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Spain appoints ‘Minister of Sex’ to reverse low birth rate

By AGENCIES March 6th, 2017 1 min read

The Spanish Government has appointed a Minister of Sex in order to boost the nation’s declining population.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy confirmed Edelmira Barreira as the country’s top sex official.

With this move, the government hopes to boost Spain’s falling birth rate, which is one of the lowest in the developed world.

Spain in recent years has recorded declining birth rates which, according to reports, places it among developing countries with the lowest index.

Last year, for the first time, Spain’s deaths outnumbered its births.

According to experts, they claim the reasons for the decline in births are: working long hours, eating late at night, and going to bed after midnight.

In addition, youth unemployment rose to 48% in 2015, second only to Greece in Europe.

Rafael Puyol, of the IE Business School in Madrid, said: “They do not help with making a family. Then when a child arrives it is even worse.”

Spain’s education ministry said the declining birth-rate “aggravates other economic imbalances and generates important impacts in the Welfare State,” according to the Spanish newspaper ABC.

Barreira will be tasked with creating a national strategy to rectify the situation.

The Prime Minister wants the country’s sex tsar to get Spaniards to produce more babies.

Since 2008 the number of births in Spain has plunged by 18 per cent.

And the number of childless couples has nearly tripled from 1.5million in 1977 to 4.4million in 2015.

Most Spanish women say they would like two or more children but in 2015 those aged 18 to 49 had an average of 1.3 children – well below the EU figure of 1.58.