EU saw record drop in births in 2023: data

The number of babies born in the EU was down 5.4 percent to 3.67 million in 2023, the largest drop in decades, official data showed Friday, underscoring the bloc's demographic issues.

The fertility rate across the EU's 27 countries stood at 1.38 live births per woman, down from 1.46 in 2022 and well below the "replacement level" of 2.1, at which a population is stable.

"This is the largest annual decline recorded since 1961", the first year for which EU-wide aggregate data is available, the bloc's statistical agency, Eurostat, said of the drop in births.

Births have steadily declined in Europe since the mid-1960s, recording only modest occasional recoveries over the past 20 years, according to the EU statistical agency.

As a consequence, the bloc's population is ageing fast, and some countries face labor shortages at a time where hard-right gains have pushed many governments to crack down on migration.

In 1964 a record 6.8 million children were born in the bloc, almost twice as many as in 2023, according to Eurostat.

Bulgaria reported the highest total fertility rate of 1.81 in the EU in 2023, followed by France with 1.66 and Hungary with 1.55.

At the other end of the scale was Malta, with 1.06 births per woman, trailed by Spain with 1.12 and Lithuania with 1.18.

The mean age at which women have their first child continued to rise, standing at 29.8 years, up from 28.8 in 2013, Eurostat said.

Despite registering more deaths than births, the EU's total population increased by 1.6 million to 449.2 million people in 2023, as a result of migration.