As Eurostat has released based on 2014 data, Spanish women are among the women who most delay motherhood in the whole of the European Union, having their first child at 30.6 years on average. They are only surpassed by the Italians, who on average, become mothers for the first time with 30.7 years.
The community average is 28.8 years old, although maternity is not only delayed in Spain, but also in countries such as Luxembourg (with 30.2 years on average) and Greece (with 30 years on average).
Middle age of the woman and her first child
A total of 5.13 million babies were born in 2014 in the EU as a whole, 68,552 more than in 2001, representing an average increase of 0.12 percent.
If we talk about younger first-time mothers, we find them in Bulgaria and Romania. There, women become a mother at 25.8 years and 26.1 years respectively, although motherhood is also well advanced in Latvia (26.3 years), Estonia (26.6 years), Poland (26.9 years ), Lithuania and Slovakia (27 in both cases).
Fertility rate in Spain
As for the fertility rate, Spain is also in line with barely 1.32 children per woman, when the average fertility of the EU is 1.58 children, which is also very low.
The funny thing is that barely up 0.08 percent in 15 years. In 2001, the Spanish fertility rate stood at 1.24 children per woman. The community average, meanwhile, rose 0.12 percent since that year.
Why is maternity increasingly delayed? The factors are very diverse and depend on each particular case, but when looking for reasons that, in general, have caused the average age of motherhood to have grown we find: economic and labor instability; the fast pace of life in which we live, which overwhelms us with just thinking about dedicating 24 hours to a baby; consumerism, which forces you to create too many needs to have a baby; the stress of the father and the mother that also has consequences on reproductive health ...
