There was a total of 86,300 nuclear families in Iceland on 1 January 2021, an increase of 1,632 from the previous year. The number of families with children increased by 840 and the number of childless marriages and cohabitation increased by 713 while the number of people not in nuclear families increased by 401 from the previous year.
New definition of Nuclear families age 0 - 24
Until now, Statistics Iceland has used the legal definition of nuclear families. In order to show family structure in a more realistic way, Statistics Iceland has launched a new definition of nuclear families. In the earlier definition, which will continue to be published, individuals aged 18 and more were no longer counted with their families, but as individuals outside nuclear families. This happened even without the creation of a new family or migration of individuals from their nuclear families. The new definition brings the age limit up to 25 years unless individuals start their own family in the meantime or if they move their legal domicile from their original family.
This new definition mainly affects the number of people belonging to individuals outside nuclear families, marriages without children and unmarried cohabitation without children, compared with the old definition. An increase is seen in other family forms with children in the new definition.
The dependency ratio increased slightly between years
In recent years and decades, the age composition of the population has changed considerably. In general, the number of children has decreased proportionally in the total population, while the number of older people has increased. The number of people in working age (15–64 year old) has remained virtually unchanged in recent years. At the beginning of 2021, people at this age were 66.5% of the total population, compared with 66.7% in 2011. In the last ten years, the number of people aged 0–14 years has decreased from 20.1% of the total population to 18.7% but people aged 65 years and older increased from 12.3% to 14.7%.
The dependency ratio was 50.2% on 1 January 2021 and 49.6% the year before. The dependency ratio is the proportion of young people (14 years and younger) and older people (65 years and older) of people in the working age (15–64 years). The increase in this proportion is mainly due to the proportional decrease in the number of people in the working age groups.
About the data
Statistics Iceland estimates the population on 1 January each year on the basis of information on changes in legal domicile in the National Registry's population register.
A legal nuclear family includes married and unmarried couples, children aged 17 and under and single men and women living with children aged 17 and under. The nuclear family 0-24 years includes married couples and people in unmarried cohabitation, children aged 24 years and younger and single men and women living with children aged 24 and younger.
The dependency ratio is calculated on the one hand as the proportion of the elderly (65 years and older) of people of working age 15–64 years (old age dependency ratio) and on the other hand as the proportion of children and young people (0-14 years) of the same group (e. young age dependency ratio). The third version is the total dependency ratio, which is the ratio of both groups (0-14 years and 65 years and older) of 15-64 year olds (total dependency ratio).