Death rate goes up, birth rate slides

A total of 24,937 children were born in the country in January to June this year, which is 1,693 less than that in the corresponding period in 2016, according to the Statistics Finland.

In the first six months of 2017, the total number of deaths was 27,457, which was 44 deaths more than the number in the first half of 2016.

Finland’s population at the end of June stood at 5,507,101, posting a rise of 3,804 persons and 1,805 people less than the preliminary data for that month one year ago.

The reason for the rise in population was migration gain from abroad: the number of immigrants was 6,324 higher than that of emigrants. There was no natural population growth, since the number of deaths exceeded the number of births by 2,520.

Altogether 12,772 persons immigrated to Finland from abroad and 6,448 persons emigrated from Finland in January to June.

The number of immigrants was 1,493 lower and the number of emigrants 1,425 lower than that in the previous year. In all, 3,531 of the immigrants and 4,220 of the emigrants were Finnish citizens.