In 2024, the average age gap between the birth of a mother’s first and second child in Germany was 3.1 years (with a median of three years). According to the Federal Statistical Office, this gap is slightly smaller than it was ten years earlier, in 2014, when it averaged 3.3 years.
For subsequent children, the age gaps tend to be larger. In 2024, the average interval between the second and third child was 3.8 years, and the gap between the third and fourth child was 3.6 years. These figures for the third and fourth children show little change compared to 2014, when the time between the second and third child was 3.9 years, and between the third and fourth child was also 3.6 years.
Geographically, the age gap between siblings is wider in Eastern Germany than in Western Germany. In 2024, the average interval between the first and second child in Eastern German states (excluding Berlin) was 3.8 years, compared to 3.0 years in Western Germany. The gap between the second and third child was 4.4 years in the east, versus 3.7 years in the west. One possible explanation for this difference is that women in Eastern Germany were, on average, more than a year younger when giving birth to their first child-averaging 29.2 years-than women in Western Germany, who averaged 30.5 years.