Relatives

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Personal Finances and Welfare, Social Statistics
Camilla Østerballe Nielsen
+45 20 28 52 49

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Relatives 2025

The purpose of the Relatives Statistics and the associated Relatives Register is to map the population’s relatives in a standardized and well-tested manner. It also aims to assess the closeness of a relatives between two individuals based on distance measured in kilometers, as well as whether the two individuals have at some point shared a residence, or whether they share a residence at the time of reference.

Statistical presentation

The register of relatives is created once a year as a status register. The number of persons in the register sums to the population count as of january 1st in the year of measurement. With the register of relatives its possible to identify which people in the population have relatives and who hasn't. It is further possible to see what type of relatives a person have. The register can be used to shed light on differences in socioeconomic characteristics or use of health care, depending on which relatives a person have. In the register of relatives the geographical distance is calculated between the home address of main character, and relatives.

Statistical processing

The primary source for these statistics are the register of population statistics. From the parent-child relation in CPR, parents, children, siblings, grandparents and - children are identified. Using address and marital status partner and children in law are identified.

Relevance

These statistics are relevant for municipalities, regions, ministries, other government organisations and private companies in analyses of a number of conditions of society and as a basis for planning of e.g. services for the elderly, questionnaires etc. Statistics Denmark also uses the basic data and results of the statistics for a number of other assessments.

Accuracy and reliability

The statistics are based on the population registered in the Civil Registration System (CPR). Since correct registration in CPR is a condition for being able to lead a normal life in Denmark, the general quality and reliability of the register is regarded as very high. Failure to report immigrations and emigrations means that the published population is considered to be overestimated by 10,000 people or 0.14 per cent. Further cases of missing parent-child registrations have been made especially for the older generations and immigrants. As these statistics are based on an administrative register, wrong registrations of parent-child relations may occur leading to unintended linking persons as relatives. It can also lead to two persons having more than one type of relation. It is estimated that this margin of error is small in the big picture.

Timeliness and punctuality

These statistics were published in march 2025. It is the expectation it will be updated every march.

Comparability

Statistics Denmark are not aware of comparable, publicly available, statistics nationally or internationally. Most other statistics are based on questionnaires focusing on the role as relatives or informal caregivers.

These statistics are comparable over time, one does however have to be aware of the coverage of certain relations in the older generation the further back in time one looks.

Accessibility and clarity

The statistics can be found in the StatBank under the Relatives. It has been made sure there's at least 3 observation per cell.