With 53.1% of households without the presence of a spouse, Salvador leads this indicator among the capitals

Born in São Sebastião do Passé, in the Metropolitan Region of Salvador (RMS), Damilla Carmo, 23 years old, left her hometown to study journalism in the capital of Bahia. To be able to stay close to college, the student decided to share rent with a colleague. The two are part of the group of Bahians who do not share a home with a spouse. According to data from the 2022 Census, released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) this Friday (25), Bahia has the 2nd highest national proportion of households where couples do not live. In total, there are 2.3 million, which represents 45.1%.

Among the 27 units of the Federation, Bahia shares second place with the Federal District and is below only Rio de Janeiro, which had 47.2% of households without couples. In Brazil, there were no couples in 41.9% of domestic arrangements. Santa Catarina (35.8%), Rondônia (36.8%) and Pará (37.1%) had the lowest proportions.

Compared to 2010, when the last Census was produced, the number of domestic arrangements without couples grew by 50% in the state of Bahia. 12 years ago, the situation was 1.53 million domestic units, which represented 37.8% of the total existing at the time. This new profile of household composition shows an increase in different ways, which are different from the couple with children pattern, as explained by the IBGE dissemination supervisor in Bahia, Mariana Viveiros.

“These are people who are not united by this bond of conjugality, they live together, but do not have a relationship, or they live alone because we also had a significant increase in the number of households where only one person lives”, explained Mariana.

The number of single-person households, where only one person lives, now has the second largest share in the total, surpassing extended domestic units (where, in addition to the nucleus, there is at least one other relative). Between 2010 and 2022, units with a single resident increased from 524.95 thousand to 1.03 million, which represents an increase of 95.6%. In total participation, it went from 12.9% to 20.2%, the 3rd largest increase in participation among the states.

“People who live alone, who are among those who are not couples, show this new family configuration here in the state, imposing themselves, growing in importance, as opposed to the more traditional, more conventional one, which is usually a couple with children” , said Mariana.

The growth of unconventional family compositions is also a reflection of cultural changes, according to the IBGE supervisor. “New configurations that are brought about by the evolution of new issues, which, in the past, were not so valued. Also due to the rise of women in the job market…”, he continued.

The search for professional advancement, in fact, was what made Damilla leave São Sebastião to live in Salvador. She could even continue her studies at the Federal University of Bahia (Ufba), but she would lose many hours of the day just to catch transport. “The bus takes 1 hour to go between São Sebastião and Salvador, but the schedules are very bad. To be able to be seated, the person has to arrive 1 hour before (on the spot). I wasted more than 3 hours on public transport alone”, he reported.

To maintain the rent of an apartment in the Graça neighborhood, close to the campus where she studies, she looked for a colleague to share the expenses. “We know that rental prices in Graça are more expensive. So, the option of sharing an apartment, a dependency, ends up being more affordable”, he concluded.

Among the capitals, Salvador has the highest proportion of households whose arrangements did not involve couples: 509.11 thousand, or 53.1%. Porto Alegre/RS (52.6%), Belo Horizonte/MG (51.0%) and Rio de Janeiro/RJ (50.8%) complete the top 4.

Of the total domestic units in Bahia, 3.18 million were nuclear – in which only one couple lives, a couple with child(ren) or just one person with child(ren), or 62.4%. The extended units totaled 820,870 and corresponded to 16.1% of the total in 2022 – a reduction of 5.4% compared to 2010, when the situation was 867.77 thousand.

*With guidance from head of reporting Perla Ribeiro