In Germany, birthrate peaks while mothers become older

German women gave birth last year at the highest rate since the country’s reunification in 1990 with 1.47 births per woman, the Federal Statistics Office said on Wednesday.

It is the third consecutive increase of the country’s birth rate, which in 1990 was at 1.45 and reached its lowest point in 1995 with 1.25 births per woman.

The statistic’s office said women were also giving birth later. While on average women were 24.8 years old at the birth of their first child in 1990, they were 29.5 years old on average in 2014.

Birth rates differ between Germany’s eastern and western states even 25 years after reunification, with women in the eastern part of the country giving birth to more children.

Europe’s biggest economy struggles with an ageing population in a country where deaths outstrip births since 1972 and no other country in the world has experienced such a constant birth deficit since 1945.

Berlin estimates that its working age population will shrink by 6 million people by 2030 and generous pro-family policies by successive governments were aiming to reverse the trend.