German first-time moms are now 30+ on average

The average age for women to have their first child keeps rising in Germany, and is now at 30.2 years, according to 2020 data published by Germany's statistics agency Destatis on Tuesday. A decade before, women were 29 years old on average when they had their first child.

Researchers also found that only 0.8% of first-time mothers in Germany were under the age of 18. In turn, 2.9% of women who gave birth in 2020 were 40 or older.

The agency recorded around 360,000 first-born babies in that year.

Bulgaria has youngest mothers

Other EU members are facing the same tendency, although the average age for first-time mothers is still under 30 across the whole bloc — EU statistics agency Eurostat puts it at 29.5 for 2020.

Italy is spearheading the trend with 31.4 years, ahead of Spain with 31.2 and Luxembourg with 31 years as the mean age of a first-time mother. Bulgaria has the youngest first-time mothers in the EU with 26.4 years, after Romania with 27.1 and Slovakia with 27.2.

Germany has previously reported zero population growth in 2020, with the coronavirus pandemic raising the number of deaths and limiting migration.

The EU nation of some 82 million people has long been struggling to increase its national birth rate and motivate women to have children in order to provide enough labor for its massive economy. It's one of very few countries to have consistently averaged fertility rates well below "break even" levels for decades. 

At the same time, officials are working to entice young people from other countries to migrate to Germany. Immigrants tend to be young, educated, employed and more likely to have children.

The latest data shows that well over one-quarter of people currently living Germany are either foreign-born or have at least one immigrant parent.