The number of births in Austria has continued to decline. This is shown by the study “Families in Figures”, published on Monday by the Federal Chancellery. According to the report, only 77,238 children were born in 2024, around 370 fewer than in 2023. By comparison, more than 83,000 births were recorded in 2020. The historic low was reached in 2001, with 75,458 births.

African baby wrapped in an Austrian flag and held in its mother’s arms, representing the fact that the birth rate among non-Austrian women is higher.

Overall, the trend of recent years remains downward. Accordingly, the fertility rate has continued to fall. While it stood at 1.44 in 2023, it dropped to 1.31 in 2024. A clear difference can be seen by citizenship: Austrian women have an average of 1.22 children, compared to 1.58 among mothers with foreign citizenship.

At the same time, women are having their first child at an increasingly older age. The average age at first birth reached a historic high of 30.4 years. The lowest value since records began was 22.8 years in 1973. The proportion of women having their first child after the age of 40 remains relatively low at 3.6 percent, although this share was significantly lower at the beginning of the 2000s, at just 0.8 percent.

The number of children born outside marriage has also declined significantly, falling to 38.1 percent from more than 41 percent in 2020. By contrast, the number of marriages and registered partnerships remained stable at over 47,700 last year. The average age at first marriage was around 31.5 years for women and about 33.5 years for men.

In 2024, Austria recorded a total of 696,100 couples living with children under the age of 15. Of these, 55,100 were stepfamilies or patchwork families, in which at least one child came from a previous relationship.

Around 190,000 children and young people under the age of 18 were living with a single parent, the majority of them—around 167,000—with their mother.

The background of parents varies by federal state. Nationwide, 64 percent of mothers and 62 percent of fathers of children born in Austria last year were themselves born in the country. While this applies to around three quarters of cases in Burgenland and Carinthia, it is a minority in Vienna. There, only 42 percent of mothers and 39 percent of fathers of children born in 2024 were born in Austria. Vorarlberg has the second-highest share of parents born abroad, at around one third.

By Okay Altinisik | 29-12-2025, 19:04:21