Cypriot birth rates falling by hundreds a year

Birth rates among Cypriots dropped by over 400 children in a year, the Elam-led ad hoc House committee on demographics heard on Tuesday.

After the session, committee chair and Elam MP Linos Papayiannis said that the meeting was attended by officials representing four ministries and that they were informed that last Thursday, after four years, the National Body for falling birth rate and family policy met.

“In essence, the decisions of the body were to adopt the 2022-2023 framework for action and extend it for 2024. This statement and decision were not liked by the members of the committee at all.

“We feel that there was a terrible delay in having this statement, which in no way will resolve any substantive problem and for the sake of argument I will quote the number of births involving both parents being Cypriot,” he added.

Papayiannis said that for 2022, the number of births of children with two Cypriot parents was 7,860, while in 2023 it was 7,436.

“At the same time in 2022, births to both foreign parents were 2,887, while in 2023 they increased to 3,072.

“We have been informed of a series of intentions and not decisions by the ministries involved and we have given them two weeks’ notice so that they can inform us of their ministries official positions in line with the president’s announcements yesterday,” he noted.

The committee called on the president to take action on the matter.