Number of stepparents increasing

The number of families with a stepparent has increased by nearly 35 thousand since 1998, to 149 thousand in 2007. The number of one-parent families rose to 459 thousand in the same period, while number of ‘traditional’ two-parent families fell to 1.9 million. In 7 percent of all Dutch couples with children in 2007, one of the partners was a stepparent; together these ‘step families’ had 282 thousand children.

In more than 80 percent of the families with a stepparent, all the stepchildren are the mother’s from a previous relationship. In nearly 15 percent they are the father’s from a previous relationship. Just under 5 percent of step families have children of both the father and the mother from previous relationships.
In around one three step families the partners also have children together.

Families on 1 January 1998 and 2007