Home > Statistics > Families > 2009 > Annual Review > 3. Share of families with children in steady decline

3. Share of families with children in steady decline

At the end of 2009, there were 584,000 families with underage children in Finland. A family with underage children has at least one child under the age of 18 living at home. Families with underage children make up 40 per cent of all families. The percentage has been falling at a steady rate for the past few years. In all, 41 per cent of the population live in families with underage children, older siblings included.

The number of families with underage children decreased by 1,100 from the year before. This decrease is smaller than in the previous year. The number of families with children is decreasing, because the age groups of families expecting their first child are smaller than those celebrating the coming-of-age of their youngest child. In addition, more and more women remain childless, either willingly or unwillingly. For example, 27 per cent of the 35-year-old women born in 1974 are today childless, which equals the proportion last year among women born in 1973. In 1990, 19 per cent of the 35-year-old women born in 1965 were childless. The percentage of mothers in each 1-year age group is now smaller than in 1990 (Population Structure 1990 and Population Structure and Vital Statistics by Municipality 2009).

The number of families with children under the age of seven increased for the fifth consecutive year. In 2009, the number of such families increased by almost 2,900. The natural reason for this is that the number of children born annually has been going up in the early 2000s.

Table 5. Families with underage children by type in 1950–2009

Year	Total	Married couple with children	Cohabiting couple with children	Mother and children	Father and children	Registered partnership with children	Persons in families with underage children	Families with children aged under 18	Families with children of all families, %	Population belonging to families with children, %
1950	599 329	515 115	..	74 319	9 895	..	..	1 341 330	64	..
1960	678 046	601 542	..	67 381	9 123	..	..	1 536 464	65	..
1970 1)	677 035	602 076	5 800	61 173	7 986	..	..	1 345 089	59	..
1980 2)	688 732	572 142	32 100	74 839	9 651	..	..	1 163 926	54	..
1990	640 637	490 999	59 900	78 948	10 790	..	2 437 592	1 135 686	47	49
2000	612 627	398 892	95 120	103 984	14 631	..	2 317 291	1 116 687	44	45
2005	591 528	368 553	104 782	103 044	15 063	86	2 232 613	1 084 865	42	43
2006	589 448	365 326	106 422	102 469	15 111	120	2 223 718	1 080 728	41	42
2007	587 767	362 884	107 290	102 156	15 291	146	2 216 526	1 076 522	41	42
2008	585 224	360 904	107 034	101 717	15 382	187	2 206 209	1 071 800	41	41
2009	584 172	358 871	107 377	102 146	15 549	229	2 200 603	1 068 554	40	41
%
1950	100,0	85,9	..	12,4	1,7	..	..	..	..	..
1960	100,0	88,7	..	9,9	1,3	..	..	..	..	..
1970	100,0	88,9	0,9	9,0	1,2	..	..	..	..	..
1980	100,0	83,1	4,7	10,9	1,4	..	..	..	..	..
1990	100,0	76,6	9,4	12,3	1,7	..	..	..	..	..
2000	100,0	65,1	15,5	17,0	2,4	..	..	..	..	..
2005	100,0	62,3	17,7	17,4	2,5	0,0	..	..	..	..
2006	100,0	62,0	18,1	17,4	2,6	0,0	..	..	..	..
2007	100,0	61,7	18,3	17,4	2,6	0,0	..	..	..	..
2008	100,0	61,7	18,3	17,4	2,6	0,0	..	..	..	..
2009	100,0	61,4	18,4	17,5	2,7	0,0	..	..	..	..

1) The breakdown of the census by type of family has been revised on the basis of interview surveys. (Aromaa, Cantell & Jaakkola: Avoliitto (Consensual Union), Research Institute of Legal Policy 49, Helsinki 1981).
2) The breakdown of the census by type of family has been revised on the basis of the 1981 register-based material on families and cohabiting couples.

3.1 Commonest type of family of married couples still includes underage children

By far the most common type of family with underage children is still that of a married couple. In 61 per cent of all families with underage children the supporters are a married couple. On the other hand, this is the only form of family with children for which the absolute number and relative proportion have been falling continuously. Nevertheless, its dominance is unlikely to be threatened by any other family form for years to come. Among the families with underage children, the numbers of the types cohabiting couple with children, mother with children, father with children and registered couple with children increased during the year. At the end of 2009, there were 107,400 families of cohabiting couples with underage children in Finland, equalling 18 per cent of all families with underage children.

Nowadays, 54 per cent of first-born children are born outside of marriage. The proportion has hardly varied at all since 1999. Thirty-seven per cent of second-born children and 28 per cent of third-born children are born to parents who are not married to each other (Vital Statistics 2009). Altogether 41 per cent of all children born in 2009 were born out of wedlock.

The number of families with children of the type mother and children (102,100) has gone up slightly from the year before. However, their share of all families with children has remained unchanged. One-fifth of all families with underage children are one-parent families (of the type mother and children or father and children). Families with children whose regular composition is father and children are still quite rare in Finland, their number being only 15,500. Families composed of a registered couple and children under the age of 18 are even rarer, and only number 229.

Figure 5A. Families with underage children by type of family and age of mother/single father in 2009

Figure 5B. Families with underage children by type of family and age of mother/single father in 2009, relative breakdown

3.2 Less than half of parents of reconstituted families are married to each other

A reconstituted family refers to a family that has a non-common child under the age of 18, i.e. the child has, in a sense, received a new social parent. In colloquial and everyday language the concept is used in a broader sense: weekend families formed as a result of various divorce arrangements are referred to as reconstituted families. However, statistics on families must be compiled according to the child’s permanent place of residence. One child cannot be recorded in statistics as belonging to two families. Divorced fathers and mothers with whom children only stay during weekends and holidays are not included in family statistics, unless they have formed a new family.

Reconstituted families account for nine per cent (54,000) of all families with underage children. The number of reconstituted families has grown slowly ever since the first statistics on them were compiled in 1990. In 2009, the number decreased by 90 families.

Altogether 49 per cent of the parents of reconstituted families are married to one another and the rest cohabit. Usually, the child of a reconstituted family is the mother’s and has obtained a new social father. If a common child is born to a reconstituted family, the parents most often marry, otherwise the spouses tend to cohabit. Families with “your children, my children and our children” living in the same household are still rare, numbering only 744.

Table 6. Reconstituted families 1990–2009

Year	Total	Married couple	Cohabiting couple	Reconstituted families as a proportion of families with children, %	Mother's children	Father's children	Common children	Children under 18 in reconstituted families	Non-common children as a proportion of children of all families, %	Children in reconstituted families as aproportion of children of all families, %
1990	44 426	21 808	22 618	6,9	50 713	7 443	30 089	88 245	5,1	7,8
1995	42 460	19 197	23 263	6,6	50 322	7 637	29 242	87 201	5,0	7,6
2000	47 288	21 315	25 973	7,7	58 550	8 541	30 931	98 022	6,0	8,8
2001	48 359	21 846	26 513	8,0	60 272	8 916	31 086	100 274	6,3	9,1
2002	49 294	22 431	26 863	8,2	61 816	9 120	31 226	102 162	6,5	9,3
2003	49 944	22 888	27 056	8,4	63 071	9 198	31 565	103 834	6,6	9,5
2004	50 867	23 872	26 995	8,6	64 503	9 366	32 040	105 909	6,8	9,7
2005	52 204	24 722	27 482	8,8	66 228	9 746	32 465	108 439	7,0	10,0
2006	52 920	25 275	27 645	9,0	67 175	10 054	32 817	110 071	7,1	10,2
2007	53 482	25 901	27 581	9,1	67 652	10 254	33 064	110 970	7,2	10,3
2008	53 674	26 415	27 259	9,2	67 463	10 378	33 227	111 068	7,3	10,4
2009	53 584	26 516	27 068	9,2	67 154	10 517	33 016	110 687	7,3	10,4

3.3 Number of children in families with underage children

When examining the number of children in families, allowance must be made for the family’s stage of life. For example, families which have only had their first born are processed as one-child families in statistics, as are also families with only their last-born still living at home. Family statistics thus represent a cross-section of the situation at a given moment, i.e. the sizes of families in the country at a given point in time, and do not describe the eventual numbers of children in families. Hence, it is difficult to compare the statistics relating to different points in time because of the uneven age structure of the population.

The clearest change in the number of children in families in the long term is the fall in the number and relative proportion of families with at least four children since the post-war period (Table 7). However, the proportion of these large families among families with children has increased slightly since the 1990s, even though especially in recent years any changes have been quite minor.

The number of families with just one underage child has grown by around 600 from the previous year. At the end of 2009, families with one child accounted for 43.6 per cent of all families with underage children.

At the end of 2009, one family with 15 underage children led the statistics on the number of children. When all children living at home are taken into account, the largest families in Finland also have 15 children.

Table 7. Number of children in families with underage children 1950–2009

Year	Families total	1	2	3	4-	Average number of children aged under 18
1950	599 329	234 682	173 092	95 100	96 455	2,24
1960	678 046	253 285	202 408	112 446	109 907	2,27
1970	677 035	287 649	222 276	100 358	66 752	1,99
1980	688 732	333 812	264 944	70 100	19 876	1,69
1990	640 637	286 549	250 317	81 163	22 608	1,77
2000	612 627	268 369	230 758	85 025	28 475	1,82
2005	591 528	255 549	225 879	81 775	28 325	1,83
2006	589 448	254 705	225 714	80 794	28 235	1,83
2007	587 767	254 832	225 044	79 594	28 297	1,83
2008	585 224	253 841	224 508	78 550	28 325	1,83
2009	584 172	254 457	223 777	77 528	28 410	1,83
%
1950	100,0	39,2	28,9	15,9	16,1	..
1960	100,0	37,4	29,9	16,6	16,2	..
1970	100,0	42,5	32,8	14,8	9,9	..
1980	100,0	48,5	38,5	10,2	2,9	..
1990	100,0	44,7	39,1	12,7	3,5	..
2000	100,0	43,8	37,7	13,9	4,6	..
2005	100,0	43,2	38,2	13,8	4,8	..
2006	100,0	43,2	38,3	13,7	4,8	..
2007	100,0	43,4	38,3	13,5	4,8	..
2008	100,0	43,4	38,4	13,4	4,8	..
2009	100,0	43,6	38,3	13,3	4,9	..

The average number of children in a family with underage children is not directly comparable at different points in time, because the sizes of the age groups at various stages of family life vary. The figures should be age-standardised. However, this does not give exactly unambiguous information either, since childbearing age has continuously risen. Therefore, the youngest age groups in 1985 cannot be compared direct with today’s youngest age groups, as at the moment women bearing their first child are, on the average, two years older than at that time. The number of children in families with children has fallen each year since the beginning of the 1990s.

The recent trend can be seen in Figure 6, which shows the average number of underage children living at home according to the mother's age group. The fact that women giving birth have become older is visible in that mothers aged over 40 have almost the same number of children in each age group as in the previous year and clearly more than in 1990. Mothers aged under 35 have roughly the same number of children as in the year before and in 1990.

Figure 6. Average number of children in families with underage children by age of mother in 1985, 1990, 2008 and 2009

Source: Population and Cause of Death Statistics, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Marjut Pietiläinen (09) 1734 2798, Timo Nikander (09) 1734 3250, vaesto.tilasto@stat.fi

Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma

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Updated 30.11.2010