Close to two-thirds of births in Bulgaria in 2020 were extramarital
A total of 35 486 children were born outside marriage in Bulgaria in 2020, about 59.7 per cent of the total number of births, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said on April 12 in an annual report on population processes.
The institute said that in close to 80 per cent of the cases, there was data about the father, which it said most probably meant that the children were born to parents cohabiting without marriage.
The rate of extramarital births was higher in rural areas, at 65.5 per cent, than in urban areas, 57.7 per cent, the NSI said.
The highest shares of extramarital births were in the districts of of Lovech, 77.2 per cent, and Vratsa, 76.8 per cent.
The NSI said that 59 440 children were born in Bulgaria in 2020, of which 99.4 per cent were live born.
The number of live births decreased by 2452 children or four per cent compared with the previous year.
The number of children born to mothers aged below 18 years in 2020 was 2897.
The institute said that the trend of an increase in the number of children born to mothers older than 40 was continuing, 2284 in 2019 compared with 2320 in 2020.
The mean age of women at first birth has increased from 27.3 in 2019 to 27.5 years in 2020. The mean age of women at first birth varied from 30.3 in the city of Sofia to 22.5 in the Sliven district, the NSI said.
(Photo: Niels Timmer/freeimages.com)
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