The population of the Czech Republic grew by 20,000 last year to a total of 10,515,669 according to new information released by the Czech Statistics Office.
The rise is due to new immigrants (even though the number overall was lower than the year before).
“There were 28.1 thousand more deaths than births. It was the deepest natural population decline in the history of the Czech Republic since its foundation in 1918,” said Terezie Štyglerová, head of the Czech Statistical Office’s demographic statistics department.
Almost 112,000 children were born in 2021. Statisticians pointed out that the lower number of women of reproductive age has increased fertility, with 1.83 children per woman, the highest number since 1992.
Last year, the death toll was 140,000, the highest since the end of the Second World War, mainly due to the COVID-19 epidemic.
According to preliminary results, “the life expectancy at birth has further decreased to 74.1 years for men and 80.5 years for women. Thus, it has already declined by 2.2 and 1.6 years, respectively, in the past two years with the COVID-19 pandemic, “ the CSO said.
In 2021, over 50,000 immigrants – mostly from Slovakia and Ukraine – moved to the Czech Republic while 18,900 people moved abroad.
