Where do families live in France?

In 2012, there were 8.0 million families with at least one child under 18 living in France, of whom 6.7 million were in the large urban areas, i.e. eight out of ten families. In large urban areas, the proportion of families with children under 18 increases with distance from the city centres. The urban peripheries of large urban areas therefore include proportionally more families with children under 18 than the corresponding city centres (34 families per hundred households compared with 22). These differences between city centres and their periphery were even more marked in the past. Since 1990, in a context where the share of families has decreased overall, city centres in the large urban areas have lost fewer families than their urban peripheries. City centres, municipalities in the north and south of France and overseas departments are areas where there are more families with unemployed parents and where poverty is concentrated. With the exception of the North, these areas have more one-parent families. The share of large families is considerably lower in the southern half of France; conversely it is particularly high in the Pays de la Loire region, in the Nord, Pas-de-Calais, Aisne, Ardennes, Seine-Saint-Denis and Rhône departments, and also in French Guiana and Reunion Island.