According to the 2015 register-based population census, there were 576,177 families in Slovenia. On average, families had three members. The most common family type was married couple with children (224,000 or 39%), but since 1991 their number keeps falling. In recent years more than half of the children (58%) have been born to unmarried couples. In recent years the number of unmarried couples has increased the most and at the beginning of 2015 it accounted for 13% of all families in Slovenia, to whom every year more than half of all children are born (58%).

In 2015 Slovenian families had on average 1.16 children, yet families with children had on average 1.56 children. The most numerous were families with one child (55%), followed by families with two children (36%). Every third family had at least one child participating in education aged 0–5 years (preschool) or 6–14 years (elementary school) or 15–18 years (upper secondary school). Among all families with children 15% (or 65,000) were with children aged 0–5 years only.

The 2017 Day of Families highlights the importance of all caregivers in families, be it parents, grandparents or siblings, and the importance of parental education for the welfare of children. The working conditions of the parents affect their ability to play an active role in their children’s education. Parents need family-friendly policies ensuring the work-family balance, so that they can be productive employees and involved parents.

The problem of ensuring the work-family balance is reflected in time use, in considering one’s personal needs in work and in reconciliation of private or family life with the professional activities. Taking care of children is still mainly a woman’s task and this is also proven by the data on taking the parental leave, part-time employment and absence from work due to taking care of a family member. In 2016, 14,500 parents in Slovenia worked part-time due to parenting. 16,300 fathers took the 15-day paternity leave (at the birth of the youngest child in the household) and 1,200 fathers took the parental leave (which usually starts when the child is three months old and usually lasts nine months).

Another issue of this year’s anniversary is awareness in promoting early childhood education. In the school year 2015/16 78% of all children aged 1–5 years were enrolled in kindergartens. In the last ten years the number of children enrolled in kindergartens increased by almost a half (47%), namely from 58,000 in the school year 2006/07 to 85,000 in the school year 2015/16. At the age of 1 year 45% of children were enrolled in kindergartens. The share of children enrolled in kindergartens keeps increasing with their age and at the age of 5 92% of children were enrolled in kindergartens. Among the EU Member States in 2015, the process of early childhood education began the most intensively at the age of 2 in Denmark (91%) and Sweden (87%), while at the age of 5 in most EU Member States over 90% of children of this age were enrolled in kindergartens.

In Slovenia 40,774 children aged 4 and 5 years were enrolled in preschool education, which is 91% of all children of that age. The European strategic goal for education and training 2020 is 95% inclusion of children of that age in preschool education. Slovenia has not yet achieved that goal.

According to the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC), in 2015 32% of lone-parent families in Slovenia (or 25,000) lived below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. They lived in worse housing conditions and for them it was harder to afford holidays or unexpected expenses than for other families. Almost half of them made ends meet with difficulty. Therefore, cohesive, stable, supportive and well-functioning families are primary educators for young children and are truly indispensable to their emotional well-being that impacts also their educational achievements.