The first Catalan baby of the year is named Ander Muñoz Adan and was born this Thursday, January 1st, 38 minutes after the New Year's chimes announced the arrival of 2026. The birth took place at the Parc Taulí Hospital in Sabadell, the city in the Vallès region where the baby's parents live. In 2026, the first babies weren't early risers and arrived many minutes after the traditional twelve grapes. Shortly after Ander, at 12:41 a.m., Sira was born at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Manresa, the daughter of a couple from Sant Fruitós de Bages. At 12:49 a.m., Thais, a future resident of L'Hospitalet, arrived, weighing 3.4 kilos. She was born at the Bellvitge Hospital.

The Chinese government continues to approve measures to try to stimulate the birth rateAmong these measures are some highly controversial ones, such as increasing the price of condoms, which are accompanied by financial aid for expectant parents. For the first time since 1993, the government has decided to tax contraceptives with a 13% levy. The measure includes devices, pills, and condoms. This decision consolidates the shift in trends and the abolition of the last remaining birth control strategies implemented under the one-child policy.

For almost two decades, Catalonia has experienced a sustained decline in the number of births. The most recent data from Idescat are overwhelming: in 2024, 53,793 children were born, a far cry from the nearly 89,000 in 2008. The birth rate has fallen below 7 births per thousand inhabitants (6.4‰ in 2024), compared to just fifteen years ago. And the fertility rate has plummeted to 1.08 children per woman of childbearing age, from 1.53 in 2008. This is a profound transformation that places Catalonia among the regions with the lowest fertility rates in Europe and poses challenges for the country.

Vladimir Putin is obsessed with Russians having more children and takes every opportunity to remind them of this. "If we want to survive as an ethnic group, we need at least two children per family," he once said. "Many grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight, or more children. Let's preserve and revive these traditions," he added in another comment. The demographic crisis has been dragging Russia down for over a decade. The Kremlin's goal is to reverse population growth by 2030, and that's why Putin insists on increasing the ratio of 1.4 children per woman to 2.1.

At the summer reception for the King and Queen of Spain at Marivent Palace in Mallorca (a social event we don't have the space or talent to praise adequately), Gabriel Le Senne shared with King Felipe VI his concern about the low birth rate in the Balearic Islands: "We Mallorcans are heading for extinction," he said, first before the world. For readers who aren't familiar with the matter, Le Senne is the president of the island's Parliament and was also recently appointed president of Vox in the Balearic Islands, so he tried to debut in his new role with statesmanlike conversation. He is also awaiting trial for a hate crime, following the famous tantrum in which he tore down the photo of Aurora Picornell and the Rojas del Molinar, communists and trade unionists murdered by fascism during the Civil War. Le Senne believes we Mallorcans are becoming extinct because Mallorcan women have few children, yet many immigrants arrive. But the reality is that we'll be in danger of becoming extinct if his party gains more power than it already has. And some of us will become extinct sooner than others.

At an all-time low. The birth rate in Catalonia continues to decline, despite an increase in the resident population. Two factors are working against this backdrop: the later age at which motherhood begins and the fact that women are having fewer children. According to data released this Friday by the Statistics Institute of Catalonia (Idescat), the fertility rate has bottomed out at 1.08 children per woman, accentuating a trend that has been ongoing for years, reaching the lowest rate in the last 50 years. In fact, this indicator has already fallen below its last historical low (1995), and one has to go back to 1952, the post-war period, to find a lower number of births (53,236).

As this coming Friday marks the anniversary of Labour's return to power, and at a time when the actions of Prime Minister Keir Starmer are is more questioned than ever in the last twelve months In the past, with many open fronts and a public opinion that still doesn't know what he really stands for, some of his ministers seem to be taking steps to dispel the doubts. However, it is impossible to know if all this is part of a coordinated operation from Downing Street or if it responds to individual initiatives from different departments, which, faced with a clear lack of guidelines, are waging war on their own.

Births in Spain have increased for the first time in a decade. This is a positive figure, but surrounded by nuances and in an unfavourable context. In fact, according to the data published this Wednesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), in 2024 there were 322,034 births in the State, an increase of 0.4% compared to 2023. Where they have increased the most is in Cantabria (+13.3%) and in the Balearic Islands (+). However, in 2024 there were also 439,146 deaths, 0.7% more than in the previous year. The natural balance, therefore, is negative: there were 114,937 more deaths than births.

The Catalan population born abroad has surpassed the two million mark for the first time. Specifically, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) published in the latest Continuous Population Survey dated January 1, the number of inhabitants of Catalonia who were born outside the State stands at 2,028,315. The figure represents 24.98% of the total population and represents an increase of almost 30,000 people in the last quarter of 2024. In total, last year the number of Catalans born abroad increased by 121,633 people.