It is still mainly women who raise their underage children alone. But the proportion of fathers in this role is increasing, reports the Federal Statistical Office – to 15 percent last year.
More and more single parents in Germany are fathers. Last year, this applied to 15 percent of single parents who live with their underage children in the same household, said the Federal Statistical Office. The proportion has risen: ten years ago it was still 10 percent.
Correspondingly, the number of single fathers has increased – by 44 percent from 166,000 in 2012 to 239,000 last year. For comparison: the number of single mothers fell by 10 percent in the same period – from 1.48 million to 1.33 million.
number of families with single parent parent declining
In total there were around 1.57 million single-parent families in Germany last year. “This meant that almost every fifth family with children under the age of 18 had only one parent,” the statisticians report. The proportion fell slightly compared to 2012: At that time, 1.64 million single-parent families accounted for 20 percent. Overall, the number of families with children under the age of 18 increased from 8.11 million in 2012 to 8.45 million in 2022.