Dutch babies less likely to be born on weekends

Women in the Netherlands are more likely to give birth during the week than on the weekend, according to Statistics Netherlands' analysis of the birth and mortality patterns in the country last year. The stats office partly attributes this to the fact that more women give birth in hospitals - less than a quarter of last year's births happened at home.

Remarkably, there are also fewer deaths in the Netherlands over the weekends than on weekdays. In 2016 only 7 percent of the deaths happened on a Sunday and there is a peak of deaths on Fridays. It is not clear why.

According to Statistics Netherlands, Dutch demographics show week- and season patterns.

Friday July 8th and Friday September 16th were the days on which the most babies were born last year, 610 and 599 respectively. Over the weekends, significantly fewer babies were born - a difference that wasn't there 50 years ago, according to Statistics Netherlands.

More children were born in the summer and autumn of last year than in the spring and winter. Half a century ago, there were more winter births. The seasonal shift occurred especially in the 1970s and 1980s, coinciding with the introduction of reliable contraception. Strange enough, other studies showed that future parents would prefer to have a spring baby. According to the stats office, this may be explained by there being a longer period of time between stopping contraceptive and getting pregnant than most couples expect.

There is a clear peak in the number of deaths in the winter months. This can maybe be attributed to people weakening in the winter, for example due to flu. Relatively few people die in the summer. Last year the most people died on December 30th (537), and fewest on July 3rd (309).

On average the Dutch population grows with 280 people per day. An average of 471 children are born, while 407 people died. Municipalities record an average of 628 immigrants and 414 emigrants each day.