The number of births in Germany has fallen by almost 13% in two years: while 795,500 children were born in 2021, there will be only 693,000 in 2023, notes the German economic institute Ifo, in an article published this Wednesday, October 23. The decline is particularly marked in the east of the country, with a drop in the number of newborns of 17.5%. Among the explanations noted by the author, a drop in the number of women of childbearing age, but also the health crisis, the war in Ukraine and inflation, which would have pushed families to delay their plans to have children.
Demographic explanations
The birth rate in Germany increased in 2023 to 1.35 children per woman, while it was 1.58 in 2021. In the East as in the West, the sharp decrease in the number of women aged 27 to 36 years old, who represent about two thirds of all children born, is partly responsible for this development.
Birth planning is another factor: a slight increase in births (29,000 more children than expected) was observed in 2021, after the confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, in Germany, the birth gap for the second child is 3.1 years, and 3.6 years for a third child. “Women who had a child in 2021 have therefore generally not yet given birth to another child in 2022 or 2023,” points out Joachim Ragnitz, the author of the study from the Ifo institute. Consequently, the number of births in 2022 and 2023 remained below what was expected (21,000 fewer children than expected in 2022 and 56,000 fewer in 2023).
A situation marked by crises
“However, this cannot fully explain the current decline in births, because in total, 48,000 fewer children than would have been expected were born in Germany between 2021 and 2023,” continues Joachim Ragnitz of the institute Ifo. The explanations are also circumstantial. “It is clear that the Covid crisis, the outbreak of war in Ukraine and the loss of real income due to high inflation have pushed many young families to postpone their plans to have children.”
The number of women of childbearing age in Germany has recently increased slightly, mainly due to the influx of Ukrainian war refugees. Between 2021 and 2023, the number of foreign women of childbearing age increased by almost 500,000, while that of German women in the same age group decreased by more than 100,000. But most women Ukrainian women arrived without their partner, which did not lead to an equivalent increase in total births in Germany, notes Ifo.
In addition, young people feel greater insecurity, and rising inflation “has led to a fall in real incomes in Germany, so that some couples have undoubtedly postponed their desire to have children for material reasons.”
A clearer decline in the East for several years
“The disproportionate decline in the Eastern Länder (-17.5%) is particularly striking,” notes Joachim Ragnitz. According to him, this development is part of a trend since 2016, “while in the Western Länder, the number of births remained approximately constant from 2015 to 2020.” While the number of women of childbearing age increased significantly in western Germany between 2011 and 2023, it decreased by almost 10% in eastern Germany. In addition to the causes already mentioned, the author highlights the historical factor: in East Germany, unification led to a deficit of 92,000 births between 1990 and 1994, “which, associated with the emigration of 1990s and 2000s, has resulted since around 2015 in an ever-lower number of potential mothers.
Finally, Ifo notes that “it remains to be seen whether the uncertainties linked to the crisis fade to give way to a further rise in birth rates”, or whether this is a lasting reversal of trends. According to the first birth figures available for 2024, the institute does not see, for the moment, a recovery in the number of births.