A decorated Christmas tree – lots of presents underneath, children's eyes full of excitement. This is what a classic Christmas Eve might look like for a family in Germany. After dinner and the exchange of gifts, there’s plenty of time to play with toys and siblings. Or do many children – lacking brothers or sisters – instead spend the evening with relatives, friends, their parents, or a single parent?

What do family constellations in Germany look like today, and how have they changed recently? Answers to these questions can be found in data from the Microcensus for the years 2021 and 2024. This data provides information on families with minor children in the household, categorized by family type.

According to this, the most common family type among the nearly 8.4 million families in this country is the four-person family, consisting of a married couple with two children. This means that in most families, children have a playmate in the form of a sibling: 3.68 million families (44%) fit this model. A similar number of families have one child: 3.26 million (39%). With a noticeable gap follows the three-child family – just 1.1 million, or 13% of all families. It is comparatively rare for a child to have three or more siblings: only 350,000 families, about 4% of all, have at least four children.

Most of the children's parents live in a marriage partnership (69%), whereas in 19% of families a single parent raises the children. Cohabiting partnerships are less common, at 12%.

Compared to 2021, the number of families with underage children in Germany has generally increased (+3.5%, or +287,000 families). The biggest relative growth is seen among larger families, those with three or more children (+9.7% and +12.6%, respectively). By family type, the increase among married couples is lowest (+2.5%), while growth is more pronounced among cohabiting partners (+4.7%) and single parents (+6.8%). In absolute terms, the increase among single parents is also high at 101,000 (married couples: +142,000; cohabiting couples: +45,000).

Not only is the number of single-parent families noticeably increasing, but a closer look reveals that it is especially single parents with multiple children who account for this growth. The share of single-parent families with three children among all families with three children has risen most significantly, up 1.6 percentage points (from 124,000 to 154,000 families). So, with these two factors — being a single parent and having many children — there are two factors that are known to significantly increase the risk of poverty. For a growing number of families, the prospect of a lavish holiday celebration is therefore less bright.  [1]

Overall, growth among one-child families has been the weakest (+0.8%), and their share among all families has declined by 1.1 percentage points. Meanwhile, the share of families with three children has risen most clearly (+0.7 percentage points). It is well known that shared joy is often double joy – whether with siblings, parents or another loved one. With this in mind: Merry Christmas to all! 
 

Other figures can be found here.