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Twenty-five per cent of women born in the 1970s will not become mothers, and the percentage looks higher for subsequent generations. EP
Birth rate in Malaga province slumps lower than ever
Society

Birth rate in Malaga province slumps lower than ever

The baby boom of previous generations has gone 'baby bust' for several reasons: housing, job insecurity and problems finding a steady partner all complicate motherhood and parenthood in modern times

Cristina Vallejo

Friday, 19 July 2024, 12:24

The reasons women give for not having children or for delaying the moment of bringing offspring into the world change over the years. Luis Ayuso, Professor of Sociology at the University of Malaga, has a list of them.

From the ages of 19 to 29 the main reason is that women this age see themselves as too young to be mothers. Between the ages of 30 and 34, the reasons that dominate are more materialistic such as they do not have the working and economic conditions to face motherhood.

As for those aged 35 to 39, the reasons revolve around the problem of finding a stable partner with whom to form a family. Women today typically have more educational qualifications, but they repeat the pattern followed by their mothers and grandmothers by looking for men with higher levels of education than their own achievements, and this is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain.

Finally, from the age of 39 onwards, the main reason for not having children is, of course, the physiological aspect because, in the end, biology is what rules and if, for one reason or another, motherhood is delayed, it becomes increasingly difficult to fall pregnant.

This combination of circumstances leads to the coincidence of two phenomena described by Juan José Natera, Professor of Human Geography at the University of Malaga. On the one hand there is a macro-trend, the general decline in fertility rates due to the build-up of several causes: women extending their formative years to enter good careers, more job insecurity, the housing problem (astronomical rent prices, trouble securing a mortgage, housing shortages) which delays the age they leave the nest, a marriage market contaminated by the mentality of rapid consumption, and lastly the idea that having a child has become a luxury, a cost that is also associated with the loss of freedom.

As a result of the above, Natera claims the situation is further compounded by the delay in the average age of women giving birth to their first child and an increase in the proportion of births to women aged 40 and over. "The macro-trend is that there are fewer and fewer children being born, but also an increase in the average age at which a woman has her first child, after all, who has children? Those who can, the women who are more settled down, something that is achieved at increasingly later ages."

Prof Ayuso agrees but makes it clear that, although the desire to have children has decreased, Spain is still a country where people want to have children. In any case, it is estimated that 25% of women born in the 1970s will not become mothers, a percentage that will increase in subsequent generations, according to a study by the Centre for Demographic Studies.

25% of women born in the 1970s

will not be mothers and it is expected that this percentage could reach 30% in later generations.

Malaga province has seen 4,718 births in the first five months of 2024, according to figures from the National Statistics Institute (INE). These are just a few more than the 4,698 recorded for the same period last year, but this represents a drop of close to 25% on 2014 data when nearly 6,200 children were born in Malaga in those same five months. While this is the case for the numbers overall, births to mothers aged 40 and over are 15% higher than they were ten years ago. Between January and May 2014 there were 398, while in 2024 they are up to 460.

Looking at a whole year of births, for which the latest data can only be from 2023, the trend is the same: 1,187 births to mothers aged 40 and over were 15% higher than the 1,026 in 2014, while the total birth rate was 24% lower in 2023 than in 2014 (from 15,671 down to 11,185 - the lowest ever).

The birth rate rises or stays the same only among the over-40s

So far in 2024 the birth rate has fallen among mothers from all age groups when compared to 2014 figures, with the exception of the over-40s. For women aged 40-44 it has risen from 366 to 426 births; for those aged 45-49 it has remained the same at 31 births; and for those aged 50 and over it has risen from one to three.

Ayuso uncovers yet another reason for the falling birth rate that should not be overlooked, namely that the population of potential mothers is becoming smaller and smaller. The birth rate was already very low in the 1990s, which is now the age group that is having children. This is also the reason why, if we look at only the last couple of years, we discover that births to mothers over forty are beginning to fall: between January and May 2022 there were 543, a year later 473, and in 2024, 460 to date. In the whole of 2023 there were 1,187 compared with 2,265 in 2022, which was a record-breaking year.

11,885 births

in Malaga province in 2023, a figure that contrasts starkly with the 14,117 deaths registered. The population is only increasing in Malaga due to the influx of people from other Spanish provinces and migrants from other countries.

Natera, in view of these figures, sums it up as follows: "The birth rate of mothers over the age of 40 barely accounts for 10% of the total - 460 births out of the total of 4,718 so far this year - which means that 90% of births are to women under this age."

Therefore, more than the age distribution of fertility, what Natera warns about is the global shortage of births from those age groups. For 2023, placing the 11,200 births in the province against the 14,100 deaths, this shows a negative population growth. Were it not for immigration and the ability to attract people from other parts of Spain, the population of Malaga would be far from growing.

It is predicted that, in less than a decade, Malaga province's population will exceed two million people, surpassing that of Seville. However, if this falling birth rate continues on a downward spiral, says Natera, Malaga would shrink and could become depopulated in seven generations.

This trend that is the complete opposite to a baby boom in Malaga applies to Spain in general too, because the figures for the fall in births nationwide are similar to those for Malaga province.

Ayuso makes it clear that this issue is not going to be resolved by delaying motherhood, nor by science and technology progressing in such a way that it is easier to become a mother after the age of forty.

This, says the sociologist, is a challenge for younger people, which must be tackled with well-founded policies on employment, housing and so on. He himself recounts the problems he has had in recruiting researchers to the University of Malaga due to the high cost of renting in the city, which leads many to prefer Granada.

He also believes those policies should extend to the social constructs around family and the idea of having a child, which includes getting rid of the negative connotations that he feels motherhood and family have acquired in recent times.

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