Analytics, Baltic, Demography, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Society

The Eurostat data shows that the Czech Republic achieved the second fastest growth of the fertility rate (+0.42), followed by Lithuania (+0.41), Slovenia (+0.36), Bulgaria (+0.32), Romania (+0.31), Sweden (0.28) and Estonia (+0.26). The sharpest drop, meanwhile, was recorded in Cyprus (-0.25), Luxembourg (-0.19) and Portugal (-0.14).

In 19 EU member states, the average number of live births per woman rose in 2015 against 2001 and in countries the fertility rate declined. In 2015, the number of live births per woman averaged at 1.58 as compared to 1.46 in 2001.

In all EU member states the fertility rate was below 2.1, the necessary minimum for sustainable reproduction. The highest fertility rates were recorded in France (1.96), Ireland (1.92), Sweden (1.85), Great Britain (1.8), Denmark (1.71), as well as Latvia, Lithuania and Belgium (1.7 in each country).

In lowest fertility rates were recorded in Portugal (1.31), Cyprus and Poland (1.32 in each country), Greece and Spain (1.3 in each country), as well as Italy (1.35). In Estonia, the average fertility rate in 2015 was consistent with the EU average - 1.58.

The total number of births across the EU rose by 0.8 percent from 2001 to 5,103,165 in 2015.

The number of births in Latvia increased by 11.4% from 2001 to 21,979. In Lithuania, the figure rose by 0.9% to 31,475 and in Estonia the number of births was up 10% to 13,907.