Still a negative record for the birth rate: in 2022, births fell to 393,000, registering a 1.7 percent drop on the previous year. The under-natality continues in 2023: according to the first provisional data, there are about 3,500 fewer births in January-June than in the same period in 2022. The average number of children per woman falls to 1.24, showing a slight decline in 2021 (1.25); the provisional estimate compiled in the first 6 months of 2023 shows a fertility rate of 1.22 children per woman. In 2010, the average number of children per woman had reached the relative high recorded in the last two decades of 1.44.