Large families in Normandy

NORMANDY is a place for a family atmosphere as one in five families has more than three children and, unlike in other parts of France, they are mainly traditional with the children all having the same parents.

A study by national statistics agency Insee said that of the 405,100 families in the five Norman departments nearly one in five was single-parent, 70% traditional and 10% “recomposée” or non-traditional. Two in three families have two or more children.

Most fathers are working, especially those between 25 and 49, but while the number of working mothers is high – four out of five with three children are still working – this drops to just over half if there are four children.

Mothers who gained a degree or equivalent keep working longer than those without.

A deeper look at the Insee study showed that one in three 50-year-olds had grown up with at least three brothers or sisters – and had large families themselves.

There are 156,500 over-75s in Haute-Normandie - with the majority being women – and most of them own their own home. They make up 8.5% of the population, an increase from 7.7% five years previously.

However, one in two over-75s lives alone and three-quarters of over-75 women live alone.

The average life span of women in 85.4 years and 79.2 for men.

* All this week we will be looking at newsworthy events in Normandy to tie in with a feature on Normandy food festivals in this month’s Connexion.

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Photo: Eric Ward (CC BY-SA 2.0)