After ten years of continuous declines in birth rates, Spain has recorded an increase in the number of births in 2024 compared to the previous year. According to provisional figures published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), 322,034 babies were born last year, representing an increase of 0.43%.

Although this increase is hopeful, the birth figures are still worrying. In 2024, almost one hundred thousand fewer children were born than in 2014, a difference of 24.7%. In addition, 439,146 people died, 0.7% more than in 2023. This translates into 114,937 more deaths than births, marking the eighth consecutive year with a negative population balance.

The INE report also highlights that it is becoming more common for women to delay motherhood, which is reflected in an increase in the number of babies born to mothers aged 40 or older. In the last ten years, this figure has grown by 8.5%. While in 2014 only 7.2% of births corresponded to mothers aged 40 or older, in 2024, that percentage rose to 10.4%. The change in this trend was evident last year, as there were more births to mothers between 40 and 44 years old than to mothers between 20 and 24 years old. Even so, the majority of births continue to be concentrated in women between 30 and 39 years old.

Births by autonomous communities

Andalusia remains the autonomous community with the highest number of births. In August 2024, 5,404 babies were born. In Andalusia, one in five children in Spain is born, representing 19% of the total. In second place is Catalonia with 4,659 births, followed by the Community of Madrid, which occupies third place with 4,623 births. The Valencian Community is in fourth place with 3,091 babies registered last year.

A change in trend?

The scientific researcher at the Institute of Economics, Geography and Demography of the CSIC, Héctor Cebolla, considers the data for 2024 to be a “potential statistical accident” that may be due to a one-off upturn derived from migrations from countries with higher fertility rates that, at first, newly arrived, have more children, but soon converge with local trends. He also believes that we cannot speak of a change in demographic trend, “because no country in the world is reversing the fall in birth rates and Spain does not have the social engineering to do so.”