Half of young mothers are single

A big proportion of children born to young mothers last year were born out of wedlock, according to figures issued by the National Statistics Office.

The NSO said 48.7 per cent of all live births to mothers aged between 15 and 24 were registered outside marriage. Children born to women in this age group accounted for nearly a quarter of all live births in the country in 2004.

Among mothers aged 17-24, the rate of births outside marriage stood at 23.3 per cent. Among fathers of the same age group the rate was 45 per cent.

According to figures supplied recently in Parliament, 704 births were to unmarried mothers last year, compared to 425 in 1999, the first year a national register was kept. The figure has risen year after year.

In statistics issued on the occasion of World Youth Day, marked by the UN on August 12, the NSO said that the share of youths in the total population has been declining since the 1960s.

Projections for 2010 and 2020 reconfirmed the decline in the number of live births and eventually a decrease in the proportion of young people in the population, it said.

The 1970s showed the effect of the post-war baby boom whereas the decline in numbers for later years was an indication of the decreasing number of live births over the past 20 years.

The proportion of male youths is higher than that for females and is expected to remain so in the years to come, the NSO said.

Life expectancy of females between the age of 15-24 is higher than that of males. For instance, in 2003 females aged 15 were expected to live for another 66.1 years - four more years than males.

Only 2.4 per cent of youths aged between 16 and 24 got married during 2004. Very often the brides were younger than the bridegrooms. In fact, while the percentage of brides within this age bracket during 2004 stood at 37.2 per cent of the total marriages, that for bridegrooms stood at 16.7 per cent.

Youth participation in education has seen an increase over the past 20 years. The number of 15-to 24-year-old persons in school has doubled since 1980.

During the scholastic year 2003/2004, 44 per cent of youths were in education, with slightly more females than males.

The NSO said that data on education that was collected from the Labour Force Survey last year revealed that more than half of the youth population, 53 per cent, had "successfully" completed a secondary level of education

An estimated 12.4 per cent achieved a primary level of education, 27.8 per cent a post-secondary level and 6.8 per cent a tertiary level of education.

It also resulted that 46.2 per cent of all youths in the Maltese islands were employed during 2004.

A further 9.2 per cent were unemployed and a good proportion of youths, or 44.6 per cent, were inactive.

In 2004, 862 youths or 3.1 per cent of those aged 16-24 who were in employment, had an accident at work.