Press Releases 1998

[Index]

ONE THIRD OF THE DUTCH LIVE ALONE

13 March 1998

With an average age of 28, Dutch women are amongst the oldest first-time mothers in the world. One in five Dutch women born in the 1970s will remain childless, compared with one in ten of those born in 1945.

These are some of the findings published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) in Fertility and Family Surveys in Countries of the ECE Region, Standard Country Report, The Netherlands.

The report also shows that since 1975 mean female age at first marriage has risen from 22.6 in 1975 to 27.4 years in 1995. The marriage experience is partly compensated by cohabitating experience, though not completely. For example, 83% of 40-42 year-olds had a partnership before the age of 25. In 1993, this was true for only 76% amongst the 25-29 year-olds.

In addition to the rise of unmarried cohabitation, today increasing numbers of children are born outside marriage or outside any partnership at all. In 1975, 2% of all firstborn children were born outside marriage, increasing to 4% in 1980 and 15.5 in 1995. One third of these children were later legitimized by marriage. The others, one in ten, are offspring of various living arrangements consisting of unmarried couples, couples of the same sex or lone parents.

Another finding of the study is that more and more people live alone. While 11.8% of all households were one-person households in 1960, by 1995 this percentage has risen to 31.4%. There are three main reasons to this evolution. First, more young people live alone for a while after leaving their parents. Second, there are more divorced people. The third reason is due to aging. Since women have an average life expectancy of about six years more than men, and since they generally marry men who are on average two years older, many widows live alone for a relatively long time.

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This report is the result of a comprehensive survey research programme on partnership and reproductive behaviour which the Population Activities Unit of the UN/ECE began in the late 1980s with support from the United Nations Population Fund. This report is part of a series of 20 comparable country reports, which examine new trends and patterns of partnership and reproductive behaviour in Europe and North America.

Jan Latten and Arie de Graaf, Fertility and Family Surveys in Countries of the ECE Region, Standard Country Report, The Netherlands, United Nations, Sales No. GV.E.97.0.22.

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