51,500 children were born in Norway in 2022. The total fertility rate (TFR) was measured at 1.41 children per woman. This is a sharp decrease from 1.55 the previous year, and the lowest that has ever been measured in Norway, writes Statistics Norway (SSB) in a press release. – The decline in fertility is a trend that has been going on for over ten years, so this is not a surprising number. Fertility has fallen by half a child per woman since 2009, when the SFT was 1.98, says Espen Andersen in SSB. Since 2009, SFT has fallen every year except 2021. This was an exception due to the pandemic. Increasing number of childless EXPLANATORS: Demographer Ane Tømmerås in Statistics Norway. Photo: Christian Breidlid / Christian Breidlid – We continue to have children later and later. We see that fewer people are having many children. In addition, we have an increasing proportion of childless people. All these things together mean that fertility is lower, explains demographer Ane Tømmerås in Statistics Norway. Among those who are childless by the age of 45, the group has changed from being largely highly educated women to women with less education, research shows. In the long term, Norway must plan for an aging population. – We will probably have a smaller birth cohort and, in the very long term, fewer people of working age. In the long run, we will have an aging population. But there it is also important to remember that almost no matter what the fertility rate in Norway looks like, we are not going to have three to four children per woman on average anyway, we will have an aging population. We have to plan for an aging population anyway, says Tømmerås. Over half of 30-year-olds are childless. SFT says something about birth rates here and now. Another way of examining fertility is to look at how many children different age cohorts have actually had. Of the women who turned 30 in 2022, i.e. the 1992 cohort, 54 per cent had not had children. Ten years ago, the corresponding share was 42 percent. The graphic below refers to the year the woman was born. The 1990s thus refers to women who turned 30 in 2020. – Since there are so many 30-year-olds who have not had children yet, it is doubtful that today’s women will have as many children as the generations before them – even if they can think of giving birth to a few more children after the age of 30, says Andersen. Among those who turned 35 in 2022, 26 per cent had not had children. Ten years ago, the proportion was 21 per cent. Finland lower Tømmerås thinks it is difficult to say whether Norway has reached rock bottom. – Finland has a fertility rate that is far lower than ours, at 1.32, and it is a neighbor we can compare ourselves to. Countries such as Japan and South Korea have much lower fertility rates than Norway. So this number may continue to decrease, she notes.
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Record few newborns in 2022 – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
