Families across Europe are less stable, less likely to be based on marriage and are formed later than in the 
past, a leading academic has told a conference on the family in Dublin Castle.
Professor Juho Härkönen, a sociologist at Stockholm University, told the conference that trends across the European Union meant that families tended to have fewer children and were more likely to experience divorce, or in the case of the increasing number of cohabiting families, separation.
He was addressing a conference co-hosted by the Irish Countrywomen’s Association and COFACE, Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union, entitled Vulnerable Families: What can Europe do?
The conference was held in conjunction with the Irish Presidency of the EU.
Professor Härkönen also pointed out that these trends did not impact every level of society equally, with the less educated being more likely to end up as single parents or divorced.
He said that the increased level of family instability and single parenthood exposed more families to economic vulnerability.
However, he argued that there was little that could be done to tackle these trends, and said that government effort should be targetted at improving the economic lot of those affected by the trends.
Professor Härkönen said that although these trends were happening across the EU, there were certain variations between the countries.
For example, he pointed out that while single parenthood in Sweden was almost completely due to divorce or separation, in Ireland lone parenthood was more likely to be chosen.
He said that while divorce rates across Europe had risen quite steadily, some countries such as Germany and Italy had seen their divorce rate stay relatively stable.
Earlier, the conference was addressed by Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald who said that governments should focus on supporting families of every type, rather than trying to promote marriage.
She was responding to a question as to whether the EU should focus on promoting marriage given that single parent families were amongst the most vulnerable families.
In response to the same question, another speaker, Julius op de Beke, an economist with the European Commission, said that the EU did not have a policy to support marriage and it was unlikely to have such a policy in the future.
Another speaker, Juan Menendez Valdes, the director of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, said that single parent families were one of the most vulnerable family types.
While 90pc of two parent families across the EU had at least one person working, the percentage was much lower for single parent families. Ireland, he added, had one of the highest percentages of single parent families in the EU.