Graying, aging, the issue is presented in many ways and even some less amiable ones. The fact is that Portugal, one of the countries with the highest birth rates in Europe four years ago, has also become one of the oldest countries, as a result of the combined effect of two major advances (the family and women’s right to choose, but the increase in average life expectancy) and a setback (reduction in the number of births). This is the subject of a report by the Economic and Social Council on “Nativity in Portugal – A Political, Economic and Social Question”, prepared by Ana Drago.

The report finds, with data available for 2019, that between the ages of 18 and 29, only 7% of women (and 3% of men) have children. The following decision on maternity is postponed to the decade part of the cases, which results from the pressure of social conditions, including the income remains below the average salary of men in the private sector (59% in the career) of part-time people are women ). A complaint filed this week by the Commission for Equality in Work and Employment, which recorded that the fixed-term contract of 2107 pregnant women was not renewed in 2020, only confirms this pressure.

Other conditions also condition the decision to have children. The report studies the hardship map and points, for example, to access to healthcare (namely the few months of infertility problems), weight to the fair financial burden of the effort (school textbooks are now paid to healthcare, but can still be a day care center or the equivalent of a year’s tuition at a public university), or for the cost of housing (between 2015-2020 Portugal suffered second in OECD housing price, 53%, with the help of the biggest Gold and other speculative mechanisms). In other words, Portugal is closing the door to women who are able to decide to become mothers.

It is therefore possible to contest the birth rate as if it were a natural design, an obligation or even an obedience of mothers, and this is so much the case in this electoral campaign. alternatively, measures to increase birth rates should be looked at, as the report does, as one of urgent policies in all areas of social life, to guarantee living conditions, including salary and job stability, support for health, access to education and access to housing, as well as to stimulate food. If the issue is so important to the country, it’s a serious issue.