Macedonia is listed among the top performers globally in terms of reducing neonatal and under-five mortality, according to the 2025 global report by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, said Macedonian Health Minister Azir Aliu Thursday at a press conference.
In less than a decade, neonatal mortality has been reduced by 87 percent – from 8.1 to 1.1 deaths per 1,000 live births, while mortality among children under five has been reduced by 75 percent – from 11.1 to 2.8 per 1,000 live births.
Although Macedonia has achieved success in reducing mortality among newborns and young children, the number of newborns has been continuously declining, so that last year only 15,531 babies were born – the fewest ever. The decline is also evident in previous years: 18,648 newborns in 2021, 18,183 in 2022 and 16,859 in 2023. This trend is associated with emigration, the aging population and the increasing age of women at the birth of their first child.
Moreover, demographic analyses show a serious outflow of women in their fertile period. Compared to the 2002 census, when there were over 440 thousand women aged up to 29, in 2021 the number of women aged 20 to 49 decreased by about 80 thousand. This practically means that a significant part of potential mothers are no longer in the country.
