Prague, Oct 3 (CTK) – The number of inhabitants of the Czech Republic rose by 73,400 in the past five years, mainly as a result of foreign immigration, according to the demographic figures the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) presented on Tuesday.
Although the birth rate increased recently, the Czech society is ageing.
The average age of Czech inhabitants was 42 years last year.
Children under 15 made up 15.6 percent and people over 65 almost 19 percent of the population.
The number of singles and the divorced has been rising.
Almost a half of children are born out of wedlock, the survey showed.
In 2016, the Czech Republic had 10,578,820 inhabitants. Their number rose by 291,600 in the past ten years, mainly as a result of immigration.
A total of 24,900 Slovaks, 5,800 Russians, 5,400 Germans, 5,300 Romanians and 4,700 Bulgarians moved to the Czech Republic in 2012-2016.
The country was left by 1,100 Vietnamese.
A total of 6,300 Czechs moved abroad.
In some years, the population also rose owing to newborn children, while in other years, the number of newborn babies was lower than that of the deceased.
The life expectancy of Czechs has been rising. For women, it has increased by 2.4 years to 82.1 since 2006. For men, it has increased by 2.8 years to 76.2.
The life expectancy of those aged 60 has been rising as well. In 2006, Czech men and women at this age had 18.2 and 22.1 years of life ahead of them. Last year, they had 19.9 and 24.2 years ahead of them, respectively.
The number of people over 65 increased by 56,000 last year, reaching almost 1.99 million and making up 18.8 percent of the population.
The group of seniors increased by half a million in the past ten years.
The group of children under 15 increased by 168,000 in the past ten years, and by 23,600 last year alone, when it reached 1.65 million and 15.6 percent of the population.
The share of economically active people dropped from 71 to 66 percent in the past ten years. Last year, their number fell by 55,000.
At present, the strongest generation are the people born in the 1970s, when the communist state took measures to boost natality. The highest number of children were born in 1974.
The number of singles and the divorced has been rising as a result of a declining marriage rate, the trend to postpone the wedding until a higher age and a high divorce rate.
The share of married people and also those widowed has been declining.
A total of 50,768 couples had wedding last year, including 34,000 for the first time.
About 25,000 couples got divorced last year, about 1,100 fewer than in 2015. Eighty percent of the divorcing couples got divorced for the first time.
Almost a half (48.6 percent) of newborn children were born out of wedlock, compared with one third ten years ago.
Fifty-eight percent of first-born children and 38 percent of second-born children were born out of wedlock.
Czech women gave birth to a child at the age of 30 and they had their first child at the age of 28.2 on the average in 2016.
Fertility, or the number of offspring per woman, has been increasing since 2012. Last year, it reached 1.63, which is the highest number since 1994.
For the Czech society not to start dying out, 2.1 offspring per woman would be needed, CSU expert Jana Krestanova said.
