Fertility and childlessness in Germany

How big is the proportion of childless women? How many mothers have three or more children today? How does the number of children differ between mothers with a different educational status?
In the context of a special survey of Births in Germany whose results were presented at a press conference in December 2007, we addressed the above issues for the first time. The database has now been put on a by far broader basis. Due to an amendment to legislation, additional questions on fertility could have been incorporated into the microcensus, which is the largest European household survey.
For the first time, the 2008 microcensus collected information on whether women had given birth to children and, if yes, to how many children. Based on voluntary response, all women aged between 15 and 75 were posed that question in the context of the microcensus. The new results were presented by the Federal Statistical Office at a press conference on 29 July 2009.
Documents of the press conference on the “Microcensus 2008 - new data on childlessness in Germany” (only in German).
Tables of the 2008 microcensus:

New data on childlessness in Germany (Excel file only in German)
New data on childlessness in Germany (PDF file only in German)

Information on and results of the special survey of Births in Germany in 2006:
Paper on "New sources of data on birth and childlessness", Wirtschaft und Statistik 03/2007.(only in German)
Documents of the press conference on “Birth and childlessness in Germany” in December 2007.(only in German)

Paper on the informative value of total fertility rates as indicators to assess the development of birth.(only in German)

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