Parenting today

Abstract

The relationship between parents and children has always been a cherished one. Social and economic changes in recent decades have brought about a diversification of traditional family patterns. The share of households with children has declined and the fertility rate is currently the lowest in Europe. The employment gap between male and female parents remains quite high. There has also been a rise in lone parent and blended families. These trends are described in some more detail below. In 2019, according to Eurostat Labour Force Survey data, there were 64,900 households with dependent children. The percentage of households with children has gone down from 44% in 2005 to 32.2% by 2019. This is due both to a declining fertility rate, an overall increase in the number of households and population ageing. Single parent households have increased from 2% of all households in 2005 to 3.3% in 2019; that is, from 2,600 to 6,700 single parent households. This latter figure is conservative as it does not include those single parents who live with their parents. According to the most recently available statistic from Eurostat, in 2013 25.9% of all births occurred outside marriage. There are no readily available data on blended families in Malta, nor are there data on couples who cohabit and have children, or on the number of families or individuals who adopt or foster children. Under Maltese law, persons who are LGBT may also adopt children, either as individuals or as same-sex couples.