The Portuguese have more children out of wedlock than the Spaniards, and live shorter lives
Some Iberian reality from the National Statistics Institute concludes that in 2012 the percentage of live births outside marriage was 45.6% in Portugal, and 35.3% in Spain.
For those who had made it to 65, the average healthy life expectancy thereafter was 9.2 years for the Spanish and only 6.4 years for the Portuguese.
The comparison between the two countries also showed some similar trends as marriage goes out of fashion in both countries.
Between 2003 and 2012, the marriage rate dropped from 5.1 marriages per thousand people to only 3.3 in Portugal. Our Spanish neighbours started at 5.0 marriages per thousand to 3.6.
The marriage trend is not due to fewer couples, but is due to factors such as the decline of religious authority, the crisis, emigration, the progressive aging of the population and declining fertility. The main cause it the realisation that you no longer have to get married in order to live together and have children.
The three leading causes of death are the same in both countries, circulatory diseases, tumours and respiratory diseases.
In 2012 the Alentejo was the Iberian region with the oldest population where 24.2% of residents were 65 or more years old.
