New Article:
Germany’s demographic trends, as revealed by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), show that in 2024, nearly a quarter of children, or 26 percent, lived in families with multiple siblings. The data, based on the Microcensus, also indicates that 18 percent of children lived with two siblings, while eight percent cohabitated with three or more siblings. Conversely, 30 percent of children lived without siblings and 44 percent with one sibling.
These proportions have remained relatively stable over the past few decades. In 1996, for instance, 31 percent of children lived without siblings, 44 percent with one and 25 percent in families with multiple siblings. The trend has seen a slight decline in the proportion of children in multiple-sibling families from 1996 to 2015, only to rise again to 26 percent in 2024. In contrast, the percentage of children without siblings increased from 31 to 33 percent between 1996 and 2015, before decreasing to 30 percent in 2024. The recent developments, particularly the rise in the number of children in multiple-sibling families, may be attributed to the influx of immigrants in the years following 2015.
In terms of family demographics, the proportion of families with multiple children was 13 percent, with a slightly higher frequency in western German states, at around 13 percent, compared to the eastern states, at 11 percent.
Families with an immigrant background were more likely to have three or more children, with 19 percent of such families having at least three children, compared to around 10 percent of families without an immigrant background.
The data also shows that the proportion of families with multiple children is higher in two-parent households, at 15 percent, compared to single-parent households, at eight percent.