29-04-2019 - Official figures show a natural decrease of population in 2018

In 2018

Official figures show a natural decrease of population

The final results of demographic statistics show that in 2018, the Autonomous Region of Madeira registered a natural decrease of 811 persons.

In 2018, 1,919 live births to mothers living in RAM were recorded, corresponding to a decrease of 2.1% compared to the previous year (1,960). 50.3% of the children born in that year were females, representing a sex ratio of 99, i.e., for each 100 females born, 99 were males.

Of the live births in 2018, 55.1% took place outside marriage: 55.8% were cohabitant parents and 44.2% were not. Regarding the age of the mothers, 35.2% of the live births were from mothers under 30 years of age. Mothers aged between 30 and 34 were responsible for 31.3% of the total births. In 2018, there were no live births from mothers under 15. The share of mothers aged 40 or over dropped from 8.4% in 2017 (164 live births) to 7.5% in 2018 (143 live births).

There were 2,730 deaths during 2018, up by 8.6% from the previous year (2,514). 95.2% of the total deaths were from persons aged 50 or over and 64.4% were from persons over 75 years old. The number of deaths had its highest peak in the month of February (298) and the lowest in July (197).

Given the above figures of live births and deaths, the natural change went from -553 in 2017 to -811 individuals in 2018.

In the year of reference, 4 deaths under 1 year and seven dead fetuses were registered (7 deaths under 1 year and 1 dead fetus in 2017). The infant mortality rate in 2018 was 2.1 deaths by 1,000 live births (3.6 in 2017).

There were also 959 marriages, down by 0.3 % over 2017 (962). Of the total number of marriages, 98% were celebrated between persons of the opposite sex, while the remaining 2.0% were same-sex marriages (19 in number). The highest number of marriages was registered in September (121) and the lowest in February (39). 68.7% of the marriages officialised in 2018 were first marriages. According to the celebration form, 68.6% were civil and 31.2% were catholic. In 73.1% of the marriages, the chosen property scheme was joint marital property.