Denmark has highest percentage of single parents in Europe

Nearly 30 percent of Danish families are single parent units

Oct 18, 2017

According to a new survey conducted by the newsletter Momentum, Denmark leads Europe when it comes to single parent families.

The survey is based on figures from EU stat keepers Eurostat and shows that nearly 30 percent of Danish families with children are single parent units. Second-placed Sweden has 25 percent, while the UK and Lithuania also scored over 20 percent.

“There are more single parents because we have more opportunity to be single parents. They don’t have that option in many other countries,” Martin Kruse, a researcher with the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, told TV2 News.

“There is also a cultural aspect to it. We have the option to choose to be alone and that isn’t viewed in the same way in southern Europe.”

Resource and time issue
The majority (54 percent) of single parent families in Denmark have just one child, while 36 percent have two and just 9 percent have three or more kids.

According to family researcher Per Schultz Jørgensen, single parent families can be just as good at raising children than two-parent families – although they can come with additional challenges.

“The emotional closeness and stable framework surrounding the upbringing of children can just as well be provided by single parents, but families with single parents don’t have the same strength and resources, and they are vulnerable to illness and time constraints,” Jørgensen told Momentum.

Meanwhile, the percentage of single parent families in Finland, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Slovenia, Greece and Croatia (lowest with 5 percent) were all under 10 percent.

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