European families raising children are becoming fewer and fewer. If they have decided to create a generation, most prefer to have only one child. In recent years, the model of families with small children has been intensively spread, both in the more developed and in the poorer countries in the European Union.
The number for individual households in the EU has risen to nearly 200 million, or nearly 7% increased over a decade. However, at the expense of this, the demographic crisis is deepening, as 75 out of 100 of them are not raising children, according to Eurostat data for 2022. It is noteworthy that over the years the number of families without children has increased, as well as this of large families.
Bulgaria is one of the countries where childless households predominate. Finland (18.4%), Germany (20.1%) and the Netherlands (21.8%) have the highest share in this ranking. On the other hand, families raising generations are most numerous in Slovakia (33.9%), Ireland (32.2%) and Cyprus (30.6%).
Europeans make one child each.
Only a quarter of households are raising children. Of them, 12 out of 100 have one child each. Two children account for 9.3%, and families with three or more children account for a modest 3%.
Parents with only one child are the most popular (49%) in every single European country, including Bulgaria. Over 60 out of 100 of the parents here give birth to only one child.
The only exception for single-child families is the Netherlands, where households with 2 children represent a higher percentage.
On the other hand, large families are most rare in Bulgaria, Italy and Portugal, where less than 7% of parental couples have 3 or more children. At the other extreme are Irish families who prefer to raise older generations – and more than 22% of families are large.
Single parents raise children in every third family in Plovdiv and the districtThere are 64,647 married couples living without children in Plovdiv region
Tags: European households children grow Bulgaria fewest families children
