873 babies are born every day in all of Spain, half the number of half a century ago

In the first three months of the year they were born in Spain 78,535 boys and girlsonly 873 per day on average, which is the second lowest figure since there is data, only slightly surpassed by that of the same period of 2021, in the midst of a pandemic, according to the latest INE monthly birth statistics. .

Data from the National Statistics Institute show that 2016 was the last year in which more than 100,000 babies were born in Spain During the first quarter of the year and 2017, the last one in which a thousand daily births were exceeded in that period, figures that continued to drop until the arrival of the covid and that sank during the pandemic without so far having recovered.

If in 2016 100,432 boys and girls were born between January and March, 1,104 on average per day, and in 2017 it dropped to 94,894 and 1,054, respectively, by 2020, in the last first quarter in which babies conceived before the birth of the covid will change almost everything, there were only 86,420 births or, what is the same, 950 daily on average.

Later, in the first quarter of 2021, when the boys and girls engendered in the hardest part of the pandemic were born, there were only 77,243, 858 per day on average, figures that rose very slightly in the same period of 2022 to go down again. now in 2023.

HALF THE NEWBORN THAN HALF A CENTURY AGO

The data for this year gains all its value when compared to the year in which the most births were registered in Spain in the first quarter, 1974, when 164,069 babies arrived in the world, 1,823 per day, more than double -109% more- that nowadays.

In percentages, the interannual evolution of the number of daily births in the first quarter of this and the seven preceding years was as follows: in 2017 it fell by 4.46%; in 2018 it fell to 5.26%; in 2019 the fall was reduced to 2.66%; in 2020 it moderated further to 2.34%; in 2021, already under the effects of the pandemic, 9.63% plummeted; in 2022 it recovered 3.43% and this year it once again returned to the downward path with a drop of 1.70%.

In absolute figures, the 78,535 births in the first three months of this year are 7,885 fewer than in 2020 and 21,897 fewer than in 2016. Translated into days and percentages, there are 77 fewer daily births than before the pandemic, -8 11%, and 231 less than in 2016, -20.93%.

THE EFFECTS OF THE PANDEMIC ARE STILL NOTICED

Apart from the continuous drop in the birth rate since the mid-1970s, the explanation for the fact that births have not recovered may be that the pandemic, which is barely noticeable now that it is necessary to wear a mask when going to the doctor or the pharmacy, was a tangible reality nine months ago.

For example, masks continued to be mandatory indoors until April 20, 2022 -they had been so for 700 days- and on those dates omicron rebounded with new variants that ended up creating a seventh wave, there was talk of the need for a fourth dose and the director of the health alert center of the Ministry of Health, the famous Fernando Simón, warned that the situation was "a priori favourable", but "it has not ended".

BY COMMUNITIES, ONLY ARAGÓN DODGES THE DESCENT

The negative evolution of the birth rate is common to practically all of Spain and only Aragon can boast that it has at least been maintained despite the inconveniences of the difficult health situation.

In the rest of the communities, births have continued to decline to a greater or lesser extent, with maximums in Navarra (-16.95%, measured in average daily births in the first quarter of this year in relation to the same months of 2020 ), La Rioja (-15.40%), the Basque Country (-14.48%), Castilla-La Mancha (-14.28%) and the Canary Islands (-13.32%) and minimums, below the average national, in Madrid (-1.81%), the Valencian Community (-4.68%), Extremadura (-6.63%) and Andalusia (-6.94%).

Of every 100 boys and girls currently born in Spain, approximately two thirds see the light of day in just four communities: 19 in Andalusia, 17 in Catalonia, 16 in Madrid and 11 in the Valencian Community. Of the remaining third, four are born in Galicia, Basque Country, Murcia, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León and the Canary Islands; three in Aragon and the Balearic Islands; two in Extremadura and one in Asturias, Cantabria, Navarra and La Rioja.