Less Kids Due To Crisis

Because of the crisis, future parents decide to delay getting children. There were approximately 172,000 children born in the Netherlands between June 2012 and May 2013, which are 6,400 less than in the previous year, reports the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) on Monday. The number of births is similar to the low number of births in the early 80s and has been declining for years. The number of women of childbearing potential is not decreasing, so that is not the problem. The crisis, however, makes people decide to wait to expand their family until economically better times, according to the CBS. The group of women in the late thirties don’t delay the birth of a child because of the bad economy, according to figures of the CBS. Postponement would mean, given their age, not to have a child at all. It also appears that especially the birth of the first and the third child is delayed. In the Netherlands, a woman gives birth to an average of 1.76 children, and that, despite a slight decline, is still much higher than the European average of 1.57.