Every fifth family

More single mothers in Austria again

More and more mothers in Austria are single parents (symbolic image).

(Bild: JenkoAtaman/stock.adobe.com)

Around one in five families with children (21.3 percent) consisted of one parent in the previous year. After a decline during the coronavirus pandemic, there are now more single mothers in Austria again, Statistics Austria reported on Tuesday. Family life has changed significantly since the mid-1980s.

In 1985, 78.8 percent of parents in a joint household with children were still married. In the previous year, this figure was around two thirds. "At the same time, the proportion of unmarried couples with one or more children in a joint household has increased significantly, from 1.9 percent in the mid-1980s to 13.2 percent today (...)," said Statistics Austria Director General Tobias Thomas on Tuesday.

The proportion of single-parent families has risen comparatively less (from 19.2 to 21.3 percent). These are mainly single mothers, while single fathers make up only two percent of all families.

Fewer couples with children
In total, there were 2,510,000 families in Austria last year, including 1,417,000 with children. Married couples (70.4 percent) were still in the lead among couple families, followed at a considerable distance by cohabiting couples (17.6 percent).

In general, there are fewer and fewer couples with children. In the previous year, married couples and cohabiting couples with at least one child in the household accounted for 44.4% of all families. At the same time, the number of couples living together without or again without children is increasing, according to Statistics Austria. Cohabiting couples have become more important over time.