The number of babies born in the European Union has fallen by 5.4% to 3.67 million in 2023, the biggest drop in decades, official figures show.

The fertility rate in the 27 EU countries is 1.38 live births per woman, down from 1.46 in 2022 and well below the "replacement level" of 2.1 at which the population is stable.

"This is the largest annual decline recorded since 1961" - the first year for which EU-wide aggregate data is available, the bloc's statistics agency Eurostat said of the drop in births, cited by AFP.

According to the EU statistics agency, births in Europe have been steadily declining since the mid-1960s, with only a modest periodic recovery over the past 20 years.

As a result, the bloc's population is ageing rapidly and some countries are facing labour shortages at a time when hard-right parties are forcing many governments to restrict migration.

A record 6.8 million children were born in the bloc in 1964, almost twice as many as in 2023, according to Eurostat. 

In 2023. Bulgaria reported the highest total fertility rate of 1.81 in the EU, followed by France at 1.66 and Hungary at 1.55. 

At the other end of the scale is Malta with 1.06 births per woman, followed by Spain with 1.12 and Lithuania with 1.18. 

The average age at which women give birth to their first child continues to rise and is now approaching 30 years (29.8 to be precise), up from 28.8 years a decade earlier.

Although more deaths than births have been recorded, the total EU population has increased by 1.6 million to 449.2 million in 2023 as a result of migration. | BGNES