Stork’s been busy in Germany

Germany

Germany recorded a bounce in the birth rate in 2016, official statistics showed yesterday, hitting a 43year high helped along by large numbers of recently arrived migrants.

About 792 131 children were born in Europe’s most populous nation in 2016, federal statistics authority Destatis said – an increase of 7% over the previous year.

While German women had about 3% more babies than in 2015, at 607 500, non-German births increased 25% to 184 660.

“The number of women from countries with traditionally higher tendency to bear children increased” following a surge in migration in 2015-16, Destatis said.

Those years saw more than a million people arrive in Germany, many from conflict hot spots in the Middle East, such as Syria.

Among German mothers, there were more women aged between 30 and 37 in 2016, and women of that age group were more likely to have children under “favourable family policy and economic conditions”, Destatis said.

Long a birth-rate laggard among European countries, the 2016 surge brought the figure in Germany to 1.59 children per woman – the highest since 1973.

France boasts the highest birth rate across Europe, at 1.92.

Women in Spain and Italy have the fewest children at 1.34.

But higher birth rates among migrant women in Germany could amplify the political aftershocks of the asylum seeker influx. –