NEARLY 30 percent (3'633) of the births which took place in the Balearics during 2007 were to foreign mothers.
The National Institute of Statistics (INE) reported yesterday that the Islands registered 11'917 births that year, 6'147 of whom were male and 5'770 female. The overall birth rate went up by 2 percent in respect of 2006, but the number of births to foreign mothers went up by 12.7 percent in 2007 in respect of the previous year.
In 2007, 4'345 marriages were recorded between people of different sex, 1.9 percent more than in 2007. Of this figure, 1'791 were traditional Catholic ceremonies, whilst 2'546 were undertaken at a registry office. There were 129 same-sex marriages the same year. Of the total number of marriages which took place in 2007, 32 percent (1'357) were unions where one of the partners was a non-Spanish national.