Crude birth rate of Belgium 1800-2020
In Belgium, the crude birth rate in 1850 was 34.5 live births per thousand people, meaning that approximately 3.5 percent of the population had been born in that year. Between 1800 and 1875, the crude birth rate of Belgium fluctuated between 29 and 35 births per thousand people, with the largest change coming between 1840 and 1880, as Belgium adjusted to it's new-found independence and the industrialization and urbanization sweeping across Europe at the time. From then until the Second World War, Belgium's crude birth rate dropped very gradually, from 34 in 1880 to just 16.2 in 1945. After the war, Belgium experienced a baby boom, where the rate was no longer in decline, and it remained above fifteen until the late 1960s. From the 1970s onwards the crude birth rate has decreased, remaining between eleven and twelve births per thousand since then, although it is expected to fall below eleven in 2020.