Number of unmarried couples on the rise

Prague, March 7 (CTK) - The number of people who live together without entering into marriage has been rising in the Czech Republic amounting to over 238,000, according to data that the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) released Thursday.

The number of such couples has increased five times in the past 50 years, CSU said.

The number of households has been also rising in the Czech Republic, reaching almost 4.38 million. This is 1.3 million more than 50 years ago.

On the other hand, the number of household members has been gradually decreasing. In 1961 a Czech household had three members on average while now it has only 2.3.

The number of complete families has been dropping, too.

The statistics show that consensual unions, in which people aged 25-39 years prevail, make up 9 percent of Czech families.

Over a half of partners in them are single, one-third are divorced. Married men and women, living with another partner, make up 8 precent.

A half of such couples have no children.

The number of marriages has been constantly declining, statistician Josef Skrabal said.

In 2010, a total of 45,000 marriages were concluded in the country. It has been the lowest figure since 1918.

There are almost 571,000 incomplete families in the 10.5-million Republic and a woman is the core in most of them.

Some 400,000 children and juveniles (over one-fifth) are living with a lone parent only. An incomplete family most often consists of a divorced woman without children dependent on her or with one child.

In spite of this trend, complete families still prevail in the country amounting to 2.1 million. A total of 1.4 million children or 78 percent live in them.

However, about two-thirds of complete families are without children. They consist mainly of couples aged over 55 whose children have grown up and do not live with their parents any more.

The number of single households has been on the rise, too, amounting to 1.42 million at present.

They make up one-third of all households in the Czech Republic. Their number has been rising the steepest and it has tripled since 1961.

However, not only young people are living alone. A quarter of them are widows and pensioners make up almost a half.