3 children- is it more common than it used to be?

[AndiOliversGlasses]

I’ve been thinking about this and don’t know if it’s maybe that I just move in different social circles now than when I was growing up.

I went to a comprehensive school, mixture of working and middle class families. I was born in 1973. There were no Catholic families as there was a separate state Catholic school nearby, and it was quite ethnically white.

The vast vast majority of my schoolmates had one sibling, as did I.

I have noticed amongst my university and work colleagues that it’s seen as quite normal to have three children and I think perhaps a majority of those who have kids have three. I remember chatting to a friend when her second was born and saying about childbirth something like “well, at least you never have to do that again” and she found it quite odd I’d assume she’d stop at two. She had, and still has, a very successful career (and she did have a third!).

I have no axe to grind, I only have one child myself because of starting late, but I’m fine with that. I find him quite full on though, can’t imagine what it would be like to have three!

My DH is one of 3 actually, and my MIL said that her MIL assumed the third was an accident, which she was quite offended by. DH has a similar economic background to me but comes from the other end of the UK. MIL acknowledges that 3 was unusual in her social circle and 2 was the norm.

Have other people noticed a growing trend for 3 kids or do I just hang out with an unusually fertile/parental crowd these days?

By contrast my social group is mostly childless so they balance yours out! I'm not sure everyone intends to remain that way but at 33/34 that's how it currently is.

I know what you mean OP and I actually did a quick tally of the siblings in my DC’s classes to check. 2 children is by far the most common in my DC’s school (around 50 or 60%) with the number of families with 3 children being roughly the same as those with only children.
But I agree it does feel like 3 children are more common. I wonder if it’s just that you notice them more - maybe those families are just a bit louder? Or the parents are busier with child-related activities so talk about their children more?

"Of all families with dependent children, families with one child made up 44% (3.6 million) in 2022. Families with two children made up 41% (3.4 million), and families with three or more children made up 15% (1.2 million)."

This is from ONS, although it's only looking at dependent children. So large families are definitely in the minority despite what it seems on here!

I agree with above stats don't support this - from ONS:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/conceptionandfertilityrates/bulletins/childbearingforwomenbornindifferentyearsenglandandwales/2020

While average family size has decreased, two children families remain the most common family size across both generations, with 37% of women born in 1975 and 44% of those born in 1949 having two children. For those born in 1975, 27% had three or more children and 17% had only one child, compared with 30% and 13% respectively, for their mothers' generation.

So one child is more common and 3 is less common for those born 1975.

I have seen the Data Scientist going on about birth gap saying same % or ratio of parents having kids are having same number of kids as pervious generations and it's big rise in women having no children but in UK:

The percentage of women who remained childless in 2020 by the end of their childbearing years, has remained fairly consistent since the late 1950's, with 18.1% of the latest cohort born in 1975 having no children. This suggests that women are delaying childbearing rather than not having children.

So I don't know what data he uses or if he looking world wide and UK doesn't quite fit pattern - possibly due to smaller housing than world wide average and very high childcare costs.

I was one of three in 70s and we weren't abnormal and had 3 and didn't feel an anomaly - but we lived in cheaper housing areas and in current city there a massive birth rise and all the schools are full because housing was more affordable than surrounding cities - so families disproportionately moved here - which skews perceptions.

No it's common at all in my circles.

NOT common at all

I don't know a single family among my peers (parents in their early 30s with toddlers) who have three children. I know a few among the "generation" before mine, whose kids are in their pre-teen or mid-teen years. But even then it's not many at all.

Even the two child families I know all tended to genuinely consider being one and done. No one I know even talks theoretically about having three, never mind actually doing it.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/conceptionandfertilityrates/bulletins/childbearingforwomenbornindifferentyearsenglandandwales/2021and2022

This is for the 1977 cohort they take 45 as past child bearing for women.

Different cohorts do have different trends - but overall it does seem as if nationally having 3 kids is down though not as much as having two was.

Of the people I was friends with at school/uni and still in touch with now:

4 onlys
10 twos
4 threes
1 four
1 five

Those same people now have:
7 childfree
2 onlies
8 twos
2 threes

Obviously I couldn’t have been at school with the children of childfree parents! But in my circle, two is still the most common by far.

I’ve only been back through my friends from school and realised that ALL of them either had one or no siblings. I had never thought about it before.

I was one of three, and have four of my own children.

Lots and lots of 3s round here. It's very odd to find 'just' 2! I have 2 and people assume I'm going to have another

Where do you live? My area is totally mixed and most people with three (or more) are usually either very low income or very high income.

I don’t think you can compare until a woman is 50, useless asking women who are still of child bearing age.
From my own limited experience I think there are less families with 3+ children now.
From the women I work with none have more than 2 children. A couple have one. 2 don’t have any.
Maybe women with 3 or more find it too difficult to work outside of the home.
When I was at school there were a couple of large families- 4 plus. Infact some had twins. There seemed to be more twins back then and all those twins had at least one sibling, often more.
I don’t remember many only ones then. It feels more common now.
Maybe it’s contraception. Maybe it’s the cost of living. Maybe it’s educated women thinking I don’t want to keep getting pregnant, going through labour etc etc.
Maybe it’s the thought that you gave to keep working to protect yourself. Single parent families are far more common now. Hardly any of my peers were from single latent families. Even blended families were almost unheard of.

Listened to the news agents podcast from yesterday and it reminded me of this thread, worth a listen it was really interesting. They said that mothers are having the same number of children as they always did but less women are becoming mothers (for various reasons).