Alejandra Olcese
Updated Wednesday, February 21, 2024-09:55
Comparison The demographic challenge: Spain loses 140 natives every day and gains 1,661 foreigners
The number of
births in Spain in 2023
stood at
322,075
, 2% less than the previous year and the
lowest figure
since the historical series of the National Statistics Institute (INE) began
in 1941.
According to provisional data published this Wednesday by that organization, births
have fallen by 24.1% in the last decade
(424,440 children were born in 2013) and in 2023 they suffered a decrease of 6,629 compared to the previous year.
By age, more births occur in the country
among mothers aged 40
or over (10.7% of the total) than among women
under 25 years of age
(9.4%). Ten years ago the former represented 6.8% and the latter 9.6%, which demonstrates a change in trend.
Compared to this volume of births, the number of
deaths
in 2023 stood at
435,331,
5.8% less
than in 2022 or 26,623 fewer deaths. By age, deaths only increased in children under 4 years of age, 1.7% year-on-year, going from 1,098 to 1,117.
This evolution of births and deaths left a
vegetative growth of the population
(which occurs naturally, without taking into account the effect of migrations) with a negative balance, which means that the population
was reduced by 113,256 people
for lack of knowing the effect of migrant arrivals and departures.
This is a lower population drop than that registered in 2022 (-133,250), but
much higher than that registered in the years prior to the pandemic
: in 2019 the natural balance was -57,355; in 2018, -54,326, and in 2017, -30,772.
By region, the number of births only increased in 2023 in the
Community of Madrid
(+2.7%) and
Extremadura
(+0.6%). The largest decreases were recorded in the autonomous cities of Melilla (-19.4%) and Ceuta (-11.8%), and in Castilla-La Mancha (-10.5%).
Regarding deaths, they were reduced in all regions compared to 2022. The largest decreases occurred in the autonomous city of Ceuta (-10.9%), Aragón (-10.6%) and the Basque Country (-8. 4%).
With this, all regions except Madrid, Murcia, the Balearic Islands, Ceuta and Melilla had
negative balances
in their vegetative growth. The most accused occurred in Galicia (-18,701), Castilla y León (-16,270) and Andalusia (-13,544).