Swiss Watching trivia, No 5: Babies

August 5, 2010, 1 Comment

Babies

Last year 78,286 babies were born in Switzerland, the highest total since the year 2000, although the crude birth rate has remained stable at 10 per 1000 inhabitants. Canton Schaffhausen had the lowest birth rate, Canton Vaud the highest, and generally foreign women have almost double the birth rate of Swiss. What has changed dramatically is the number of babies born to unmarried mothers – at 17.7%, it’s double the level of ten years ago, though still much lower than the European average (37%). Canton Geneva had the highest percentage of single mothers, Canton Zug the lowest. Overall, the average age of the mother was 31 years and 51.6% of the babies were boys. The most popular names nationally were Luca for boys and Lara for girls.