80% growth in number of babies born to mothers over age of 40

There has been a roughly 80% growth in the number of babies born to mothers over the age of 40 in Portugal over the last decade. Specialists point to all the obvious pressures being behind the reasons for people delaying starting a family. But there is another ‘detail’ that is emerging: the last decade has seen more than 17% of babies born to parents who do not live together. According to Público, this figure “reflects a change in mentality over time, but also a mixture of very different realities”. Since 2021, births out of wedlock have surpassed the number of babies born to married parents. Single-parent families also make up a significant part of the Portuguese demographic landscape, reports SIC Notícias, “with female single-parent families accounting for more than 80% of this family reality”.