Every year the Institute for Family Research conducts its “Family in Numbers” study. This year, the focus was on the effects of the coronavirus on families, especially in 2020. In addition, a balance sheet was drawn up for the past decade from 2010 to 2020. The result: The quota of children in childcare facilities rose sharply, while fewer and fewer adults raise their children alone.
“The new family report shows us which trends have become established in living together in recent years,” says Susanne Raab, Federal Minister for Women, Family, Youth (VP). “The results help us to base our policies on people’s needs.” In the area of childcare in particular, the federal government wants to support the federal states with more financial resources in order to further expand childcare.
Less divorces
Weddings were a rarity in 2020, also because of official restrictions. Compared to the previous year, the number of marriages nationwide fell by 13.8 percent, but so did the number of divorces: The overall divorce rate fell from 40.7 percent in 2019 to 37.6 percent in 2020. Meanwhile, childcare has been increasing over the years In 2020 and 2021 there was a high number of institutionally supervised children. In the past decade, the childcare rate for children under the age of three has also risen sharply: from 19 percent in 2010 to 29.9 percent in 2020.
Another record was found in the average age of women when they gave birth to their first child. While women were still 28.5 years old on average in 2010, their age was 30 in 2020 – the highest age for first births since records began.
Most children under the age of 15 continue to grow up in families with parents who are married or in a registered partnership. The number of single parents with children under 15 has declined; their number fell by 7.6 percent between 2010 and 2020.
Source: Nachrichten
