Average of 394 births per month registered in 2022
An average of 394 births per month were registered for this year, according to statistics provided by the Health Ministry to The Malta Independent.
These births were registered in the three main hospitals around the country, which are St James Hospital, the Gozo General Hospital and Mater Dei Hospital.
The average presented was for the months between January and November, while the ministry said that for the first half of December (1-15 December) 200 births had already been registered.
These figures do not show the number of stillbirths for the whole year.
When taking the average as the definite total of births for every month of 2022 and adding it up, it amounts to a total of around 4,728 births for the whole year.
When compared to a decade ago, it shows that there was an increase of almost 500 births, as in 2012 the total amount of births in the country amounted to 4,258.
Out of the same figure for 2012, there were a total of 19 stillbirths registered.
Going back another decade, the total registered births in 2002 was of 3,927, out of which 21 were stillbirths.
The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic does not appear to have affected Malta’s birth rate, with the Health Ministry stating that the average of births in 2022 was “similar to the previous years.”
However, when compared to the rest of the European Union, Malta has historically had the lowest fertility rate in the bloc. Las t year, The Malta Independent had reported how in 2019, there was an average of 1.14 births per woman recorded, which stood well below the EU average of 1.53 births.
In contrast, for the same year, France registered 1.86 live births, making it the highest total fertility rate in the EU.
In total, there were 4.17 million babies born in the European Union in 2019.
While Malta’s birth rate has risen in the last 20 years, the country - like much of Europe - suffers from an aging population, with older demographics heavily outnumbering younger ones, leading to concerns over the future sustainability of things such as the state pension system.