Ireland has highest proportion of families with three or more kids in EU

Darragh Mc Donagh

Ireland has the highest proportion of families with three or more children in the European Union, newly published data has revealed.

Out of 202 million private households in the 27-country bloc, just under a quarter included children last year, according to information collated by Eurostat, the EU statistics office.

The proportion of households with children was highest in Slovakia at 35.6 per cent, while Ireland was the next highest at 31 per cent.

The countries with the lowest proportion of households with children were Finland (18 per cent), Lithuania (19.6 per cent) and Germany (20.1 per cent).

Of the households across the bloc that included children, almost half (49.8 per cent) had only one child. Another 37.6 per cent had two children, and only one in eight (12.6 per cent) had three or more.

In Ireland, however, more than one in five (20.6 per cent) of the households with children had three or more kids, according to the statistics that were published by Eurostat earlier on Monday

The country with the next highest proportion was Sweden (18.1 per cent), followed by Finland (17.4 per cent). At the other end of the table, just 6.2 per cent of households with children in Portugal had three or more kids.

Earlier this year, data published by Eurostat revealed that birth rates in the European Union had plunged by 5.4 per cent in 2023 compared to the previous year – the biggest annual decline since 1961.

A total of 3.67 million babies were born in the bloc in 2023. The fertility rate was 1.38 live births per woman, down from 1.46 in 2022.

It followed a downward trend in the EU, where 5.1 million babies were born in 1990. That was the last time that the figure exceeded five million.

In 2022, it dropped below four million for the first time.