Gisborne tops New Zealand’s birth rate stats

Mother and child . . . Stats NZ says birth numbers in New Zealand had been tracking down over the past 10 years but have not changed a great deal. Gisborne has the highest average in the country for birth rates, and a higher proportion of women in this region are having babies at a younger age compared with nationally.

More babies are born to each mother in Gisborne than any other part of Aotearoa, Stats NZ says.

Every month, Stats NZ joins Radio New Zealand’s  Nights programme to find out what statistics can tell us about life in New Zealand.

On Wednesday, population insights analyst Rebekah Hennessey discussed birth and fertility rates and what birth data was used for.

Ms Hennessey said the average number of births for women in Gisborne was 2.3. That compared to 1.75 for the whole of New Zealand.

A higher proportion of women in the region are having babies at a younger age, whereas 40 percent of people having babies in New Zealand are over the age of 30.

Ms Hennessey said over the last decade the number of births each year was tracking down but had not actually changed a great deal.

The 1960s were considered to have “high” birth rates, seeing about 65,000 babies born in New Zealand every year. These days, the number of annual births in New Zealand is sitting around 60,000 a year and staying there.

While mothers and fathers in their early 30s were having the most babies, men in their late 30s and early 40s having children had “doubled” since the 1980s, she said.

Researchers were noticing trends across multiple countries when it came to a reduction in births. These include —

Women have more access to contraception, better education and more control over what was happening.

More women in education and paid work. That means they need to have more of a balance in life and often, are having children later in life, meaning their biological clock is ticking and they are more likely to have less children.

Lower numbers of infant death. It used to be that women had more children in order to guarantee some reached adulthood. That is no longer necessary.

A positive trend was the decrease in teen pregnancy in New Zealand.

Ms Hennessey said the birth rate to teen mothers had “hugely dropped” and so had the abortion rate.

That showed there were fewer pregnancies, not just that teens were choosing a different path.

Data captured at birth helped Stats NZ learn more about the population, she said.

Useful information included the mother’s age and location, as well as the sex and ethnicity of the baby.

It could also help Stats NZ project what would happen in the future and assume what fertility rates may be. — RNZ