CHANGES IN THE FAMILY ENVIRONMENT FOR CHILDREN

Census data enable one to follow changes in children's family environments within households at seven to eight-year intervals. At the end of the 1960s, 93% of children under 16 lived with a couple of married parents. This largely dominant model has since declined significantly but still concerned 82% of children in 1990. The youngest children are most likely to have parents living as unmarried couples. Today there are more older children living in single-parent families produced by divorce. Apart from these changes related to the parental environment, the last two decades have also been marked by a fall in the number of other persons living in the same household as the children, particularly through a reduction in the number of siblings. For children under 16 living with a couple of parents, the mean number of siblings fell from 2.29 in 1968 to 1.55 in 1990. The everyday family environment of young adults aged 16 to 24 has also considerably changed over the last twenty years. They are now less likely at a given age to have already founded a family and tend to live with their parents even longer. Employment rates are also lower for these young adults who remain dependent on their parents for longer.