According to the EU statistics office, France is the country with the highest percentage of children born out of marriage (59.7%), followed by Bulgaria and Slovenia (58.6% each), Estonia (56.1%), Sweden (54.9%), Denmark 54.0%), Portugal (52.8%) and the Netherlands (50.4%).

Compared to the year 2000, in 2016 Portugal had one of the largest increases in the percentage of children born out of marriage: from 22.2% to 52.8%.

On the other side of the table, Greece (9.4%), Croatia (18.9%), Cyprus (19.1%), Poland (25.0%), Lithuania (27.4%), Italy (28.0%), Romania (31.3%) and Malta (31.8%) have the lowest rates of children of unmarried parents.

The highest percentage increase was recorded in Cyprus (2.3% in 2000 to 19.1% in 2016), followed by Malta (from 10.6% to 31.8%), Italy (from 9.7% to 28%), Spain (17.7% to 45.9%), Greece (4.0% to 9.4%) and Portugal (22.1% to 52.8%).