The proportion of Brazilians living alone jumped 52% in 12 years. In 2024, 18.6% of households were inhabited by just one person – approximately one in every five.
In 2012, this share was 12.2%. In 2012, Brazil had 61.2 million households, 7.5 million of which had one resident. In 2024, households totaled 77.3 million, 14.4 million of which had just one person.
The data was released on Friday (Aug. 22) by IBGE.
Research analyst William Kratochwill points out that the growth in single-person households is associated with the aging of the population. According to the survey, over 12 years the proportion of people aged 65 or older rose from 7.7% to 11.2%.
“Forty percent of single-person households in Brazil are occupied by people aged 60 or older,” he observed.
“These are people who have been widowed or who lived with their family, but whose children left to form their own families, leaving them increasingly alone,” he continued.
Women and men
Of the 14.4 million people living alone in 2024, the majority were men (55.1%), while 44.9% were women.
Among men, the majority (57.2%) are between 30 and 59 years old. “It could also be the case of a man divorcing and the children staying with the woman,” he pointed out. “There are also those who find a new job in another state and move there to establish themselves first and bring the family later – or move temporarily, for one or two years,” he added.
Among women living alone, the predominant age group is over 60 years, representing 55.5% of this female population.
“These are people who are already at the end of their life cycle, with children having their own families, husbands deceased,” Kratochwill said.
Other demographic data
The survey indicated that Brazil had 211.9 million people in 2024. Women represented slightly more than half (51.2%), meaning there are 95.2 men for every 100 women in Brazil.
In line with the trend predicted by the 2022 Census, Browns surpassed Whites, reaching 46.1% of the Brazilian population. In total, 42.1% declared themselves White and 10.7% Black.
Nearly half (42%) of the country’s residents lived in the Southeast in 2024. São Paulo is the state with the largest number of inhabitants, with nearly 46 million residents, representing 22% of the country’s population.
Source: Agência Brasil