Births, 2022

The lowest crude birth rate

In 2022, 17,627 children were born in Slovenia (9,051 boys and 8,576 girls), which is 1,357 fewer than in 2021.

In the 101-year history since data on live births have been available, 2022 was the fifth year with the fewest births. Only generations born in 2003, 2001, 2002 and 1999 were smaller. 

8.4 children were born per 1,000 population, which is the lowest number so far. This is because on the one hand a smaller number of children was born and on the other hand the number of people living in Slovenia was the largest ever. 

The mean age of mother at birth the same in the past four years

The mean age of mother at birth has not changed since 2019. On average, women gave birth at the age of 31.1 years and first-time mothers at the age of 29.6 years. These are the highest values since World War II.

The total fertility rate in 2022 was 1.55. Relatively the most children were born to women aged 26–32 years. Almost half of children (47%) were first born; additional 38% were second order births. These values are similar to those in 2021.

More than half of children born to unmarried mothers

7,534 children were born to married mothers and 10,093 (57%) to unmarried mothers. The mean age of married mothers (31.3 years) was 0.4 years higher than the mean age of unmarried mothers (30.9 years).

15% of mothers with foreign citizenship

2,704 (15%) of all children were born to mothers with foreign citizenship. Most of those mothers had the citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina (46%), followed by Kosovo (20%). 11% of the mothers with foreign citizenship had the citizenship of one of the other EU Member States.

Mothers with foreign citizenship were on average 29.4 years old and were two years younger than mothers with Slovene citizenship (31.4 years). Mothers with foreign citizenship were also two years younger at first birth. It was the same in 2021.

Some additional interesting findings for new-borns in 2022

• For 22 consecutive years, until 2021 when it was replaced by Filip, the most popular name for boys was Luka, and it was again in 2022. This name was given to 227 (2.5%) new-born boys. 
• The list of the top girls’ names is more varied and changes a lot. For the first time, Mia ranked first in 2022. The name was given to 187 (2.2%) girls. Twenty-five years ago, only 12 girls got this name, which ranked it 118th. From 2019 to 2021, the name ranked third among new-born girls.
• In addition to Luka and Mia, the top five names were Nik, Filip, Mark, and Jakob for boys and Ema, Zala, Hana, and Julija for girls.
• New-born boys were given almost 1,400 different names and girls just over 1,300 names. 60% of these names appeared only once. 6% of children got a combination of two (or more) family names and 3% a combination of more first names. 53 children, 24 boys and 29 girls, got a combination of combined first names as well as combined family names.
• In 220 cases, twins were born, among those 81 mixed couples. In 73 cases, two boys were born, and in 66 cases, two girls were born.
• On average, 48 children per day were born in Slovenia (four fewer than a year before), during the weekend 9 fewer (39), on a weekday (from Monday to Friday) on average 52. The most children (81) were born on Friday, 14 October, the fewest (24) on Sunday, 11 December. 
• 45 children were born on their mother's birthday, 56 on their father's birthday and 12 on the parent's wedding anniversary.

Natural decrease the second largest since 1945

In Slovenia, natural decrease has been recorded every year since 2017, as more people die each year than are born. Natural increase was recorded in 2022 only in September. The value of natural increase in 2022 was −4,865 or −2.3 per 1,000 population.

Tables with the latest data on births and names and on natural increase of population are available in the SiStat Database.