Births in Spain fall again in 2021 until reaching a new historical minimum

Births continue to fall in Spain.

The 338,532 newborns last year represent the lowest figure since the records of this body began, in 1941, according to estimates by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), which are updated month by month.

A record that had already been reached in 2019 and 2020. The number continues to decline.

It is 0.6% lower than in 2020 and 5.6% compared to 2019, a period not affected by the pandemic.

Two factors come together.

The first, a sustained decrease in births for years, due to the reduction in the size of the generations of childbearing age and also the number of children per woman.

The second, the great impact of confinement on pregnancies.

Many couples decided to postpone their decision at that time and that is seen in the births, months later.

In January of last year, the drop reached 21% compared to the same month of 2020. The worst months were November and December 2020 and January and February 2021. The following ones there was a slight recovery, as they collected some of those births that had been postponed.

After the initial impact caused by the coronavirus, it returned to the expected fall.

The figures of the INE are an estimate, data that the organism is debugging month by month.

But they allow the first photograph of births to be taken in 2021 until the official ones are published, in a few months.

By autonomous communities, the greatest decreases were in La Rioja (9.2%) and Castilla y León (4.99%), and the greatest increases were in Aragón (7.3%) and Cantabria (4.45%) .

The pandemic has impacted the country's demographic trends, as was already demonstrated in 2020, when the greatest demographic crisis since the Civil War was recorded.

INE figures confirm that births continue to decline and that the greatest effect of the pandemic occurred in the first wave, when uncertainty and fear crept into homes.

“That first wave was the one that had the most impact on births.

During the rest of the year this initial drop has been compensated, with a slight increase from last March”, explains Diego Ramiro, director of the Institute of Economy, Geography and Demography of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC).

In other words, between 2020 and 2021 there were four especially negative months, but part of those bad data were offset by the rest of 2021. This explains why the figures for both years are similar.

According to the INE estimate, there were 2,103 fewer births compared to 2020. Ramiro points out that it is better to compare with 2019, a normal period:

Albert Esteve, director of the Center for Demographic Studies at the University of Barcelona, ​​affirms that it rains on wet.

“We have been in a downward trend in the number of births for a long time due, on the one hand, to the fall in fertility [number of children per woman], which is slowly going down and does not go up, and above all to the decrease in the population in fertile age.

So births will continue to fall in the coming years, until those born in the 2000s reach the age of having children, at the beginning of the 2030s", says this expert, who points out that in Spain fertility is "one of the the lowest in Europe, and in the world”.

In 2020 it stood at 1.19 children per woman.

In addition, the average age at which one has the first child is also being delayed year after year (31.2 in 2020).

They have fewer children and later each time.

"The reduction in births of babies conceived during confinement has been one of the largest in Europe," says Teresa Castro, demographer at the CSIC.

“It is logical: the suspension of assisted reproduction treatments, which normally account for around 9% of all births, was also added to the general uncertainty,” she maintains.

"After confinement, pregnancies have already resumed the same pattern as in previous years," she continues.

She acknowledges that at the beginning of the pandemic she was somewhat more pessimistic.

“We have the experience of the 2008 crisis, which was very negative for the birth rate, but now buffer measures have been applied such as the ERTE, the minimum vital income, the increase in the minimum wage… In the 2008 crisis, with the policy of austerity and cuts in public social services,

Many women had to take on the care of minors and dependents without support, which had a negative impact on the birth rate,” she explains.

"What happens now will depend on how the economy goes and what policies are adopted," she continues.

Although, given current trends, she believes that "the birth rate will continue to gradually decline."

Esteve is expectant for what may happen in the coming years.

Births will continue to fall, given the reduction in the size of the generations of childbearing age.

The key is in fertility, she believes.

“To have children, many conditions must be met.

The most immediate effect of the coronavirus was seen in people who were already very close to having offspring, who were perhaps undergoing assisted reproduction treatments and had to interrupt them, or people who, out of fear, decided to postpone their decision.

That effect is very striking in the first months, as seen in the birth figures, ”she says.

“But if the pandemic has meant that many people have not been able to find a partner with the fluidity with which they found before, emancipate themselves as they would have done, or if their working conditions have worsened... this will not be noticeable in 2021.

The medium or long-term effect on fertility will be noticed in 2022 or 2023. It will not be seen in a specific month.

It is something that will adapt to the difficulties that already existed”.

And to the trends that have been seen in the country for years.

A later emancipation, children of increasingly older mothers, families with fewer descendants.