Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – In times of crisis, fewer children are usually born, but in Baden-Württemberg it was different in the “Corona year” 2021: the highest birth rate in the past 50 years was recorded, as the State Statistical Office announced on Thursday .
Around 113,500 children were born alive, around 5,500 more than in 2020. The average number of children per woman was 1.63 in 2021 – a value that had never been so high since 1972, it said.
The statistics authority has observed an increase in the average number of children since the beginning of the last decade – one of the reasons for this is the better compatibility of work and family. However, it is noteworthy that the birth rate in the second year of the pandemic rose again significantly and even to the highest value in 50 years. In situations of social crisis and upheaval, couples would usually forgo having children.
However, last year the birth rate remained below the level needed to maintain the population. According to the information, this would require a birth rate of 2.1 children per woman. This value was last reached in Baden-Württemberg in 1970.
The frontrunner among the 44 urban and rural districts in 2021 was the Alb-Donau district with a birth rate of 1.99 children per woman, followed by the Tuttlingen and Rottweil districts (1.91 each). At the end of the scale are the urban districts of Heidelberg (1.10), Freiburg im Breisgau and Karlsruhe (each 1.31) and Stuttgart (1.32).
