Addressing EU demographic challenges

What is the issue?

The European Union (EU) is undergoing significant demographic change, with profound implications for family life, welfare systems, and workforces across member states. Fertility rates have declined considerably over the last five decades, and there is a persistent gap between desired and actual family size. Decisions to postpone having children or limit family size are indicative of a context where reconciling the social and economic demands of work and life proves ever more challenging for families.

Large family and single-parent households face particular pressures, with more children to support or fewer adults to share unpaid care and earnings. In 2024, these households represented 17.7 percent of all households with children in the EU. Both EU-level and national policies have a crucial role in supporting households with children and reducing the risk of poverty and social exclusion.

How did we help?

The European Parliament’s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs commissioned RAND Europe, together with the Institute for Structural Research (IBS) in Poland, to carry out a study exploring how EU and member state policies support large families and single-parent housing and assessing the feasibility of a European Large Family Card (LFC). The research combined quantitative analysis of national data, a literature review, targeted desk research and policy mapping, and stakeholder interviews.

We mapped initiatives across the 27 EU member states to assess the landscape of support for these families, across work-life balance, childcare and financial support measures. We identified current practices, barriers and gaps in policy design and implementation supporting large families and single-parent households. We also analysed the use and impact of LFCs, which offer benefits and discounts to families with multiple children.

What did we find?

Single-parent households and large families face distinctive needs and heightened challenges. Single-parent households, especially those led by mothers, experience the most severe socioeconomic and health-related disadvantages, and large families experience above-average poverty risk due to the costs of raising multiple children. Although family policy remains primarily a national competence, the role of the EU has grown in recent years through initiatives such as the European Pillar of Social Rights, the Work-Life Balance Directive and the European Child Guarantee.

All Member States provide core family benefits, and many offer additional targeted measures (e.g. higher child allowances or tax credits for third and subsequent children or lone parents, maintenance guarantee schemes, extended parental leave, priority childcare access, or larger housing or utility subsidies for larger families). These supports help but are often complex and fragmented, so many eligible families do not receive all the assistance available to them. Civil society organisations play a complementary role in some Member States by advocating for families, delivering services, innovating benefits like family cards and assisting vulnerable families in navigating complex welfare systems.

Several Member States (and regions) have family discount card schemes that grant eligible families – usually those with 3 or more children – discounts on various goods and services. LFCs provide modest financial relief and a measure of symbolic recognition for larger families. Notable innovations include cross-border acceptance and digital platforms. However, the overall impact on household finances is limited – the savings cover only a small fraction of costs, and success depends on voluntary participation by service providers. Uptake varies, often constrained by low awareness or administrative hurdles.

What can be done?

EU level

• Consider establishing EU-wide statistical definitions for diverse family types.
• Facilitate coordination and learning on family policy through existing EU frameworks.
• Promote better work-life balance and job quality.
• Improve data on diverse families, fund research and social innovation to identify what works for single parents and large families, and consider a ‘family impact assessment’ for new EU policies.
• Consider earmarking EU funding within existing instruments to ensure uptake of family policy initiatives, and better leverage monitoring tools with specific family indicators.

Member States

• Simplify and integrate benefits and services to improve access.
• Offer targeted assistance to single-parent households and large families and ensure that benefits are adequate to living costs and family size.
• Ensure parental leave is well-compensated and gender-balanced, with provisions so a single parent can use leave that would otherwise be lost by an absent partner.
• Ensure affordable, quality ECEC with priority for single-parent and low-income large families. Make maintenance and tax systems more inclusive.

European LFC

• Develop the initiative via consultation, working with families, national authorities and stakeholders to design a European LFC, clearly defining its goals and ensuring broad eligibility.
• Build on existing family cards by using mutual recognition or cobranding, rather than creating a separate system.
• Ensure partner buy-in and usability by attracting a wide range of partners and creating a multilingual digital app.
• Pilot in volunteering Member States with robust monitoring before wider rollout, exploring EU funding routes for digital infrastructure and coordination.