Name: Malta has lowest fertility rate in Europe
Uploaded: 2025-12-20T10:38:42.501Z
Duration: 2 min 39 s
Description: Fertility rates are falling in countries across Europe, prompting major social, economic and political concerns. Spain, Italy and Poland are just some of the countries where the average number of children women give birth to is at an all-time low.

Fertility rates are falling in countries across Europe, prompting major social, economic and political concerns. Spain, Italy and Poland are just some of the countries where the average number of children women give birth to is at an all-time low.

Valletta

Malta has reached the lowest fertility rate in the European Union, with just 1.06 children per woman, significantly below the replacement rate of 2.1. In response, the government has introduced financial incentives, including a one-time payment for the first child and higher bonuses for subsequent children, to encourage population growth.

Despite these efforts, experts argue that the incentives do not address the long-term needs of parents. The declining birth rate and ageing population have led Malta to rely more on migration and foreign workers, with non-Maltese mothers now accounting for over one-third of births, raising questions about citizenship and the country's demographic future.

Malta has lowest fertility rate in Europe

Sasha Vela is many things, content creator, artist, yoga teacher, an outspoken, child-free 25-year-old. She moved to the Maltese island of Gozo to escape her 9-to-5 career in Valletta, away from the mainland but still being seen by millions on social media. She decided not to have children several years ago, choosing instead to break free from what she saw as societal norms. I used to feel more pressure kind of trying to fit into the mould that society wants us to be in. We grow up thinking that we have to choose that one thing to focus our lives on and then that's it. So I've kind of engineered and designed my life for it to fit everything that I want to be doing. Sasha's a regular on the Maltese-based podcast The She Word, where women from all walks of life are lining up to talk about being child-free. Because we don't have children doesn't mean to say we don't care about children. We love our children so much that we're not having them. There's been a cultural shift in family values here over the last 10 years. Women no longer opt out of having children, they opt in. And the reasons for doing that are becoming less and less appealing. The Maltese government is fighting back. With a fertility rate of 1.06 children per woman, it's the lowest in the EU and well below the required rate of 2.1 to maintain the population. The finance minister is raising the alarm. We forget that we will be shrinking and maybe tomorrow or the next day this nation will vanish. He's offering financial incentives, most eye-catchingly a one-time payment equivalent to just over a thousand dollars for anyone to have their first child. For the second and third children, the bonus is higher. Experts say the measures don't go far enough. The question with regards to fertility should not be how are we going to help potential parents at birth stage, but how are we going to help parents in the years after that. An ageing population alongside the falling birth rate means Malta now relies on migration and foreign workers to prop up the population. They fill the jobs and the non-Maltese mothers now account for over one-third of births. However, they are not guaranteed citizenship, leaving the island nation at a crossroads of how to sustain any population for generations to come. Rhys Durham, Al Jazeera, Malta.

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