Press release No. 290 of 21 July 2023
- Total fertility rate drops to lowest level since 2013
- Fertility highest in Rheinland-Pfalz and Niedersachsen, lowest in Berlin
- Average age at first birth: mothers 30.4 years, fathers 33.3 years
WIESBADEN – In 2022, the number of children born in Germany was 738,819. This represented a drop of 56,673, or 7%, compared with 2021, the year with the highest number of births (795,492 newborns) since 1997. Based on final results, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that the total fertility rate in 2022 was down 8% on the previous year, falling to 1.46 children per woman, and therefore at the lowest level since 2013 (1.42 children per woman). By contrast, in 2021 fertility had risen significantly to 1.58 children per woman. Not accounting for immigration, a fertility level of around 2.1 children per woman would be needed in highly developed countries to maintain the population size of a country and avoid population decline.
Basic data and long time series are available in tables Birth statistics (12612) in the GENESIS-Online database.
