The demographic engine of Spain It is gripped. Although we walk towards the record of inhabitants, overcoming the 49 millionthe rise is more explained by immigration than by birth. The tables Of births and vegetative balance they reveal that the winds of demographic winter continue to hit the demography. They reflect it The data launched by the INE, which among other keys leave an interesting idea: in our country more mothers’ babies are born with 40 or more years than women who do not reach 25.
We have fewer and fewer children. And later.
Demographic puncture. The photography of the INE is not a fixed image but shows in any clear a clear trend: Spain suffers a demographic puncture. Population increase is supported largely In the increase of people born abroad, not in a good vegetative balance domestic. On the contrary. That indicator, which makes the difference between births and deaths, entered last year in red numbers: it was negative, in -113,256 people, according to The tables.


Evolution of the number of births, according to the data collected by the INE.
24% less births. The graphics They are eloquent. And do not invite precisely to optimism. The INE estimates that in 2023 322,075 births were recorded in Spain, a bad fact whether compared to the historical both in the short and long term. With respect to 2022 it is a 2% setback and if you look further back, a decade ago, the fall is even more pronounced, of 24.1%. In 2013 the balance of birth was quite higher than the current one, of just over 424,400.
Mothers with more than 40 years. If there is an eloquent fact in The balance It is the one that shows how there are more and more Spanish who decide to be past mothers. Its number has increased so forcefully throughout the last decade that today there are more births between women who have reached quarantine than among those who are not 25 years old.
Retail. The tendency they give off is clear: in 2023 34,554 births of women with 40 or more years were registered compared to 30,298 associated with young people of less than 25. 2021 tableswhich allow further to decrease in detail, they reveal that during that year 7,762 lights of 25 -year -old women were scored compared to the 8,739 of those of 41.
Do not go back far back in time to find a radically opposite panorama. Just a decade ago, in 2013, the number of births between women who had not yet blown the 25 candles was 40,916, well above 28,976 starring mothers who passed from 40. Today the latter are already responsible for 10, 7% of births in Spain.
Births by mother’s age |
2013 |
2023 |
---|---|---|
Total |
424,440 (100%) |
322,075 (100%) |
Less than 25 years |
40,916 (9.6%) |
30,298 (9.4%) |
25 to 39 years |
354,548 (83.5%) |
257,224 (79.9%) |
40 and more years |
28,976 (6.8%) |
34,554 (10.7%) |
And mothers with fewer children. Another equally relevant phenomenon is that Spanish have less and less children. In 2022 women resident in Spain had on average 1.16 offspringnothing to do with 2.77 that were reached in the mid -1970s. The average age to which the Spanish became a mother was located two years ago in 33.1. Both data, together with the delivery of older ages, basically respond to the same causes: social, cultural and economic changes.
Deepening the keys. In the cocktail, cultural issues and a change of mentality and labor and vital perspectives are mixed. Also instability, which explains to a large extent that the age at which the young Spaniards have increased has increased until they are in 30.3 years on averagethe greatest of the last two decades.
With that backdrop, Albert Esteve, director of the Center for Demographic Studies and Professor of Sociology, is clear why the age at which children are postponed is postponed. “It comes because of the need that people have to form, to insert themselves into the labor market, to form a couple, to have a stable life,” points to The country. The risk: to delve into a demographic winter that already punishes other nations, Like Japan.
Images | Hollie Santos (UNSPLASH) and INE
In Xataka | The change in motherhood in Spain is summarized in a fact: 120% more pregnancies of women over 40 years
In Xataka | The slow but inexorable “Japanese” of Spain: births have fallen 50% since the Baby Boom time
*An earlier version of this article was published in February 2024
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