More women in Kenya are navigating motherhood solo as the latest data reveals a notable rise in births to single parents. While married couples still account for the vast majority of newborns, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) Economic Survey report shows that 168,158 children were born to single mothers in 2025 – a significant jump from the 148,657 recorded the previous year.
“The proportion of registered births to single mothers increased to 14.7 percent in 2025 from 13.4 percent in 2024,” the KNBS report states, with 1,144,847 births recorded last year.
The statistics highlight a shifting landscape in family dynamics. Although married women delivered 974,154 babies last year, their overall share of total births dipped slightly. This group represented 85.1 per cent of all registered births in 2025, down from 86.3 per cent in 2024. Despite maintaining their dominance in the data, the margin of children born within a marriage effectively decreased by 1.2 percent over the twelve-month period.
Other marital categories remained statistically small and stable. Divorced and widowed mothers each accounted for just 0.1 percent of the year’s registered births. Meanwhile, cases involving unknown or unstated marital status saw a minor decline, falling from 0.2 per cent in 2024 to 0.1 per cent in 2025.
Kenya’s birth rate continues to climb, with the total number of registered births rising by 3.1 percent in 2025. This growth coincides with a strong preference for clinical care, as health facilities handled 98.6 per cent of all registered deliveries last year. This trend has remained remarkably steady since 2023, underscoring the near-total reliance on professional medical settings for childbirth across the country.
Maternal age patterns show…
Source link
Read Full Article by Richard Kamau at nairobiwire.com
Source link
