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Verónica and Víctor had been dating for seven years when they decided to go one step further in their relationship. Following a traditional logic, one might expect that what came next was a wedding, but it was not so. In return, his son Unai arrived in this world at the end of 2019.

"We don't consider it necessary to get married to have a child," Verónica explains. This statement that perhaps is not surprising in these times was a surprise not so long ago, when the courtship-wedding-son scheme prevailed, in that order.

In 1980, 93% of new mothers were married. The figure has been declining decade to decade and in 2018, the last year with available data, it is found that the standard has been reversed. There are already fewer couples who marry than those who do not, according to the analysis of birth statistics of the National Statistics Institute ( INE ).

Mercedes is seven months pregnant and is also single in the eyes of the Civil Registry. "We have not married because it means too much effort and money," he says. However, they intend to do it later "on the subject of paperwork." Precisely, Gema , who also gave birth without marrying, in 2018, had to do not only the management of registering the baby, but the request for the paternity leave of her boyfriend.

"Although I have not felt pressure, I think socially it is still rare to have single children, it seems that the right thing is to get married and that you are unprotecting the child," says Veronica. Gema, on the other hand, has been questioned: "I come from a classic family in which everyone has married and I have been the black sheep," he admits.

"My father has pressured me to marry, but in the end he resigns." In the case of Mercedes, only the grandmothers of both have been reluctant to be single, which they dare not call "social pressure."

Statistics also reflect that it is common to get married after having the first child. In fact, one in five married couples and who had a second offspring in 2018 went through the registry after having the first one. In these cases, on average, about three and a half years passed between the birth of the firstborn and the marriage.

While society becomes accustomed to the normality of having children without being married, other mental schemes continue to have great roots and act as an accelerator for the backwardness of motherhood. "Our Mediterranean vision, and above all the institutions, understands that we live in stages of life," says the professor of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the UNED, Elena Corrochano .

Taking a career and a master's degree, getting a stable job and even buying a house are established as almost obligatory tasks and to complete before considering the option of having a child.

"In the last two decades, it is more difficult for a woman of childbearing age to have a secure future," adds the professor of Contemporary History of the Autonomous University of Madrid and specializes in women's history, Pilar Díaz . "Job insecurity and the volatility of life has been more pressing," he adds.

The data confirm their conclusions: among women aged 30 to 34 who have not been mothers, 36.5% point to economic or labor and conciliation causes as an impediment, according to the INE fertility survey.

In the last 40 years, the age of mothers to have the first child has gone from 25 to 31, which also reduces the chances of having more than one. But this is not the only deadline. In the 80s, couples who got married took 22 months on average to have children. Today, this wait is 37.5 months, just over a year from then.

This change was more abrupt in the 90s, when the newlyweds already took about nine more months, on average, to be parents. Since then, time has continued to increase, although in 2018 there is even a decline in the trend with respect to 2010.

Since the relationship is formalized, couples take an average of five years to have children, according to the data available in birth statistics. This is the case for the most common ages of being a first-time mother, between 30 and 34 years old.

However, this information on the beginning of the stable relationship, which is compiled in the Statistical Birth Bulletin that the parents fill in the hospital, is not provided in most cases, so the figure is approximate.

It also extends the time between the firstborn and the second child, among those who get to have it. If before they spent an average of 42 months between one and another - three and a half years -, now the figure is 59, practically a year and a half more.

And similarly, the largest increase took place in 1990 compared to the previous decade and, since then, this period has remained more stable. This makes sense, taking into account that as maternity is increasingly late, those couples who wish to have more than one child have less time of childbearing age.

Corrochano remembers the reactions he saw 15 years ago, when he began investigating late motherhood: "You talked to older people and it seemed bad that they had children late, but now it is accepted as the most natural thing in the world."

In his opinion, as this circumstance has been naturalized, other questions must be done, such as that the races can be finished later. "We want people to have children and have them young, but we penalize the fact of being 40 years old and entering the labor world, because age is a demerit," Corrochano reflects.

"If the priority is the generational change, we have to change the mentality, market structures, times and institutions." The process, he considers, must be carried out jointly by society and not holding women accountable.

Melilla is the muncipio, among those with more than 10,000 inhabitants, which more newborns received in 2018, taking into account its population. The number of registered that year amounted to 1,340 babies, which is 15.51 per 1,000 inhabitants.

They are closely followed by Níjar ( Almería ), with a rate of 14.87, and Arroyomolinos ( Madrid ), with another of 13.98. All of them are well above the average, which amounts to eight registered per 1,000 neighbors.

On the other hand, the municipalities of Aller ( Asturias ) and Rojales ( Alicante ) were the ones with the lowest rate of newborns that year: less than four per 1,000 inhabitants.

In the two largest cities in the country, Madrid and Barcelona , the rate is similar: 8.6 and 8.2, respectively.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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