According to provisional data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, 16,800 children were born in Slovenia last year, which is 5 percent fewer than the previous year and also the lowest number since the beginning of data recording in 1922. However, Slovenia’s population is growing – at the expense of immigration.
The most important reason for the recent decline in the number of births is the decrease in the number of women of childbearing age, i.e. those aged between 15 and 49. Their number fell by 18 percent between 2000 and 2022, Martin Bajželj of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia said at a press conference on Wednesday.
We are almost at 10 percent of foreign nationals
Despite a negative natural increase, Slovenia’s population is growing thanks to positive migration. On the 1st of October last year, Slovenia had about 2.123 million inhabitants, or 6,000 more than at the beginning of last year.
“With increased immigration in recent years, the share of foreign nationals in Slovenia has also increased, reaching 9.4 percent, according to the latest data. Among men, the share is 12 percent, while among women, it is 7 percent,” Bajželj said.
The number of foreign nationals in Slovenia has doubled since 2014, and similar trends are also observed in other countries of the European Union. The share of foreign nationals is highest among men aged 20-39, at 20 percent. “It is precisely because of the increased immigration of young working-age men from abroad that in the second half of 2019, for the first time, we had more men than women in the population of Slovenia, and even today, this is still quite rare,” he stressed.
According to the Statistical Office, Slovenia’s population is also ageing quite rapidly. The median age of the EU population is 44.4 years, while the median age of the Slovenian population is 44.7 years, according to the latest data. In both cases, it has increased by six years since 2001.
The impoverishment of Slovenians does not worry the government
In light of the data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, it should be added that the decline in births is not solely due to a reduction in the number of women giving birth. It is also the government’s actions which can encourage or discourage births. The abolition of the Office for Demography has certainly contributed to the decline in births, as has the impoverishment of the economy, the downright appalling property prices and the expensive kindergarten – all of this means that many couples are not choosing to have more children because they simply do not see any prospects for a good life in our country.
However, the far-left Golob government is not the least worried by these figures, as demography has never been high on its priority list. In fact, the left-wingers are very happy about the “great replacement”, through which the births of Slovenian children are replaced by the immigration of foreigners, from whom they hope to win votes.
C. Š.
