The number of marriages and births in 2023 fell to the lowest level since 2013, according to the Federal Statistical Office.
Dawn Staff Reporter + Dawn TV Report
Frankfurt: The total number of children born in Germany last year was at the lowest level in the last decade. Likewise, the annual number of marriages in the EU’s most populous country also fell to its lowest level in a decade.
According to the interim data released by the Federal Statistical Office, a total of 693,000 babies were born in Germany last year, and since 2013, this number has never been so low. This annual number was 6.2 percent less than in 2022 when a total of 749,000 children were born in the country.
This annual decline in the birth rate was also markedly different at the level of the eastern and western provinces of Germany. The birth rate in the new federal states that were formerly part of the East German state, or GDR, was 9.2 percent lower in 2023 than in 2022. Thus, if 86,227 children were born in the new federal provinces two years ago, this number further decreased to 78,300 last year.
According to the German Statistics Office, the number of marriages in the country last year was around 361,000. A year ago, the same number was around three hundred and ninety thousand. This last year this annual number also recorded a decrease of 7.6%.
The collection of national data on the annual number of marriages in the Federal Republic of Germany, the most populous country in the European Union, began in the 1950s. The lowest such annual number to date was seen in 2021, which was around three hundred and fifty-eight thousand.
Then the reason for this was the restrictions imposed due to the global epidemic of Coronavirus. The annual number of marriages recorded last year was the second-lowest annual number in the past 74 years.
