First-time mothers in Germany over 30 on average
Photo ANP, Koen Suyk
Central Europe
It's the first time the German average for women to have their first child has moved beyond 30. Women in Italy wait for the longest before having their first child compared to the rest of the EU.
According to 2020 data published by Germany's statistics agency Destatis on Tuesday, the average of a first-time mother in Germany is now at 30.2 years, German news medium Deutsche Welle writes. A decade before, women were 29 years old on average when they had their first child.
Researchers also found that only 0.8 per cent of first-time mothers in Germany were under the age of 18.
The trend in other EU-member states is the same, although the average age for first-time mothers is still under 30 in the entire European Union; EU statistics agency Eurostat puts it at 29.5 for 2020.
Italy is in the lead with 31.4 years, followed by Spain with 31.2 years and Luxembourg with 31 years as the average age of a first-time mother. Bulgaria has the youngest first-time mothers in the EU with 26.4 years, after Romania with 27.1 and Slovakia with 27.2.
Birth rate
The EU nation of some 82 million people has long been struggling to increase its national birth rate and motivate women to have children to provide enough labour for its massive economy. According to recent figures from Eurostat, in 2020, 4.07 million babies were born in the EU, marking a decrease since 2008 when 4.68 million were born. France has the highest birth rate in Europe with 1.83 live births per woman, followed by Romania (1.80), the Czech Republic (1.71), and Denmark (1.68).
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