Bermuda's families are in a state of transition with women having fewer children, giving birth to those children later in life and undergoing significant changes in the way families arrange themselves.

The “nuclear family” - two parents and their children in a household - is losing popularity, falling from 28 percent of households in 1991 to 25 percent in 2000, while the number of single parent households has remained steady at 11 percent of the population.

Eighty-eight percent of Bermuda's 2,685 single-parent families are headed by women.

The core family unit is shrinking with the number of people per household falling from an average of 2.61 in 1991 to 2.47.

Most people on the Island are living in two-person households (30 percent), according to the 2000 Census released last week, but one-person households are the fastest growing segment, partially due to the constant influx of single, expatriate workers.

Elderly householders were more likely than any another age group to live alone however.

One-person situations now account for 28 percent of household and adult couples without children another 20 percent.

But two-parent households continue to enjoy the most comfortable lifestyles with the highest incomes ($104,221 on average).

Bermudian two-parent households reported median household income at $105,588, they are followed by non-Bermudian adult couples ($105,113), non-Bermudian two-parent households ($94,467) and Bermudian, extended family situations ($88,622).

The poorest households tend to be single Bermudian females ($35,426), single Bermudian males ($42,015), single expatriate females ($45,644), non-Bermudian single-mothers ($49,749) and Bermudian single mothers ($55,740).

“Households led by non-Bermudian males were the highest earners of all households on average,” the census report notes.

Most families in Bermuda are middle class (household incomes $44,790 to $107,493) at 42 percent.

Racial divides in income continue to be stark, however.

While 35 percent of white households are classed “well-to-do” (earning over $107,494 as a household), 32 percent of black households and 37 percent of mixed and other households fall into the poor to nearly poor category (earning less that $44,789.

Yet, there are some indications of progress. Within the Bermudian population there was a five percent jump in the number of blacks in the most affluent category since 1991, the census notes and poverty among one-parent households has declined (from 50 percent to 37 percent).

There has been an 11 percent increase in the number of people reporting they live in extended family arrangements, where groups of related adults band live together.

But proportionally that category has remained static at one in ten households.

Bermudian families - like the population overall - are ageing, and the country's low fertility rate indicates that trend will continue.

Nearly half (49 percent) of the population is between the age of 30 and 64 up from 46 percent in 1991.

“Bermuda has been experiencing declining fertility rates since the 1970s when replacement level fertility was reached,” the report said. “This means that Bermudian women are not having sufficient numbers of children to replace themselves in the population.

The median age to first give birth has risen from 21.6 years to 22.5 years in the last decade.

“By the end of the nineties, the proportion of teens and women aged between 20 and 29 who had entered motherhood had declined from 58 percent to 55 percent,” the report said. “In the case of teens, a drop from 31 percent to 26 percent was recorded.”

Meanwhile, the number of women over 30 when they had their first child jumped six percentage points.

Although, women are having fewer children, according to the census they are still more likely to have four or more children than to have none at all. Twenty-one percent of women over 45 had more than four children in 2000 against just 14 percent who had no children.

Women are completing their families earlier as well. On average most women had their last child by age 28.2, that is down from 28.9 in 1991.

Only four percent of women are having children after the age of 35, a modest increase from three percent in 1991.

While half of all Bermuda residents over the age of 16 are married, 33 percent have never been married and 11 percent are divorced (a jump of two percent since 1991).

Eighteen percent of those married in 2000 reported at least one previous marriage. The average length of time married had remained the same since 1991, however, three quarters of married persons have been in their current marriage for more than ten years.

Among those families with children under age five, the statistics show an increase in the occurrence of stay-at-home parents.

One in five children (21 percent) under five in Bermuda is cared for by a parent in their own home. This is up from 17 percent in 1988.

Non-Bermudian children are three times more likely to be cared for by a stay-at-home parent than Bermudian.

And categorising by race, only one in ten black children was looked after in by a parent in their own home versus three in ten white children.

The report speculates this is due to employment restrictions on expatriate spouses and high employment rates among Bermudians.

By far the majority of children under five (60 percent) are in day care however, while another 20 percent are cared for in other private homes.