Living arrangements of children: methods and results of macro simulations for Germany

Gert Hullen, Federal Institute for Population Research, Germany

In general, children do not decide on their own living arrangement. On the other hand children might influence the decisions of their parents how to live and the children’s future is dependent on early living conditions. I would like to present macrosimulations on living arrangements for children in Germany. In addition to parameters concerning fertility, mortality and migration, the macrosimulation is based on parameters settings on leaving the parental home, marriages and divorces, beginning and end of consensual unions, transitions to collective households. The program ProFamy which has been used for this macrosimulation. Under the assumption that given structures of nuptiality and fertility in Germany are persisting, the number of children as well as the number of households with children will decline. Assumptions on childlessness determine the projection results on the number of siblings, given a constant TFR: Scenarios with a small proportion of childless women will lead to a rather small decrease of one-child-households.