One in four babies born here has a foreign mother

PALMA
OVER 25 percent of children born in the Balearics has a non-Spanish mother.
During 2007, 27.92 percent of births - a total of 3'289 babies - on the islands were to foreign mothers.
This represents an increase of 542 percent in the last 10 years, when there were scarcely 500 a year.
The increase in the number of births to Spanish mothers in the same period has only been 16 percent. Last year, 8'489 children were born to Spanish mothers, compared with 7'787 a decade ago. According to the Balearic Islands' Statistics Institute, it is births to foreign mothers that is contributing to the positive birth rate.

The birth rate among women that are Spanish citizens has declined. In 2000, there were 10.14 births for every 1'000 residents.
It is now 8.25 for every 1'000.
Meanwhile, the birth rate among foreigners has been steadily climbing during the same period, passing from a scarce 0.64 children per 1'000 inhabitants to 3.20 now.

The statistics for 2007 are still provisional owing to the recent strike by officials in the justice system, but it seems that the tendency is continuing.

In 2006, in the whole of Spain, 16.61 percent of births were to foreign mothers, compared to 25.71 percent in the Balearics, a figure which is now at 27.92 percent.