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The number of babies born in the EU was at a record low last year, according to official data that underscores the seriousness of the demographic challenges in the region.
Births in the bloc’s 27 member states fell to 3,665,000 in 2023, according to figures updated last month, the lowest since comparable data were first collected in 1961.
The figure also represents a 5.5 percent drop from the total number of births in 2022 — the largest annual decline on record.
The data were compiled by Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, from the latest figures of the member states, and are contained in the periodic update of its spreadsheet.
The 2023 figure is lower than 4 million EU last year’s birth forecasts in Eurostat’s long-term population projections.
Since reaching a peak of nearly 7 million births in the mid-1960s, birth rates in the countries that now make up the EU have fallen sharply to roughly the same level as the US.
The lack of children in Europe is expected to increase pressure on public finances, as the working-age population shrinks and spending costs in areas such as healthcare and pensions rise.
Demographic experts believe the long-standing trend of Europeans having fewer babies may have been exacerbated by concerns about climate change, the pandemic and the biggest rise in inflation in a generation.
“It is possible that perceived insecurities — such as . . . job insecurity, rising costs of living and housing prices, and multiple global crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions and climate change — could negatively impact individual reproductive decisions,” said Guangyu Zhang, UN Population Officer.
“Young people are finding it more difficult than before to establish themselves in the labor market, in the real estate market and perhaps in the dating market,” said Willem Adema, senior economist at the OECD. “That’s one part of the story that’s pretty clear.”
Maria Rita Testa, professor of demography at Luiss University in Rome, said that although many factors influenced the decision to have children, there were new reasons related to political and economic “tensions at the international level” as well as “concerns about climate change”.
While people are delaying parenthood, women in the region are giving birth at a later age.
Eurostat data published earlier this year show that the average age of women at the birth of their first child is increasing and was almost 30 years in 2022, compared to 28.8 years in 2013.
The proportion of births among mothers aged 40 and over has more than doubled over the past decade, rising from 2.5 per cent to 6 per cent, reflecting a delay in parenthood, with many women choosing to have children closer to the upper limit of reproductive age. range, which the UN defines as ending at age 49.
The trend for people to have fewer children is most acutely visible in Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland, Finland and the Baltic states — where births have fallen by at least a quarter in the past decade.
Adema said governments should prepare for a future of low fertility and consider steps to boost immigration, productivity and labor force participation levels, particularly among women.
Testa urged governments to support young people, calling for “an approach that helps young men and women in several life domains: education, the labor market, mental health and access to affordable housing.”
Data visualization by Will Crofton in London
