Children under the age of five are increasingly likely to live in a household where the parents are not married, the national statistics office CBS said on Monday.

Last year, 25% of families with children under the age of five had unmarried parents, double the figure 10 years ago. The number of single-parent families rose by 100,000 to 417,000 over the same period, further emphasising the decline in traditional family structures.
At the same time, the research also shows families are getting smaller. Some 418,000 families have three or more children living at home, a drop of 30,000 on 10 years ago.
Large families are largely concentrated in the so-called Bible Belt, where high numbers of strict Protestants live, the CBS said. In the former fishing village of Urk, for example, 50% of the families have three or more children.
On average, one in five of the Netherlands’ 2.3 million family units has more than two children.