Significantly fewer children were born in Germany last year than in 2021. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden, a total of 738,819 children were born in Germany in 2022. That was 56,673 or seven percent fewer newborns than in 2021 (795,492 newborns), the busiest year since 1997.
The average number of children per woman in 2022 fell by eight percent to 1.46 children compared to the previous year. This is the lowest level in ten years; In 2013 it was 1.42 children per woman. In 2021, on the other hand, the birth rate had risen significantly to 1.58 children per woman. In order for the population of a country not to shrink – without immigration – in purely mathematical terms about 2.1 children would have to be born per woman in highly developed countries.
The combined birth rate fell in all federal states in 2022. It fell particularly sharply in Hamburg and Berlin, by ten percent each. In Bremen, the decline was weakest at four percent. The women in Rhineland-Palatinate and Lower Saxony had the highest birth rates with 1.52 children. As has been the case since 2017, the lowest birth rate among women in Berlin was 1.25 children.
The average age of mothers when their first child was born in 2022 was 30.4 years, slightly lower than in the previous year (30.5 years). The mean age of fathers when the mother gave birth to her first child remained unchanged at 33.3 years. Regardless of whether it was the first child or an additional child, the average age at birth in 2022 was 31.7 years for mothers and 34.7 for fathers.
Comparable information on the development of the total fertility rate in 2022 is currently available for some northern European countries. According to the Human Fertility Database of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, the birth rate fell by ten percent in Denmark and by nine percent in Norway and Sweden compared to the previous year. The extent is therefore comparable to that in Germany.