New ESRC research highlights the diversity of family forms across the European Union. The study, specially commissioned for the ESRC's sixth national social science conference, was prepared by Professor Richard Berthoud and Dr Maria Iacovou, of Essex University's Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER). The research is based principally on analysis of a survey of 73,000 households across the EU. Its findings include:
- In Finland, half of all young men have left the parental home before age 22. But in Italy, almost half of all men are still living with their parents by age 30. In the UK, the 'half-way' mark for men leaving home is 23.5.
- In all countries, women leave home earlier than men.
- Ireland has the largest households, with four people on average. In the UK, average household size is 2.8 and Sweden has the smallest households with an average size of 2.2.
- Between the ages of 23 and 27, only 9 per cent of Italian men are in partnerships, while 42 per cent of men in the UK have a partner: thus, British men are nearly five times as likely as Italian men to be living in a partnership in their mid-twenties.
- The most delayed fertility is in the Netherlands and Italy (with only around half of women in these countries having had a child by age 30), while the earliest fertility is in the UK and Austria (where half of all women are mothers by age 27). Indeed, early fertility in the UK is the highest in Europe, not just in the teenage years, but throughout the early twenties.
- Annual teen birth rates range from 6 per 1000 women in the Netherlands up to 30 per 1,000 women in the UK.
- In the southern countries, 33% of women over age 65 live with one or more of their children; in the north/central group only 10% live with a child; and in the Nordic countries, only 3% live in the same house as one of their children.
- Older people may move in with their adult children in order to be cared for by their children. But cohabitation between generations is not simply a case of the younger generation caring for their elderly parents: the older generation also helps the younger generation by providing childcare. There is far more reciprocity in such arrangements where the elderly co-resident is female: older men receive just as much care as older women, but they provide very little childcare.
For further information, see the accompanying extract of Berthoud's and Iacovou's presentation to the conference. The full report will be available at the ESRC's conference on 21st November 2002 at the QEII Conference Centre.
Alternatively, contact Dr Maria Iacovou (noon till 6pm only) on maria@essex.ac.uk or 44-120-687-3994 or Professor Richard Berthoud on berthoud@essex.ac.uk or 120-687-3982 or Romesh Vaitilingam on 776-866-1095.
Or Iain Stewart or Lesley Lilley at ESRC, on 44-179-341-3032/413119
Notes for the editors:
1. Richard Berthoud and Maria Iacovou are researchers at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex - the base for ESRC's UK Longitudinal Studies Centre
2. About the study: The raw household survey data for most of the research comes from the European Community Household Panel, a survey undertaken in all 15 current EU members. The sample totals around 73,000 households across Europe, ranging from 7,000 each in Italy and France to just 1,000 in Luxembourg; all adults in selected households were interviewed, providing data about 153,000 individuals. Much of the material in the paper is drawn from the work of the European Panel Analysis Group. (see www.iser.essex.ac.uk/epag)
3. The ESRC is the UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It has a track record of providing high-quality, relevant research to business, the public sector and Government. The ESRC invests more than £53 million every year in social science research. At any time, its range of funding schemes may be supporting 2,000 researchers within academic institutions and research policy institutes. It also funds postgraduate training within the social sciences thereby nurturing the researchers of tomorrow. The ESRC website address is http://www.esrc.ac.uk