STA, 23 June 2019 - After years of natural increase in population, Slovenia has seen a natural decrease in population for the second consecutive year in 2018, as the number of births dropped to below 20,000 a year for the first time in a decade.
Data from the Statistics Office show that 19,585 people were born in Slovenia last year and 20,485 died. The number of deaths was 0.1% lower than in 2017, while the number of births dropped by 3.2%.
Average age at death has been increasing gradually, climbing to 77.9 years. On average, men died at 74.1 years, while women died at 81.6 years of age.
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Meanwhile, girls born in Slovenia last year have a life expectancy of 84 years and boys of 78.3 years. Life expectancy has increased by 7.3 years for women and 9.5 years for men over the course of the past three decades, the Statistics Office said.
Early deaths, meaning before the age of 65, accounted for 16.5% of all deaths last year. They accounted for 22.7% of deaths among men and 10.5% among women.
The share of early deaths has always been higher among men, but is declining for both sexes, said the office, adding that in 2008, the figure was at 32.5% for men and 13.1% for women.
Slovenia continues to be among the safest countries in the EU and in general in terms of infant mortality, with only 1.7 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. In total, 33 babies died last year, of which 22 were boys and 11 girls.
Last year, 10,157 boys were born in Slovenia and 9,428 girls. Ema was the most popular girls' name and Luke continued to reign supreme among boys' names for the 20th consecutive year.
The average age of the mother at the time of her first birth was 29.5 years, keeping with the trend of women deciding to have children at an increasingly later age.
Fifty years ago, most of the women having babies were between 20 and 24 years old, which remained the case up until the 1980s. Last year, most of the women having babies were in the age groups of 25-29 and 30-34.
More than 42% of the mothers were married. Fathers were on average three years older than the mother. Only eight fathers were older than 60 and 47 were younger than 20.
More data on this can be found here
