(Brussels) In the European Union, there are 220 million households, one third of which (65.6 million) with children. Nearly one half of families (47%, i.e. 31 million) have one child on average, two children live in 40% of families (26 million), and a mere 13% (8.5 million) have three or more children. This has been found by Eurostat, in the run-up to the “Global Day of Parents” that will be celebrated tomorrow. Of course, the picture of family life is different in every country: Ireland has the highest number of families with children (41%), followed by Cyprus and Poland (38%), Malta, Portugal and Slovakia (36%). These figures drop in Germany and Finland, where just 22 households out of 100 have children, in Sweden (25%), Austria (26%) and Greece (27%). Ireland is above the European average in the number of children per family as well: actually, 27% of families have three or more children. Other above-average countries include Finland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Bulgaria (where only 5 families out of 100 have three or more children), Portugal (6%), Spain and Italy (8%), the Czech Republic and Lithuania (9%), are under the 13% threshold. Also according to Eurostat, 15% of families have just one parent, also with big differences between countries: in Denmark, such number goes up to 30%, in Lithuania they are 28%, in Sweden 25%, in Great Britain 21%, in France and Latvia 20%. Single families are fewer, though they can go as high as 15% in Europe.