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More babies born to unmarried parents than ever in Spain

Spain is still viewed by some as a traditionally Catholic country where you get married before having children, but new figures show that more babies are now born to unmarried mothers than married ones for the first time on record.

Published: 23 November 2023 10:49 CET
unmarried mothers spain
The birth rate in Spain has been on a long downward trend and has reached the lowest values since 1900. Photo: JAIME REINA/AFP

More children in Spain were born to legally single mothers than married mothers in 2022, the first time this has happened since records began.

This is according to new data released by Spain’s national statistics body (INE), that shows the number of single mothers (165,062) exceeded those who were married (164,189) last year.

This is just one conclusion drawn in the study Natural Population Movement, published recently by INE, that points to a changing country in terms of population trends but also changing social attitudes in Spain.

In what was once a traditionally Catholic country that emphasised marriage, Spain is increasingly becoming a more secular place where marriage isn’t the fist choice, more children are born to single mothers, women have children later, and generally have fewer children than in the past.

The average maternity age in Spain now stands at 32.6 years, the highest figure since records began (along with 2021) while women only have 1.16 children on average, the lowest record since 1999. In fact, Spain has the second lowest birth rate in the entire EU.

According to a study by business school TBS Education-Barcelona, in Spain there are now only 7.6 births per 1,000 inhabitants, only ahead of Italy, with 7.1.

READ ALSO: The real reasons why Spaniards don’t want to have children

Though changing social attitudes do play a part, the changing model of motherhood in Spain (and more broadly at a global level) can also be explained by the incorporation of women into the labour market over time, economic pressures and a lack of resources for motherhood, as well as medical advancements making motherhood possible later in life.

Yet, counterintuitively, despite single mothers outnumbering married mums for the first time, marriages in Spain actually increased by 20.5 percent in 2022 compared to the previous year. This could be partly explained due the pandemic’s restrictions, but it also suggests that marriage is no longer viewed as a prerequisite for starting a family in Spain, and that getting married is not synonymous with having children, as it might have been in the past.

The number of marriages in Spain in 2022 was the highest in a decade, with 179,107 new couples registered.

READ ALSO – Civil union or marriage in Spain: which one is better?

The average age at which couples got married in Spain in 2022 was 39.3 years for men and 36.6 years for women, almost five years above the average age at which they have their first child.

The birth rate in Spain has been on a long downward trend and has reached the lowest values since 1900. In the last decade alone, the number of births has fallen by 27.6 percent, from 454,648 in 2021 to just 329,251 in 2022.

READ ALSO: Single parents in Spain – What benefits and aid are you eligible for?

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STATS

Spain’s population inches closer to 49 million with 900 new residents a day

Amid falling birth rates and an ageing society, foreigners are pushing the Spanish population to record highs.

Published: 10 May 2024 09:31 CEST
Spain's population inches closer to 49 million with 900 new residents a day

The Spanish population increased by almost 1000 people per day to start off the year, spurred almost entirely by the arrival of migrants.

Spain’s population increased by 82,346 people during the first quarter of 2024, a rate of a little over 900 per day on average, meaning that the total population reached 48,692,804 on April 1st, the highest figure in history.

This is according to population data recently released by Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE).

In annual terms, the total estimated population growth was 459,615 people in the last year, 0.95 percent overall, a slight slowdown after six consecutive quarters with inter-annual rates above 1 percent.

READ ALSO: Older and more diverse: What Spain’s population will be like in 50 years

These figures confirm the pre-existing trend that without the influx of immigrants, Spain’s population would be decreasing. This is largely due to the combination of an ageing population and declining birth rates. By 2035, around one in four (26.0 percent) of Spaniards are expected to be 65 or older. That figure is currently just 20.1 percent of the total population, and by 2050 it could rise to 30.4 percent.

This is compounded by the fact that fertility rate figures have all but flatlined in Spain. In 2023 Spain registered just 322,075 births, reflecting “a 2.0 percent fall on the previous year”, an INE statement said, with a spokesman confirming it was the lowest figure since records began in 1941.

Spain’s fertility rate is the second lowest in the European Union, with the latest figures from Eurostat showing there were 1.19 births per woman in 2021, compared with 1.13 in Malta and 1.25 in Italy.

A recent study by the Bank of Spain estimates that the country will need up to 25 million more immigrant workers by 2053 in order to combat demographic ageing and maintain the ratio of workers to pensioners in order to support the pension system.

READ ALSO:

During the first quarter of the year, the native Spanish population actually decreased by 3,338 while the foreign population increased by 85,684 people.

8,915,831 people, or 18.31 percent of the total population in Spain, were born in other countries.

The main nationalities of immigrants arriving in Spain were Colombian (39,200), Moroccan (26,000) and Venezuelan (22,600). In contrast, of those who left Spain in the first three months of the year, 10,000 were Spanish, 9,900 Moroccan and 8,000 Romanian.

On a regional level, in this period the population grew in 12 regions, as well as in the autonomous city of Melilla, and decreased in five regions and Ceuta.

The largest increases were in Madrid (+0.44 percent), Melilla (+0.40) and the Valencian Community (+0.36), while the population decreased in Aragón (-0.19 percent), Extremadura (-0.12), Castilla y León (-0.06 percent), Asturias (-0.05 percent), Cantabria (-0.03 percent) and Ceuta (0.02 percent).

With regards to year-on-year increases, population increased the most in the Valencian Community (+1.79 percent), Madrid (+1.72) and the Balearic Islands (+1.62) and only decreased in Extremadura, by 0.13 percent.

READ ALSO: Nearly half of Barcelona’s residents aged 20 to 39 are foreign

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