Ivan Camilleri
Population reaches 414,000
More than a fifth of births outside wedlock
The Maltese population continued to soar in the past year, reaching almost 414,000 by January 1, 2009.
Much of the increase was attributed to the arrival of immigrants, while babies born out of wedlock accounted for almost one in every four births in 2008.
Giving details of the latest demographic trends in the EU last year, the EU's statistics office, Eurostat, said that despite the fact that Malta had normal birth and death rates in 2008, the number of migrants arriving on the island has contributed significantly to the increase in population over the past year.
In fact, the island's population increased by a total of 3,340 persons over a year. Of these, 890 were the result of natural births and deaths while the rest, 2,450 people, were migrants.
During 2008, there were 4,130 new births while 3,240 people passed away. Although marriage continued to be a strong institution in Malta, with more than 2,500 marriages, the number of babies born outside wedlock continued to rise.
According to Eurostat, 22.7 per cent of all the new live births registered during the year were born to unmarried women.
The rate contrasts sharply with what used to happen just a few years ago. In 2000, the number of births outside wedlock stood at 10.6 per cent.
The rate in other EU member states is much higher. In 2008 it stood at 59 per cent in Estonia, 54 per cent in Sweden and Slovenia and 51 per cent in Bulgaria.
Life expectancy also continued to improve. Men can now expect to live an average of 76.9 years, while women can expect to live almost to 82.
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Joe Fenech
Aug 7th 2009, 20:41
Will be over 600,000 in 30 years time and only 2/3 will be European. The rest will be African. It will be a monument for PN's reign. Bring a new RIGHT party in!!!
Raymond Sammut
Aug 7th 2009, 17:03
@ Arthur Peffers It is actually "irrational dislike" and not merely "dislike". Phobia strongly implies a lack of justification. As, for example, a phobia for domestic dogs, even when these are well looked after and are therefore perfectly harmless. Or, a phobia for heights, even if there is a secure rail along the edge which makes it perfectly safe. Now, with population on tiny Malta well established at 400K+, and clearly heading for half-a-million because governments on Malta refuse to take concrete action on population growth, one can hardly accuse the Maltese of being phobic when they see more immigrants coming in. It would be interesting to know as to why you omitted the essential descriptive "irrational" in your explanation to Mr Catania.
D. Doublesin
Aug 6th 2009, 15:17
@MUSCAT PAT
“2450 births out of 3340 born to illegal aliens?”
I REPEAT read the article again….the numbers that you are quoting are totally wrong, false and absurd!!!!!!
Arthur Peffers
Aug 6th 2009, 10:05
@ Denis Catania
If you don;t like the term 'racism' how about 'xenophobes', which is often rife within the comments left here.
Xenophobia is a dislike and/or fear of that which is unknown or different from oneself.
Have a great day
W Spencer
Aug 5th 2009, 21:41
@lgalea
Malta voluntarily joined the EU, and every EU citizen has the right to ' freedom of movement ' to ANY EU Country.
The EU is here to stay, so why get stressed out over what WILL not change ?? Get used to it !
Muscat.Pat
Aug 5th 2009, 21:41
@Doublesin @A. bonello
2450 births out of 3340 born to illegal aliens? Worse than one in four! Obviously A Bonello has not ventured to foreign lands such as America and Australia. You are considered an alien even though you have a valid passport! In 18 years time nearly the majority of "maltese citizens", will not be what they are today. These will have values foreign to ours, and probably in conflict to ours. Multi-culturism has been declared as bankrupt, it brings chaos and conflicts. Europe is going to the right because of these alien values; Malta is too small we are over populated. Tiny Malta refuge of the Africa? This is madness. We are FULL UP!
smifsud
Aug 5th 2009, 20:51
Bast EU EU .......everyone knows were Malta is now so the on one hand yes we are richer for it and on the other we lost our island to foreigners ...full stop !!! Malta does not belong to us Maltese anymore .......
Louis Gialanze
Aug 5th 2009, 20:30
Your report makes no mention to the fact that the foreign population of Malta tripled in the past 20 years reaching a total of 4.39 per cent of our population and more significantly that the same foreign population almost doubled in between the years 2001 and 2008.
Denis Catania
Aug 5th 2009, 19:47
@Anne Marie Bonello; Get a life. There is nothing racist about the word alien. You need to look up the word alien in a dictionary. Legal immigrants in the U.S A get an alien card. Get the word racist out of your mind untill you learn what a racist is.
Anne Marie Bonello
Aug 5th 2009, 18:02
@ Muscat.Pat illegal aliens! what sort of racist are you! i bet u go to mass and pretend to be christian too! what hypocrates! You do notice that there are as many Maltese living in Australia as there are in Malta! would you call those aliens too??
smifsud
Aug 5th 2009, 17:20
@Joanne Micallef my apologies Joan :) i need reading glasses .....please know i am sincerly concerned about our beautiful island and where we are heading .....
Joanne Micallef
Aug 5th 2009, 16:58
@ smifsud - Please note that I wrote looks ANYTHING but rosy which means the opposite of looks rosy
D. Doublesin
Aug 5th 2009, 15:58
@PAT MUSCAT
You should read the article again. One out of four are not illegal aliens but births registered by unmarried women, unless you consider these to be illegal aliens as well!
smifsud
Aug 5th 2009, 15:20
@Joan Micallef......
"the future looks rosy for this nation" ,,,,what !!! the more population growth without control is devastating for Malta as the more people come the more land we need to develop and the more cars and so on ...it dont look good ...comino is next ? ....and Filfla is looking good aswell .....
Muscat.Pat
Aug 5th 2009, 14:50
Politcal correctness gone made!magine France, Britain or Germany having one out of four from illegal aliens. Even Britain has put a stop to multi culturalism. Tiny Malta no! Help our children and our way of life!
Raymond Sammut
Aug 5th 2009, 12:58
A figure by itself is not very informative, if at all. There needs to be a thorough analysis of the population time series in Malta going back 100 years.
Other descriptive analysis, such as the breakdown of figures, showing people going out to which countries and people coming in from which countries, should also be shown. We also need a graphical description of the moving average of the population age, which is an important indicator on the saturation pertinent to the nation. Other important information is impacts of population growth.
Ultimately, the Maltese government will have to come clean and make some form of a statement on population, and what are its short and long term plans. What is coming out from the EU's statistics office is disparate and irrelevant to the Maltese citizen, and the NSO always seems to pay lip-service to the government rather than providing consistent and comprehensive information to the public.
What it comes down to is, that lots of disconnected figures get thrown around and no-one really knows what's going on. This is always very convenient to those who are supposed to take concrete action on unrestrained population growth.
lgalea
Aug 5th 2009, 11:54
And we keep taking in both legal and illegal immigrants!!!!
THIS IS SHEER MADNESS.
Mario Bonnici
Aug 5th 2009, 11:48
I bet the church loves these figures, or has the price of condoms gone up due to high inflation in this country well since joining the EU everything else has more or less doubled, but wages stayed the same.
Daniel Russell
Aug 5th 2009, 11:19
Where will all the people go if this level of natural increase continues. I really fear for the future.
Joanne Micallef
Aug 5th 2009, 11:06
With these figures in hand the future looks anything but rosy for this Nation.