Household composition across the new Europe: Where do the new Member States fit in?

Maria Iacovou; Alexandra J. Skew

Volume 25 - Article 14 | Pages 465–490

Household composition across the new Europe: Where do the new Member States fit in?

By Maria Iacovou, Alexandra J. Skew

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Date received:	11 Aug 2010
Date published:	16 Aug 2011
Word count:	7865
Keywords:	Europe, European Union, family, household
DOI:	10.4054/DemRes.2011.25.14

Abstract

In this paper we present indicators of household structure for 26 of the 27 countries of the post-enlargement European Union. As well as broad indicators of household type, we present statistics on single-person and extended-family households, and on the households of children and older people. Our main aim is to assess the extent to which household structure differs between the "old" and "new" Member States of the European Union. We find that most of the Eastern European countries may be thought of as lying on the same North-North-Western-Southern continuum defined for the "old" EU Member States, and constituting an "extreme form" of the Southern European model of living arrangements, which we term the "Eastern" model. However, the Baltic states do not fit easily onto this continuum.