Towards a family-friendly Europe: policy recommendations for demographic renewal
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly
debate on 1 October 2026 (35th sitting) (see Doc. 16477, report
of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development,
rapporteur: Mr Georgios Stamatis). Text adopted by the
Assembly on 1 October 2026 (35th sitting).Provisional
version subject to editorial review.
1. Europe is
facing a profound demographic change due to its shrinking population.
After decades of vivid growth, its total population of about 751
million is flattening and is set to slowly fall during the 21st
century unless significant policy changes intervene. This demographic
change includes persistently low birth rates, population ageing,
shrinking cohorts of working-age people and the depopulation of
rural and peripheral regions, with far-reaching consequences for
society, economy and social systems. The demographic question has
thus become a critical policy issue in Europe which requires a long-term
vision to bridge the gap between people’s needs and aspirations
and the reality they face.
2. The Parliamentary Assembly notes that over the last ten years,
deaths have outnumbered births (natural population change) in the
European Union and many other countries across Europe, with population
remaining overall stable or growing slightly only thanks to net
immigration. It views the changing demographic outlook as one of
Europe’s major challenges, alongside environmental and digital challenges,
representing a genuine structural shift that requires both adaptation
and mitigation. The Assembly concurs with the United Nations Population
Fund in calling for responses to demographic change that focus on
people’s rights, choices and empowerment rather than on numerical
population targets, in order to build more fair, sustainable and
resilient societies.
3. The Assembly observes that Europe’s demographic shrinkage
is not the result of a single factor, but of a combination of economic
insecurity, high costs of housing and childcare, lifestyle expectations,
changing attitudes towards having and raising children, the impact
of technology, internet and social media use, rising age at first
childbirth, difficulties in reconciling work and family life, fertility
issues, unequal sharing of care responsibilities, gender inequality,
environmental anxiety, weakness of public services and insufficient
support for disadvantaged families and persons with disabilities
(including both parents and children). The Assembly stresses the
need for comprehensive, coherent and co-ordinated responses in providing
stable support to families in all their diversity.
4. Recalling the relevant Council of Europe standards, such as
the European Convention on Human Rights (ETS No. 5), the European
Social Charter (ETS No. 35) and its revised version (No. 163), the
Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and
domestic violence (CETS No. 210, “Istanbul Convention”), the Convention
on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual
Abuse (CETS No. 201, “Lanzarote Convention”), as well as the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Assembly
underlines the importance of guaranteeing socio-economic rights,
equality and non-discrimination in all family policies at national
and European level.
5. The Assembly considers that the growing diversity of family
forms and structures prevalent in European societies – including
lone parents, blended families, cohabiting couples, rainbow families
and families with members who have disabilities – calls for inclusive
policies that acknowledge and provide non-discriminatory treatment
to all families.
6. At the same time, the Assembly recognises the social and economic
value of marriage for its own sake and for demographic renewal and
calls for policies to promote the personal and social benefits of
forming committed relationships and having and bringing up children,
always respecting each person's capacity, freedom, aspiration and
discernment.
7. The Assembly is concerned with the negative economic and social
impacts of demographic imbalance, such as shrinking labour force,
increased old-age dependency ratios, pressure on pension, long-term
care and healthcare systems, and territorial cohesion. All these
affect intergenerational solidarity and increase the risk of social
fragmentation. It emphasises the importance of long-term policy
planning and social investment to preserve prosperity and enhance
well-being.
8. The Assembly notes that young adults face increasingly long
transitions into autonomous living and underlines the need to empower
younger generations through improved access to quality jobs, public
services, affordable housing and credit, inclusive educational and
social policies, lifelong learning, and territorial cohesion measures
to combat depopulation and talent drain so that young people can
participate fully in building a sustainable future in their home
regions.
9. Noting that ageing is a structural and irreversible feature
of European societies, the Assembly stresses that older people are
a major social and economic asset as long as policies are in place
to promote active ageing, autonomy, participation and lifelong learning.
It therefore calls for age-friendly societies that strengthen prevention
approaches to health and well-being, accessibility, digital inclusion
and quality long-term care, recognising older persons as contributors
to prosperity and intergenerational solidarity.
10. Recalling its
Resolution
2586 (2025) “Immigration, one of the answers to Europe’s demographic
ageing”, the Assembly considers that while migration can help to
alleviate labour shortages and demographic imbalances, it cannot
by itself compensate for ageing or lower birth rates. It stresses
that migration policy should be rights-based, skills-aware and well
integrated with labour-market and regional-development policies, while
remaining a complement to, and not a substitute for, family-support
measures.
11. The Assembly expresses its solidarity with Ukraine, whose
demographic future is being deliberately undermined by the aggressor,
and welcomes the adoption by the Ukrainian authorities of a Strategy
for Demographic Development to 2040 and their efforts, under wartime
conditions, to support families, protect children and create the
conditions for the voluntary return of displaced citizens.
12. The Assembly believes that demographic resilience must be
embedded in sustainable development, including affordable housing,
quality education, effective health care, clean and climate-resilient
infrastructure, and decent employment. It considers that people
are more likely to settle, raise families and invest in their communities
when they can trust that public services are reliable and continuous,
their environment is safe, and their future is secure.
13. The Assembly calls on the Council of Europe member States
to:
13.1 adopt coherent, long-term
and inclusive demographic strategies and action plans, involving national,
regional and local authorities, social partners, civil society organisations
and young people in the design, monitoring, evaluation and adaptation
of demographic policies;
13.2 establish interministerial co-ordination mechanisms to
ensure long-term demographic policy coherence and better-integrated
delivery of family-centred services;
13.3 encourage governments to convene expert groups on demographic
renewal and to promote the identification and exchange of good practice
among member States;
13.4 mainstream policies that support parenthood at the time
when people wish to become parents, namely by ensuring gender equality
in all aspects of life, addressing the issue of child marriages, guaranteeing
access to reproductive health, protecting family life through work-life
balance measures, improving access to care, childcare and affordable
housing and providing other material conditions for family life
that facilitate circular migration linked to labour mobility and
family reunion;
13.5 bring family policies in line with Articles 16 and 17
of the European Social Charter, as interpreted by the European Committee
of Social Rights, ensuring in particular that family benefits, childcare services
and housing for families are adequate and accessible, and that single-parent
families and families in vulnerable situations are properly protected;
13.6 strengthen family-friendly measures by:
13.6.1 improving affordability and
accessibility of childcare, and ensuring a seamless transition between
parental leave and publicly supported early childhood education
and care;
13.6.2 expanding and better compensating parental leave for both
mothers and fathers, including adoptive parents and foster parents,
regardless of their employment status (including self-employed persons
and those engaged in seasonal work), and promoting flexible, family-friendly
working arrangements;
13.6.3 strengthening legal and practical measures against workplace
discrimination linked to pregnancy, motherhood and caregiving which
constitutes maternal mobbing;
13.6.4 investing in social housing, especially for young adults,
first-time parents and large families, in particular in disadvantaged
urban areas and regions affected by depopulation or those undergoing
transition towards more sustainable energy sectors and green economy,
in line with the Assembly
Resolution
2626 (2025) “Analysis and guidelines to guarantee the right to housing”; and
encouraging banks to review lending criteria or proposing State-supported
loans for young workers to facilitate their access to home-ownership;
13.6.5 supporting youth employment, stable careers, fair wages
and skills development to reduce precarity and enable earlier household
formation;
13.6.6 ensuring equal treatment, antidiscrimination and targeted
financial support where necessary for single-parent families, rainbow
families, families including persons with disabilities, Roma and
Traveller families and other disadvantaged population groups, in
particular through national education systems;
13.6.7 improving access to State-funded maternal, child and reproductive
health services, including fertility information, infertility prevention,
counselling and treatment where needed;
13.6.8 establishing family centres for providing community support
for families and promoting the European Network of Family-Friendly
Municipalities;
13.6.9 developing community-based open care and support programmes
for vulnerable people which would provide accessible psycho-social
counselling to prevent and treat addictions, help secure young persons’
transition to parenthood and ensure timely care for mental health
issues among young parents;
13.6.10 encouraging family-friendly business practices such as
flexible working arrangements (including telework) and employer-supported
childcare, establishment of workplace childcare facilities or partnerships
with local childcare providers;
13.6.11 ensuring that demographic and family policies fully respect
bodily autonomy and the right of all persons to make free and informed
decisions about whether, when and how many children to have;
13.6.12 promoting a culture and a work ethic supportive of parenthood,
in which caring for children is recognised as a contribution to
society and is not penalised in careers, pay or working conditions;
13.6.13 tackling gender inequality in parenthood by introducing,
through both legal measures and policies inducing behavioural change,
an equal and fair distribution of parental responsibilities between
partners;
13.6.14 enhancing co-operation between national and local governments
and civil society organisations, particularly associations of parents
and/or families, to ensure that families are active protagonists
in the framing and delivery of family policy;
13.7 promote age-friendly policies, active ageing, lifelong
learning and accessible services for older persons and families
with small children, in particular through municipalities and local
authorities;
13.8 mainstream gender equality across all demographic and
family policies, recognising unpaid care as a shared social responsibility
rather than a private burden borne mainly by women and ensuring stronger
prevention of violence against women;
13.9 address the pay and pension challenges facing parents
and especially, at the present time, mothers by compensating, in
the calculation of pay, taxation, social protection and pension
entitlements, for breaks in service taken for the benefit of bringing
up children at home;
13.10 ensure the sustainability of pension systems by introducing
or enhancing, as appropriate, the capitalisation tier in pay-as-you-go
systems;
13.11 promote family-friendly tax justice, by ensuring that
families with children are not disproportionately burdened by taxation
measures, by taking account of unpaid care work and family size
when imposing and adjusting taxation, and by removing value-added
taxes on basic family consumables to assist families with children;
13.12 recognise and value unpaid family service and care generally,
including care for children and older relatives, by means of adequate
taxation, social protection and pension recognition;
13.13 support territorial cohesion through investment in infrastructure,
public services and local development in rural and peripheral areas,
as well as tax incentives for the relocation of essential services
and economic activities from major urban centres to under-developed
or remote regions;
13.14 further analyse and reduce environmental risks that can
affect reproductive health, notably pollution and the population’s
exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals;
13.15 ratify the revised European Social Charter – if they have
not yet done so, accept Article 16 thereof and the Additional Protocol
Providing for a System of Collective Complaints (ETS No. 158), and
give full effect to the conclusions and decisions of the European
Committee of Social Rights.
14. The Assembly welcomes the innovative national demographic
frameworks (such as dedicated parliamentary committees, cross-sector
policy co-ordination mechanisms and fiscal initiatives) in several member
States, and encourages the adoption of similar frameworks elsewhere,
tailored to national and regional contexts.
