: 945 01 75 62