Nearly 36% of Belgium’s more than 5 million households now consist of a single person, L’Echo and De Tijd report, analysing demographic data from Statbel.
In more than 90% of the country’s towns and communes, single people are now the most common household type. This represents ten times more than in the early 1990s. The Planning Bureau predicts that by 2070, the group of people living alone will account for more than four out of every ten households in the country.
Out of the single households, the largest group of people living alone is those aged 65 and over, with a share of 38%.
The share of married couples with children living under the same roof is shrinking. But this change is far from taking place at the same pace everywhere.
In the Brussels-Capital Region, the proportion of single-person households has decreased compared to the 1990s, even though in absolute figures they are more numerous.
In Wallonia however, the proportion of single-person households has increased more markedly, from less than 30% at the beginning of the 1990s, to 37% today.
In Flanders, a quarter of all households were made up of only one person in 1992, today it is almost one in three.
Source : TheBrusselsTimes
