Last year, 56% of babies in Portugal were born to unmarried mothers.
A total of 87,020 babies were born alive in 2018, 1% more than in the previous year, according to the National Statistics Institute.
A majority of the births (55.9%) were to unmarried mothers with the total number being only the fifth best in the past nine years, a disappointing figure for a country which needs to boost its population.
There were 34,637 marriages last year, an increasingly upward trend that has seen marriages grow year on year for four years.
With regard to deaths, these were up 3% compared to the year before with 113,000 breathing their last - 85% of deaths were people over 65.
“The country had a negative balance for the 10th consecutive year," concluded the institute.
