The Czech Republic is now among the countries with the highest fertility rate in Europe. Photo credit: Freepik.
Prague, Dec 15 (CTK) – The total fertility rate, or the average number of children per woman, has been increasing in the Czech Republic for the past 10 years, and reached 1.83 in 2021, which was the highest figure since 1992, Magdalena Bastecka, from the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) demography department, told reporters today.
Last year, the Czech Republic was among the countries with the highest fertility rate in Europe, according to data that Bastecka presented at a press conference.
“The intensity of fertility was rising, and in 2021 it reached 1.83 children per mother, the highest level since 1992,” Bastecka told reporters. “According to the data from 2020, the Czech Republic was above average in Europe. As the fertility rate increased even further in 2021, it is now among the countries with the highest fertility.”
However, not all countries have released their data for last year yet, she added.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, on the contrary, the Czech Republic was one of the countries with the lowest fertility. In 1999, there were roughly 1.13 children born per woman, according to the CSU data. Demographers at the time warned that the country’s population would start dropping fast.
However, in spite of the fertility rate rise, the number of inhabitants in the Czech Republic has only been rising thanks to foreign migrants.
From the first years of this century until the economic crisis, the fertility rate was rising in the Czech Republic, reaching 1.5 children per woman in 2008. The figure then dropped, and was 1.43 in 2011. Since then, it has been increasing again. In 2018-2020, it stagnated at 1.71 children per woman, and rose last year to 1.83.
Fertility was rising in all age categories in the past ten years, except for the youngest women under 20, Bastecka said, adding that women are increasingly postponing motherhood until they are older. While in 2011, women gave birth at the age of 29.7 on average, last year, it was 30.4, Bastecka added.
Last year, women had their first child at the age of 28.8 on average, a year later than in 2011, and the second child at 31.4, six months later than ten years ago.
Almost half of babies in the Czech Republic are born to unmarried parents. Just under three-fifths of first-born children had a single mother; this figure declined for second-born and further children.
