2.4% decrease in births in 2022 compared to the average for 2018-2021

Some 113,800 births were provisionally recorded in Belgium in 2022. That is some 2,800 fewer births than in the period 2018-2021, or a 2.4% decrease. Regional differences are significant: the figures show a rather slight decrease in the Flemish Region (-1.2%) and the Walloon Region (-0.6%) and a substantial drop in the Brussels-Capital Region (-11.1%) compared to the period 2018-2021. This is what emerged from a first, provisional overview of the number of births in the year 2022 from Statbel, the Belgian statistical office.

The publication contains the provisional number of births down to the district level in 2022 and is based on the 21 January 2023 extraction from the National Register.

This publication compares the number of births in 2022 with the average number of births for the period 2018-2021. The evolution of the number of women of childbearing age and the population structure were not taken into account. Further scientific research must show their impact on the number of births. These provisional figures do not yet allow us to make any clear statements, but they give a rough idea of the evolution of the number of births. A more detailed analysis will be possible when the final number of births is calculated. For that, we have to wait for the publication of the population figures on 01 January 2023, which will be published in June 2023.

2022 registers 2.4% fewer births than the average for the period 2018-2021

In 2022, just over 113,800 births were provisionally recorded. That is some 2,800 fewer births than in the period 2018-2021, when an average of 116,639 births were recorded per year, or a 2.4% decrease.

Slight decrease in Flanders and Wallonia, significant drop in Brussels

Behind the evolution in the number of births in Belgium are large regional differences. Large variation throughout the yearIn the Flemish Region, approximately 63,400 births were registered. This is just under 800 fewer than the average number of births in 2018-2021, or a 1.2% decline.

Just over 35,800 births were registered in Wallonia. That is a good 200 fewer births than the average number in the 2018-2021 period, or a very slight decrease of 0.6%.

Finally, the Brussels-Capital Region recorded just over 14,600 births. This is some 1,800 fewer births than the average for the 2018-2021 period. Consequently, Brussels has the sharpest decline in the number of births of all regions with 11.1% compared to the same reference period.

Table 1: Evolution of the number of births in Belgium and the Regions from 2018 to 2022.

Large variation throughout the year

Large differences between months were also noted in 2022. In the first half of the year, we see that the number of births does not deviate too much from the average number of births in the period 2018-2021, fluctuating between +2.7% and -3.2%. In the second half of the year, a decrease is observed every month compared to the same reference period, varying between -2.7% and -6.3%.

However, these variations on a monthly basis should be interpreted with caution. Rather unusual fluctuations in the number of births per month were observed at the end of 2020 and in 2021, this presumably due to the coronavirus pandemic. This time is part of the 2018-2021 reference period and thus affects to some extent the average number of births per month in this period.

Table 2: Evolution of the number of births per month from 2018 to 2022.