1990 POPULATION CENSUS Detailed data based on a 2 per cent representative sample (1992)

B/ Main characteristics of households and families

Till 1980, average family size had decreased in both family types: in that with a married couple with child and in that with one parent with child. Since 1980, however, in the case of families with married couples, stagnation, in the case of one-parent-one-child families a slight increase can be observed. In the case of the latter, however, the changes did not occur in the same way in the fatherwith-child and in mother-with-child families, respectively. While in the families without a father the pace of the decline in the average family size had been relatively uniform till 1980, in the case of the father-with-child family type — apart from the very great average family size over 3 persons observed in 1949 — there was practically no difference between 1960 and 1980. Since 1980, in both family types, the number of persons per 100 families has increased almost equally, by 6-7 persons, and average family size depends no more on the sex of the parent living alone with his/her child. 37. Families by family composition and average size Family composition Persons per 100 families Family composition 1949 1960 1970 1980 1990 Married couples without children 200 200 200 200 200 Married couples with child(ren) 411 387 371 367 371 Together 346 321 307 301 302 Lone fathers with child(ren) 303 242 240 241 247 Lőne mothers with child(ren) 291 259 250 239 246 Together 293 257 249 240 246 Totál 339 312 301 294 293 In the past 40 years the composition of families by the number of children changed fundamentally. While at the date of the first population census after World War II scarcely more than one quarter of the families lived without a child, at present,the respective share is over one third. In the same period, the share of one-child families has increased from 32 per cent to 35 per cent till 1970, then, in the following 20 years, it feli back to the initial level. The proportion of families with three children declined from 10 per cent to 5 per cent. This fali occurred in the first half of the period, after then, their proportion did not change practically. At present, the proportion of families rearing four or more children — considered traditonally as large families — does not even attain 1,5 per cent, while in 1960 and in 1949 that number of children lived in each twentieth and, respectively, fourteenth family. At present, in 55 per cent of the families there is no child aged under 15 years, and this proportion was similar alsó 10 and 20 years ago, respectively, as against 1960 when only not quite half of the families were such. This can be explained by childbirths, which didn't occur because of the World War and postponed to the end of the 1940s and by the subsequent "population policy measures" taken in the first half of the 1950s which alsó resulted in a considerable increase in the number of children. It must be mentioned that at the 1960 population census never married grandchildren living with grandparents were alsó considered as children, and this alsó contributed to the increase in the share of families with children aged under 15 years. In 1970, the proportions of families rearing two and, respectively, three children of school age were lower compared to the respective data of previous and subsequent population censuses. Namely, by that time, the generation born after the war already belonged no more to this age-group, and the childcare allowance introduced at the end of the 1960s resulted yet in a significant increase only in the number and proportion of one-child families. 35