Births and fertility

👶 Births and fertility

How many children are born in Spain relative to its population, how many children each woman has on average, at what age, and how many are born to foreign mothers, together with the deaths that determine the natural growth of the population.

Fertility: Spain 1.1 EU 1.3OECD 1.5France 1.6Portugal 1.4Germany 1.4Italy 1.2Morocco 2.2US 1.6China 1 South Korea 0.7 children per woman · 2024 · World Bank (WDI) All countries →

Rates are calculated on the average population for the year. The total fertility rate is the average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime if that year's age-specific fertility rates remained constant; around 2.1 is needed for a population to sustain itself without migration.

Births and deaths

Since 1975 the birth rate has fallen from 18.7 to 6.5 births per 1,000 inhabitants. More people have died than been born every year since 2017.

The spike in deaths in 2020 corresponds to the COVID-19 pandemic. In absolute terms, in 2024 there were 318,005 births and 436,118 deaths among residents of Spain; the highest number of births this century was in 2008, with 519,779.

Children per woman

Fertility by nationality starts in 2002. In 2024 each woman had an average of 1.10 children, compared with 2.77 in 1975; the highest value since 1990 was 1.44 in 2008. The mean age at first child has risen from 25.3 to 31.5 years.

Based on the mother's nationality at the time of birth; a mother born abroad who already holds Spanish nationality counts as Spanish.

By autonomous community

By province

In 2024, 46 of the 52 provinces recorded more deaths than births. The birth rate ranges from 9.2 births per 1,000 inhabitants in Melilla to 4.2 in Ourense.

Sources and notes

• INE – Basic Demographic Indicators: crude birth rate (tables 1470 and 1432) and crude death rate (1482 and 1445), total fertility rate (1478 and 1441), mean age at motherhood (1581 and 1580) and births by mother's nationality (2777).
• INE – Vital Statistics: births by mother's residence (6524) and deaths by residence (6561). Final data; the latest year published is 2024.
• Natural change per 1,000 inhab. = birth rate minus death rate.

Data updated 7 minutes ago