The Mothers' Society

Natality

Europe's mothers between falling fertility rates and rising age at first child

Key points

Birth statistics
The Mothers' Sketch
The reasons for procrastination
Projections for the future

4' min read

Women in Europe are having fewer and fewer children. And primiparae are getting older and older. Between courses of study that take them longer, ever-increasing costs for childcare, and science that makes it possible to extend the limits of fertile age, becoming a mother is no longer what it used to be. To paint a picture of the situation, the latest Eurostat data show for the entire continent negative birth peaks, declining total fertility rates and an increase in the age of those giving birth for the first time. These are certainly not unknown trends; the direction in which these trends are heading has been more or less the same for at least sixty years. But the extremes reached are renewed once again.

Birth statistics

According to figures from the European Statistical Office, in 2023 the number of births within the Union's borders was 3.667 million. An all-time low that is accompanied by a continental fertility rate of 1.38 births per woman, another figure that has never been so low. This is the average among the 27, from Bulgaria's peak (1.81) to Malta's low point (1.06). Undeniable, in short, is the downward trend of the birth curve since the 1960s, that is, since comparable estimates have been collected: twice as many children are born today as sixty years ago. The peak recorded in '64 continues to recede: at that time there were 6.8 million European newborns.

The identikit of mothers

The average number of children per woman, although key in describing trends, only partly paints a picture of an EU population that if it grows, slightly and with clear differences between countries, it is due more to the impact of immigration than to new births.

It is useful then to ask who are the mothers in Europe. It is easy, then, to discover how certain elements unite them across the continent. The widespread tendency to have fewer children is accompanied, for example, by the continuous increase in the age of mothers. Another characteristic that makes 2023 a record year. In 2001, the average age of mothers in Europe was 29, but just over two decades later this figure has risen to 31.2. The age of women giving birth for the first time also peaks: the current average of 29.8 years has increased by exactly one year since 2013, when this specific figure began to be monitored. Looking at national statistics, in the European Union women become mothers slightly earlier in Bulgaria and Romania (at 26.9 and 27.1 years, respectively). While, at the other extreme, they are 'older' in Italy and Ireland (31.8 and 31.6 respectively).

In general, women throughout Europe are having fewer and fewer children when they are young. So much so that while for decades, since the second half of the last century, the majority of children were born to mothers under the age of 30, since the mid-1970s this number has been steadily increasing. According to the United Nations, since 2015 it is mainly the over-30s who are giving birth to the largest number of children. In fact, the highest fertility rate is in the 30-34 bracket. Moreover, today many more 40-year-olds are becoming mothers than teenagers.

The reasons for procrastination

Underlying the changes in the age of women at first childbirth or the number of children they have are multiple but often very clear reasons. On the one hand, young women spend more years studying and developing their careers. On the other, with easier access to contraception and advances in fertility treatments, women can postpone conception if they want to. And thus, in fact, better assess the timing, opportunity and actual possibility of bearing the costs associated with childbirth and childcare.

Projections for the future

At present, despite various political initiatives to reverse trends, projections for future growth in Europe point to a modest increase in fertility rates. According to the Bruegel think tank, for example, 1.6 births per woman are expected between now and 2070. This figure, however, is below the 'replacement rate' of 2.1 and forecasts a negative natural variation in the population, no longer compensated for by migration flows, especially in certain areas of the continent and in southern Europe in particular. Italy in the lead, because more than elsewhere, the causes of this evolution would also be attributable to the number of young people emigrating and the decline in birth rates among those who remain, on which the lack of effective family policies and accessible care services also weighs heavily.

However, it is not only the Mediterranean or Eastern European states that are experiencing similar developments. Despite generous family welfare programmes, trends in the Nordic countries are also downward and, according to the figures from the individual national statistical offices, the birth rate crisis in the rest of the Union is familiar. Fertility rates have in fact fallen in Sweden, from an average of 2.13 children per woman in the 1990s to a low of 1.43 in 2024. In Norway, where in ten years since 2014, mothers have gone from having almost 1.8 children each to 1.4, and primiparae from being under 29 to now being over 30. And also in Finland, where the situation has changed dramatically. Not only has the fertility rate dropped from over 1.7 in 2014, to the 1.2 reported by the latest surveys at the end of April, but over the same period the average age of first-born mothers has risen from 28.6 to 30.4.