Fewer and fewer children are being born in Germany, and the number of marriages is also declining to historically low levels.

According to preliminary figures, approximately 693,000 children were born in Germany last year, marking a 6.2 percent decrease compared to the previous year, during which 738,819 births were recorded in 2022. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) in Wiesbaden announced that this drop brought the number of births to its lowest level since 2013, when fewer than 700,000 children were born.

In East Germany, the number of births in 2023 decreased by 9.2 percent compared to the previous year, dropping from 86,227 to around 78,300. This was a significantly larger decline than in West Germany, where the number of newborns decreased by 5.9 percent from 616,863 to around 581,000.

There was hardly any change in the birth order: 46.5 percent of all births were the mother’s first children, 34.8 percent were second children, and 18.7 percent were third and subsequent children. However, in a longer-term comparison from 2013 to 2023, according to Destatis, the proportion of first children’s births decreased while the proportion of third and subsequent children increased. Statisticians attribute this trend to the increased births of second and third children from mothers with foreign nationality.

Marriages are also declining to historically low levels. The number of marriages in 2023 decreased by 7.6 percent to around 361,000 compared to the previous year, during which 390,743 couples tied the knot. Following the heavily restricted year of 2021, with 357,785 marriages due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this marked the second lowest number of marriages since the time series began in 1950, as experts explained.

Out of the 361,000 marriages across Germany, approximately 351,800 were between men and women, and 9,200 were between individuals of the same sex. The decline in the number of marriages was more pronounced in Eastern Germany than in Western Germany: it dropped from 56,971 in 2022 to around 51,800 in 2023 in the former and by 7.4 percent from 321,431 to around 297,700 in the latter.

Source: NiUS

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