Recent household trends in Europe :a cross-country analysis

Abstract

Over the past few decades, significant changes in family and household structure have been observed. Despite common trends, recent household distribution has been found to vary among countries and reflects the demographic behaviour, the effect of economic and social conditions, the quality of healthcare, cultural differences, and the overall lifestyle of each society. The most significant impact on the transformation of the current household distribution of the most developed countries is attributed to population ageing and new forms of living arrangements. The paper sets out to analyse recent household trends in Europe on the basis of harmonised 2011 census data and focuses both on new forms of families such as consensual unions and young adults living with their parents and on traditional families. Finally, in the second part of the paper European countries are classed into six groups according to shared household trends.