Families with children are becoming increasingly rare in Europe

Sunday, Jul 27, 2025

Il Sole 24 Ore

EU family birth rates are declining; Italy hits historic low fertility rate of 1.18 children per woman.

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[This is an automatically generated summary, for reference only]

In 2024, only 23.6% of European families had at least one child, indicating a significant societal shift towards childless and single-parent households. In Europe, fewer than a quarter of all registered families have children, with the highest rates in Slovakia (35.6%) and Ireland (31.0%), and the lowest in Finland (18.0%). Regarding family size, nearly half of European households have only one child. Italy reached a historic low fertility rate in 2024 at 1.18 children per woman, with approximately 370,000 births recorded that year, down from 526,000 in 1995. The birth rate dropped to 6.3 per thousand, and the decline is particularly noticeable in Northern and Southern Italy, while fertility among women of childbearing age has significantly decreased since 1995.

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