(13 March 2019) – In 2017, 5.075 million babies were born in the European Union, compared with 5.148 million in 2016. The total fertility rate stood at 1.59 births per woman, still below the replacement level.
On average in the EU, women who gave birth to their first child in 2017 were 29.1 years old. Over five years, the mean age has gradually increased from 28.7 in 2013 to 29.1 in 2017.
Almost 5% of births of first children in the EU in 2017 were to women aged less than 20 (teenage mothers) and around 3% to women aged 40 and over.
In 2017, France (1.90 births per woman) was the Member State with the highest total fertility rate in the EU, followed by Sweden (1.78), Ireland (1.77), Denmark (1.75) and the United Kingdom (1.74).
Conversely, the lowest fertility rates were observed in Malta (1.26 births per woman), Spain (1.31), Italy and Cyprus (both 1.32), Greece (1.35), Portugal (1.38), and Luxembourg (1.39).