Pordata, the statistical database of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, decided to mark Universal Children's Rights Day, with the compilation of a series of information that helps to create a demographic portrait of young people.

From the outset, it is possible to verify that “in the last 50 years, Portugal has lost more than one million children and young people”, a group that today represents 12.8% of the total population.

According to Pordata, and based on data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), in 2022, 1.3 million children and young people up to the age of 15 lived in Portugal, of which 51% were male and 49% were female.

“The number of children and young people decreased by almost half in 50 years (-46%): until the beginning of the 1980s, children and young people made up at least a quarter of the population and, in 2022, they represented 12.8%. The decrease was recorded in all age groups, with emphasis on children between 5 and 9 years old (-50%)”, says Pordata.

This makes Portugal “the second country in the European Union with the lowest proportion of children and young people in its population”, only behind Italy, which occupies the top of the table.

“According to INE projections, the trend is for the young population in Portugal to decrease from 1.3 million in 2022 to 1.1 million in 2050 and to 1 million by 2080”, he adds.

On the other hand, “more than 65 thousand children and young people in Portugal have foreign nationality, representing 4.9% of the total population under 15 years of age”, with 18% of these children having already been born in Portugal.

Among the 65 thousand foreign children, Brazilian (45%), Angolan (8%) and Chinese (4%) nationalities stand out, with an equal preponderance among the approximately 12 thousand children born in Portugal and whose distribution by nationality is made with 29% Brazilian, 15% Chinese, 9% Angolan, 6% Cape Verdean and 5% Ukrainian.