The Valencian Community registered a total of 35,545 births in 2023, which is 0.17% less than the previous year, and 47,346 deaths, 5% less, so the natural balance (births minus deaths) was negative and stood at -11,801 people.
According to data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), Spain as a whole and all the communities except Madrid and Extremadura marked negative birth records in 2023, with a decrease of 2.02% compared to the previous year and an average national daily of 882.
The monthly estimate of births that the INE has published with the data – still provisional – at the end of 2023 reveals that last year there were 322,075 births in Spain, 6,629 less than in 2022.
The number of births, points out the INE, thus continues the downward trend of the last decade, only interrupted in 2014, and which in the last ten years, since 2013, shows a decrease in the number of births of 24.12%.
Statistics also indicate that in recent years it has been observed that the decrease in the number of births has been accompanied by a delay in the age of motherhood and points out that an indicator that reflects the delay in motherhood is the number of births to mothers of 40 or more years, which has grown by 19.3% in the last 10 years.
In relative terms, while in 2013 6.8% of births were to mothers aged 40 or over, in 2023 that percentage rose to 10.7%.
By autonomous community, the number of births only increased in 2023 in Madrid (2.66%) and Extremadura (0.65%), while the greatest decrease was recorded in Castilla-La Mancha (-10.46%), in addition to in the autonomous cities of Melilla (-19.35%) and Ceuta (-11.81%).
On the other hand, the INE also published its Estimate of the number of weekly deaths, which shows that during 2023, 435,331 people died in Spain, 5.8% less than the previous year.
By age and sex, the greatest decrease in deaths in relative terms was observed in people between 85 and 89 years old, both in men (with a decrease of 11.8% compared to 2022) and in women (-9.9%).
By territory, deaths were reduced in all communities compared to 2022 and the largest decreases occurred in Aragón (-10.6%) and the Basque Country (-8.4%), as well as in Ceuta (-10.9%).
Relating both statistics, the INE advances that vegetative growth (births minus deaths) was negative in 2023 in all communities, except in Madrid (with a positive balance of 4,770 more births than deaths), Murcia (729) and the Balearic Islands (67), as well as in Melilla (250) and Ceuta (94).
The most negative natural balances were recorded in Galicia (18,701 more deaths than births), Castilla y León (-16,270) and Andalusia (-13,544).
