Babies on hold - The Portugal News

Ideally, Portuguese families would like to have at least three children, but their respective economic situations are forcing them to have only one child, research published this week has revealed. Furthermore, in comparison with last year when births hit an all-time low, around four thousand fewer babies have been registered in 2013.

Civil registry offices have recorded 3,961 fewer births (totalling 27,412) during the first four months of 2013 in relation to the same period last year, translating into a 12.6 percentage drop.

Based on the trend established during the first third of the year, it is now expected that the birth rate will plummet below the 80,000 mark, having dropped below 90,000 for the first time in 2012.

The expected birth rate for 2013 is believed to reach around half the figure it was back in 1980 and a third of that which was recorded in 1960.

Last year, Portugal's natural balance, the difference between births and deaths, was negative once again and by its widest margin ever as the country 'lost' an estimated 6,000 people.

President Cavaco Silva has repeatedly challenged Portuguese to come up with the answer to boosting the country's dwindling population.

"A country without children is a country without a future", the President said one year into his presidency, but six years on, the future for babies looks decidedly bleak.

The downward spiral in births is clearly evident, and has happened at a rapid rate.

While births fell to below 90,000 in 2012, 97,200 were recorded the previous year, down from 101,381 in 2010.

Latest available figures from Eurostat show that only Germany has a birth rate inferior to that of Portugal for the period 1999 to 2009. Over that reference period, the birth rate dropped by 19.7 percent.

Parents' groups and associations have long argued that having children in Portugal receives little or no state incentives and is seen by most young potential parents as a burden.

"Unfortunately, this situation is not new nor is it surprising", the Association for Large Portuguese Families (APFN) told The Portugal News recently.

"Portugal has not been renewing its generations for 30 years, and since 1982, this trend has become constant and more serious", explained Ana Poiares Madura Cid Gonçalves, Secretary-General of APFN.

"What makes this situation even more surprising is the total absence of policies to deal with this reality. We have reached this point due to policies which strongly penalise and attack families with children, be it in taxes, housing, employment or in the long working hours of both parents", added the APFN Secretary-General.

With a target birth rate of 2.1 children per woman to maintain positive population growth, Portuguese women's fertility rate currently stands at approximately 1.3, amongst the lowest rates in the world. But Ana Cid Gonçalves says the figure should not be interpreted as Portuguese women not wanting children.

"The majority of women say they would like to have three or more children. It is clear to us that the most important factor is not the creation of incentives to boost natality, but rather to allow families freedom of choice and not to restrict their decisions".

The APFN also called on the government to realise that the shortage of children not only strangles the social security system, but also the entire social state.

"Each child born generates wealth and the potential for economic growth", stressed Ana Gonçalves. In marking International Family Day on Wednesday, she produced research which revealed Portuguese said they would ideally like to have an average of 3.1 children, but in reality are settling for 1.2 per couple.

The APFN chief also accused the government of exacerbating the problem of would-be Portuguese parents by not giving proper support.

"We don't want privileges for families with children, what we want is that they are treated fairly and justly", she argued, adding: "The taxman only looks at the income of people, forgetting how many people that income feeds and clothes."

In Portugal, a family with five children can look forward to receiving child support benefits totalling EUR175,95, but will only qualify for this payment should they earn less than EUR628,83 a month. Higher earning families do not receive any sort of benefit, she said.

In Sweden, all families with five children receive a benefit slightly higher than EUR900 a month, while a large French family collects EUR600 a month.

Latest figures indicate that almost half the Portuguese population (4.8 million), who are mostly pensioners, rely on the Social Security system for a living. Currently, 4.5 million people work to sustain the remainder of the population.

Meanwhile, a report published Wednesday by the National Statistics Office revealed an increase in smaller sized families who it says are at a heightened risk of dropping below the breadline.

There has been a clear increase in people living alone, it said, and they are mostly elderly people and women, two groups that the Survey on Income and Living Conditions characterises as being particularly affected by the risk of poverty. Households with dependent children, in particular numerous families and single parent families, are also affected by high at-risk-of-poverty rates and high relative median at-risk-of-poverty gaps.

In 2011, 3.1 percent of people living in private households and 8.4 percent of poor people were not able to afford a meal with meat, chicken or fish every second day.

About a quarter of people and almost half of those living in households risking poverty have reported they could not afford to keep their home adequately warm.

A total of 42 percent of people aged 25 to 59 years old in 2010 said they lived in households with a bad or very bad financial situation while 55.7 percent of all teenagers referred to having lived in a household that struggled to make ends meet.

Another study published this week has indicated that Portugal's Alentejo region is a living 'laboratory' of what the country will be in 17 years from now.

These findings were made by demographics specialist Maria João Valente Rosa, who claims the reality of that region today is what we can demographically expect the rest of the country to be like in 2030.

"The Alentejo is an example of what the future of the country could be because it is a region that, currently, is more aged than the national average", she said.

According to the demographer provisions for Portugal are that, in 2030, "there could be two elderly citizens for every young person", which "is already happening in the Alentejo."

Therefore, she says, the Alentejo can be seen as "a good laboratory for what could become of the country, from a demographic point of view, because it already has what is possible for the rest of the country to have in two or three decades" from now.