NSI: Bulgaria’s population dropped by 0.03% in 2023 y/y
As of December 31 2023, the population of Bulgaria was 6 445 481, a decrease of 22 229 – about 0.03 per cent – compared with the figure at the end of 2022, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said on April 29, citing final figures.
Of the total population, 51.9 per cent were female and 48.1 per cent male.
By the end of 2023, the number of people aged 65 and over was 1 530 909, or 23.8 per cent of the country’s population.
Compared with 2022, the share of the population aged 65 and over increased by 0.3 percentage points.
The share of females aged 65 and over was 27.7 per cent, compared to 19.5 per cent of males. The NSI said that the difference is due to the higher mortality among the male population and consequently, lower life expectancy.
As of December 31 2023, there were 911 025 children up to 15 years of age in the country, 14.1 per cent of the total population.
There were 57 478 children born in 2023, of which 57 197 (99.5 per cent) were live-born. The number of live births increased by 601 children, 1.1 per cent compared with the previous year.
The number of children born to mothers aged below 18 years decreased from 2871 in 2022 to 2775 in 2023.
The number of children born to mothers of age 40 and more years increased from 2410 in 2022 to 2654 in 2023.
The number of children born outside marriage in 2023 was 34 357, about two-thirds of the total number of births.
The share of extramarital births in rural areas (64.9 per cent) was higher than in urban (58 per cent).
For 81.1 per cent of the extramarital births, there was data on the fathers, meaning that most probably the children were growing up in families by parents cohabiting without marriage, the NSI said.
The number of deaths in 2023 was 101 006 and the crude mortality rate – – meaning the ratio of the number of deaths during the year to the average annual population in that year expressed per 1000 inhabitants – 15.7‰.
Compared with the previous year, the number of deaths was 15 per cent lower, adding up to 17 808.
The crude mortality rate remains high., the NSI said.
The institute said that 281 children up to one year of age died in 2023 and the infant mortality rate was 4.9‰. The infant mortality rate was 13.3‰ in 2002 and 4.8‰ in 2022.
There were 21 800 juridical marriages registered in 2023, a total of 4213 fewer than the previous year. The marriage rate was 3.4‰. Nearly three quarters of the total number of marriages (16 105) were registered among the urban population.
The number of divorces in 2023 was 9088, a total of 437 fewer than the figure registered in 2022.
The highest is the number of divorces by “mutual agreement” (67.8 per cent), followed by divorces due to “incompatibility of temperament” (19.3 per cent) and “virtual parting” (11.8 per cent).
The divorce was not the first one for 11.1 per cent of females and 11.7 per cent of males who divorced in 2023.
In Bulgaria, the average duration of a marriage before divorce in 2023 was 15.4 years, the NSI said.
(Photo: Abdulhamid AlFadhly/ freeimages.com)
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