The average age of Spanish first-time mothers has risen to 33 years old, up a full year from just a decade ago as the country faces plummeting birth rates and a demographic crisis.
Spanish women are waiting even longer to become first-time mothers than in previous years, with the average first-time mother now 33 years old according to statistics from 2021 now published by Spain’s National Institute of Statistics.
The rate is up a full year on average compared to 2011, while women from immigrant backgrounds have children at a younger age on average their average age has also increased from 28.9 to 30.7 in 2021, the newspaper El Mundo reports.
According to the newspaper, the number of women choosing to have their first child over the age of 40 has also increased by 38 per cent since 2011, with children born to women over 40 making up 10.7 per cent of births compared to 5.5 per cent in 2011.
Earlier this year, the European Union statistics agency Eurostat published figures on the average ages of women at the birth of their first child across Europe and Spain, along with Italy, had the highest average age, while Bulgaria had the lowest at 26.3 years old.
Higher average ages of first-time mothers have been accompanied in Spain by an overall decline in the country’s birthrate, with 2020, the first year of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, seeing birthrates declined by around five per cent to just 1.19 children per woman.
While Spain’s birthrates have not been at the natural replacement point of 2.1 children per woman since 1980, the country is facing a demographic crisis as the average age of residents in Spain continues to increase, with some Eurostat projections claiming some Spanish regions could have an average age of over 60 by the year 2050, the oldest in Europe.
The Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE) reported earlier this year that while Spain’s population did grow last year by around 50,000 people, the growth was entirely driven by immigration as the number of Spanish citizens fell by over 20,000.
Santiago Abascal, the leader of the populist party VOX, has called for government policies to address the country’s demographic crisis, including policies to increase the birthrate, rather than rely on mass migration.
“We want to repopulate Spain with Spaniards and we welcome anyone who comes to live with us, as long as they do so legally, asking for permission to raise Spain with us because Spain is also a welcoming country but we want the laws, our culture and our way of life to be respected,” Abascal said earlier this year.
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