Survey Family 

Enquête Famille

The objectives of the Family Survey are to collect detailed information about family composition and family relationships outside the household (parents, children, grandchildren), as well as the dating of major family and marital events that have occurred throughout life (couplings, breakups, birth of children, death of parents, etc.).

The survey thus enables analysis on a wide range of demographic topics, such as final offspring (all children born, including those who no longer live with their parents) and marital and family paths, as well as the study of rare situations (single-parent fathers, same-sex parent families, orphanhood, adoption, etc.). It allows for the study of these topics from various dimensions: generations, education, social and geographical backgrounds, and more.

With a large-size sample, the Family Survey generally allows to have information on the demography-family themes about sub-populations or rare situations.

The Family Survey was organized for the first time in 1954 and based on a sample of 300 000 women, to study fertility.

From the start, it has been coupled with the census. It was renewed during the general census of the population of 1962, 1975, 1982 and 1990 with rather stable format and questionnaire. It covers a nationally representative sample of 400,000 individuals aged 18 and over.

In 1999, the survey evolved in order to emphasize more the family history ("Study of family history") and better take into accountits increasing complexity. It is then widened to men. A section on the use and the transmission of regional languages was also introduced that year.

The "Family and housing survey" 2011 describes in more detail the current conjugal and family situations, but collects less information about the trajectories than the previous survey.

The "Families" survey conducted in 2025 covers the following topics: periods of life in a couple, spouse(s), children of the respondent (including those who are deceased or living in another household), grandchildren, parents of the respondent, siblings, and the respondent's professional life. It also addresses two specific topics: family solidarity (frequency of contact with close relatives, help given and received) and languages spoken with close relatives (parents, children, and those in the respondent’s circle).

Survey

Punctual or aperiodic