BRATISLAVA, July 5, (WEBNOVINY) — Birth rate in Slovakia remains a low and fell again last year. According to the Statistics Office, 60 410 children were born alive in Slovakia last year. „That number is comparable to the year 1996,“ to said head of Demography and Census Section at the Statistics Office Zuzana Podmanicka. Of the newborns, 30,544 were boys and 29,866 girls, thus the proportion of boys was 50.6 percent last year. „Birth rate is at a critical value,“ she said. It reached 1.4 children last year. Simple reproduction requires a rate of 2.1, the critical value is 1.5 and 1.3 is very low birth rate. „A logical consequence of this development is that since the early 90s, Slovak women do not provide adequate reproductive substitution for themselves,“ she said. The level of substitution is currently 0.6 to 0.7 girls per woman. The share and absolute number is increasing of firstborn children, who make up almost half of newborns. In 2001, 23 000 firstborn babies were born, last year there were already 30 000. „The most basic feature is delaying motherhood to older age,“ Podmanicka said. In the 90s, the fertility curve peaked at around 22 years, now it is more close to the mother’s thirties. The postponement of motherhood is reflected in the average age at giving birth, which moves up by two to three tenths every year. In 2010, this age was 28.8 years and 27.3 years at the first birth. Most children are still born to mothers in the age group 25-29 years. The proportion of children born to mothers older than thirty, however, is rising. The negative trend in the number of children born outside marriage is constantly increasing. Last year, one-third of children were born outside marriage. These children are to a greater extent born to mothers with lower education.
The downward trend has remained with the number of abortions, as 17 218 pregnancies ended in this way last year. „This is the lowest number since legalization of artificial termination of pregnancy,“ said Podmanicka. The highest rate of abortions is in the age groups that have the highest birth rates, i.e., from 25 to 34 years — abortion index is therefore the lowest in those groups. Behavior in relation to artificial abortion is affected by marital status Of those women who have chosen to artificially terminate their pregnancy, 60 percent were single and childless. 68 percent of married and 74 percent of divorced women who opted for an abortion already had one or two children.
Data of the Statistics Office shows that around 51,000 to 54,000 people die in Slovakia each year. In 2010, about 532 more people died than in the previous year and 1,500 more than in 2001. 52 percent of those who died were men. A good thing is that life expectancy is rising, though the pace is relatively slow. Compared to 2001, it increased by 2.1 years for men and by 1.3 years for women. In 2010, life expectancy was 71.62 years for men and 78.84 years for women. Women on average live about 7.2 years longer than men, but life expectancy is rising faster for men than for women.
Among the causes of death dominate diseases of the circulatory system, cancer, external causes, respiratory diseases and diseases of the digestive system. In the long run these diagnoses are the cause of 93 percent to 94 percent of all deaths.
SITA
