How Many Children Have a Parent Die Each Year? Few Countries Count

Very few countries count how many children have a parent die each year. Sweden does, from its population registers. The UK and the US estimate it, and most of the world has no figure at all. The best available UK estimate is around 46,300 children a year. That figure is modelled, not counted, and the newest version averages deaths from 2019 to 2021^[1].

Behind each of these numbers is a child going back to a classroom, a nursery or a youth club after their mum or dad has died. Often nobody official knows. Services can only plan for bereaved children if someone knows roughly how many there are. This study sets out what is known, country by country, how each figure was produced, and where nobody is counting.

In the UK, the number is estimated because nobody records it

No UK statistic counts children whose parent has died. The Childhood Bereavement Network (CBN), part of the National Children’s Bureau, puts it simply: “No-one knows exactly how many children are bereaved each year”^[1]. As the CBN notes, data are collected each year on the number of adults bereaved of a husband, wife or child, but no similar data are collected on children whose mum or dad dies^[1]. Our study of the missing official data looks at that gap in detail.

In the absence of a count, the CBN builds an estimate for each UK nation. It starts from registered deaths of adults aged 20 to 64, the ages at which people are likely to have dependent children. It then applies the share of adults in each age band who live with dependent children, using figures from the Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency^[4]. On deaths averaged over 2019 to 2021, the CBN estimates that around 26,900 parents of dependent children die each year in the UK, one every 20 minutes. Between them they leave around 46,300 children aged 0 to 17, or 127 newly bereaved children a day^[1]. The CBN published these figures in November 2022^[4]. Child Bereavement UK still quoted them in March 2026^[5], and we found no newer UK estimate.

The estimate is careful, but it is still a model. In effect, it assumes that adults who die are as likely to have dependent children as other adults of the same age. It cannot tell us which children were bereaved, where they live or how their parent died. It is the best figure the UK has, and it is the starting point for planning. It is not a register.

The UK also has a few snapshots of how many children have ever been bereaved. These come from one-off studies rather than routine statistics. In the 1970 British Cohort Study, which follows people born in Great Britain in 1970, 5% of the available sample had had a mother or father die by the age of 16^[6]. In the 2004 national survey of children’s mental health in Great Britain, 3.5% of 5- to 16-year-olds had had a parent or sibling die^[7]. These figures are now decades old. The CBN points out that death rates have fallen since the 2004 survey, and says it hopes the share of bereaved children has fallen with them^[1]. Nobody has measured whether it has.

Sweden and the Netherlands count, because their registers link children to parents

Some countries do not need to estimate. Where population registers record who each child’s parents are, a national statistics office can count the children whose parent died in a given year. Statistics Sweden publishes this as official statistics. In 2025, 2,717 children aged 0 to 17 had a mother or father die. Each year from 2015 to 2025 the figure was between about 2,700 and 3,200, or 1.3 to 1.5 children in every 1,000^[2]. The highest year in the series was 2021, at 3,198.

Because the figures are counts, they can be broken down in ways a model cannot. In 2025, 1,793 of the children had a father die and 924 a mother. Teenagers were the largest group: 1,306 were aged 13 to 17, and 366 were aged five or under^[2]. Sweden can also say how many children are living with the death of a parent at any one time. At the end of 2025, 19,303 children aged 0 to 17 had had a parent die at some point in their lives, or 9.1 in every 1,000^[8].

Statistics Netherlands (CBS) has used its registers the same way. It reported that in 2021, 650 children under six, 1,400 children aged 6 to under 12 and 2,850 aged 12 to under 18 had a parent die^[9]. That is about 4,900 children under 18. CBS’s headline figures cover everyone under 25: since 2000, an average of more than 12,000 a year, falling as life expectancy rose, then rising in 2020 and 2021. Across 2019 to 2021, about 3,500 fathers and 2,000 mothers a year died leaving at least one child under 25^[9]. The most recent CBS figures we could find run to 2021 and were published in 2022.

Nordic registers have also made it possible to study whole populations of bereaved children over decades. One study linked everyone born in Denmark from 1968 to 2008 and in Sweden from 1973 to 2006, plus most people born in Finland from 1987 to 2007. It identified 189,094 who had a parent die before they turned 18^[10]. Our study of registers, cohorts and surveys explains the strengths and limits of each.

In the US, models give two different kinds of answer

US figures are modelled too. The most detailed recent model, from researchers including staff of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, took national birth and death registrations and gave each adult who died the average number of children under 18 that people of their age, sex and background would have. The authors call the results minimum estimates. The paper uses the term “orphanhood” for any child who has had at least one parent die^[3].

On this model, about 292,000 US children had a parent die in 2019. That rose to about 360,000 in 2020 and about 407,000 in 2021, with an uncertainty range of 375,000 to 443,000. As a rate, this went from about 4 to about 6 in every 1,000 children in two years^[3]. The authors link the rise to COVID-19 and to deaths from drug overdose, which became the leading cause of new parental bereavement. By 2021, they estimate, 2.38 million US children, 3.4% of all children, had had a parent die at some point^[3].

The figure most often quoted by US bereavement services answers a different question. The Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model (CBEM) was developed by Judi’s House/JAG Institute, a non-profit grief centre in Colorado. The model’s development has been funded by the New York Life Foundation, the charitable arm of a US life insurer. It was built because the US has no national tracking system, and applies probability and life-table methods to US vital statistics^[11]. It projects how many children will have a parent or sibling die by 18, not how many are bereaved each year. Its 2026 results, using data from 2020 to 2024, put this at more than 6.6 million US children, or 1 in 11^[12]. The first published version, in 2020, gave 6.99%, nearly 5.0 million^[11]; the editions use different years of data, so the change is not a precise trend.

Models can respond quickly to change. Early in the pandemic, US demographers estimated that 37,300 children had had a parent die of COVID-19 by February 2021. That was a 17.5% to 20.2% increase on the usual level of parental bereavement. They stressed that their estimates “rely on demographic modeling, not survey or administrative data”^[13].

Across most of the world, there is no annual figure at all

Outside the few countries above, the evidence thins quickly. Australia has no annual count that we could find. A 2026 analysis of a national household survey run in 2013–14, covering 6,310 families, found that 2.5% of young people had had a biological parent die by the age of 17. Its authors describe it as the first national estimate of its kind for Australia^[14]. We found no national count, and no recent published estimate, for Ireland or Canada.

In many low- and middle-income countries, the main sources are research models and local population studies, often framed around “orphanhood” (the studies’ own term). A modelling study for Brazil estimated that 673,000 children had one or both parents die over 2020 and 2021. The authors also compared their COVID-19 estimates with two administrative sources: national civil registry records and manually reviewed death certificates in one city, Campinas. They concluded that these sources undercount, capturing about 32% and 56% of the children respectively^[15]. In Rakai, Uganda, a long-running population study has followed families since 1995. The share of children with at least one parent who had died fell from 21.5% in 2003–04 to 6.3% in 2020–22, over the years in which HIV treatment became widely available^[16]. That is one district, not a country, but it shows how far the figures can differ between settings.

The only worldwide figures are for COVID-19. An international modelling team estimated that by October 2021, at least 5.2 million children had had a parent or other caregiver die of COVID-19-associated causes^[17]. Our study of children bereaved during COVID-19 covers that work. We found no equivalent global estimate for parental deaths from all causes.

The figures answer different questions, so compare them with care

These numbers are not measuring the same thing.

Four differences matter. Counted or modelled: Sweden and the Netherlands count children; the UK and US figures are built from deaths and assumptions about family size. A year or a childhood: “how many this year” is far smaller than “how many by 18”. Who counts: some figures include siblings, young adults up to 25 or grandparent caregivers. Who is missed: registers can miss children not recorded as residents, and models can miss families unlike the averages. Brazil’s comparison shows that routine records can miss many children too^[15].

The rates hint at real differences between countries. Sweden’s 1.3 to 1.5 per 1,000 children a year^[2] sits well below the US model’s 4 per 1,000 in 2019^[3]. Some of that gap may reflect different death rates among adults of parenting age. But one figure is a count and the other a model, so the size of the gap should not be read precisely. Our study of the ages of bereaved children and the causes of parental death looks at what lies behind these numbers.

What the evidence asks of us

• Count bereaved children where it is possible. The CBN, with Winston’s Wish, Child Bereavement UK and its members, has asked the government to officially record the number of bereaved children and young people^[1]. Sweden shows that a routine annual count is achievable where registers link children to parents^[2].
• Strengthen death registration everywhere. The Brazil study concludes that stronger vital registration systems “can put children at the center of public health responses”^[15].
• Plan services from the best estimate now. The CBN says the numbers are urgently needed to plan service development^[1]. Until better data exist, a modelled figure is a sound basis for commissioning.
• Keep estimates current, and update them when death rates change. The US models show how quickly the number can move: up by around 40% in two years during the pandemic^[3]. The UK estimate still rests on 2019–2021 deaths^[1].
• Find the children, not just the numbers. US researchers have called for a national child bereavement cohort that could identify children who have had a parent die and link them to local care^[13]. The authors of the US all-cause estimates call for policies and programmes to support the nearly three million US children who have had a parent or a grandparent caregiver die^[3].

None of this changes what a bereaved child needs. It makes it more likely that the people around them know they are there. How other countries organise that support is covered in our study of how other countries support bereaved children.

Language: this piece uses plain words such as “died” rather than euphemisms, because they are clearer. It uses “orphanhood” only where that is the term of the study being described, which applies it to any child who has had at least one parent die.

Why we're publishing this

Organisations supporting bereaved children are often asked “how many?”, and official statistics in most countries cannot answer. We have put the best figures in one place, with their methods and limits, ready for a commissioner or a minister. The case belongs to bereaved children and their families, and to the organisations that work alongside them. Our part is to say plainly what the data show. This study opens our research library on children and young people bereaved of a parent.

How to read this data

The figures here are of three kinds. Register counts (Sweden, the Netherlands) are official statistics that count individual children. They are the most reliable, but exist only where registers link children to parents. Modelled estimates (the UK, the US, Brazil, the global COVID-19 figures) combine death registrations with assumptions about how many children adults of each age have. They are only as good as those assumptions, and several authors describe theirs as minimum estimates. Surveys and cohort studies (the 1970 British Cohort Study, the 2004 British survey, the 2013–14 Australian survey, the Rakai study) ask families directly. They measure how many children have ever been bereaved, not how many each year, and the British ones are decades old. Figures also differ in age range, year, and whether siblings or other caregivers are included. The UK estimate covers all four nations, with a figure for each.

Use this data

Free to cite with attribution to Understanding Bereavement. Charities, schools, services and journalists are welcome to reuse these figures and charts. For the underlying figures as a spreadsheet, get in touch.

Important: This study summarises published research about groups of people for general information. It is not medical advice or bereavement support, and it cannot describe or predict anything about an individual child or family. If you are worried about a child or about yourself, please speak to a GP or another qualified professional.

Sources

1. Childhood Bereavement Network. Key statistics. National Children’s Bureau, 2022 (figures for 2019–2021). childhoodbereavementnetwork.org.uk/about-1/what-we-do/research-evidence/key-statistics
2. Statistics Sweden. Children and young persons aged 0–21 whose parents have died during the year by sex, age and which parent who died, 2015–2025 (table LE0102T36). Statistics Sweden, updated June 2026. statistikdatabasen.scb.se/…/LE0102T36
3. Villaveces A, Chen Y, Tucker S, et al. Orphanhood and caregiver death among children in the United States by all-cause mortality, 2000–2021. Nature Medicine, 2025. europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC11835524
4. Childhood Bereavement Network. Key statistics on bereavement in childhood 2022. National Children’s Bureau, November 2022. childhoodbereavementnetwork.org.uk/…/Childhood bereavement key statistics 2022.pdf
5. Child Bereavement UK. UK death and bereavement statistics. Child Bereavement UK, updated March 2026. childbereavementuk.org/death-bereavement-statistics
6. Parsons S. Long-term impact of childhood bereavement: preliminary analysis of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70). Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre, 2011. gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-impact-of-childhood-bereavement…
7. Fauth B, Thompson M, Penny A. Associations between childhood bereavement and children’s background, experiences and outcomes: secondary analysis of the 2004 Mental Health of Children and Young People in Great Britain data. National Children’s Bureau, 2009. solgrid.org.uk/…/Bereavement-and-child-mental-health.pdf
8. Statistics Sweden. Children and young persons aged 0–21 whose parents have died during the child’s life by sex, age and which parent who died, 2014–2025 (table LE0102T37). Statistics Sweden, updated June 2026. statistikdatabasen.scb.se/…/LE0102T37
9. Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Bijna 100 duizend jongeren halfwees [Almost 100,000 young people have had a parent die]. CBS, 11 October 2022. cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2022/41/bijna-100-duizend-jongeren-halfwees
10. Li J, Li J, Vestergaard M, et al. Mortality after parental death in childhood: a nationwide cohort study from three Nordic countries. PLoS Medicine, 2014. europepmc.org/article/MED/25051501
11. Burns M, Griese B, King S, Talmi A. Childhood bereavement: understanding prevalence and related adversity in the United States. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 2020. europepmc.org/article/MED/31999137
12. Judi’s House/JAG Institute. 2026 CBEM key messages (Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model). Judi’s House/JAG Institute, 2026. judishouse.org/…/2026-CBEM-Key-Messages-1.pdf
13. Kidman R, Margolis R, Smith-Greenaway E, Verdery AM. Estimates and projections of COVID-19 and parental death in the US. JAMA Pediatrics, 2021. europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC8022263
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15. Steyn N, Unwin HJT, Ponmattam J, et al. Regional and national estimates of children affected by all-cause and COVID-19-associated orphanhood and caregiver death in Brazil, by age and family circumstance: a modeling study. Lancet Regional Health – Americas, 2025. europepmc.org/article/MED/41080610
16. Khalifa A, Malden DE, Ratmann O, et al. Incidence and prevalence of orphanhood in Rakai, Uganda: a population-based cohort study, 1995–2022. Lancet Global Health, 2026. europepmc.org/article/MED/41519154
17. Unwin HJT, Hillis S, Cluver L, et al. Global, regional, and national minimum estimates of children affected by COVID-19-associated orphanhood and caregiver death, by age and family circumstance up to Oct 31, 2021: an updated modelling study. Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 2022. europepmc.org/article/MED/35219404