In 2004 there were 7.0 million people living alone in Great Britain, nearly four times as many as in 1961.
In 2004 there were 2.6 million more families in Great Britain than in 1961, but there were 7.8 million more households. The growing trend in people living alone accounted for much of the increase in the number of households. As a result the average household size has declined from 3.1 to 2.4 over the same period.
The proportion of one-person households more than trebled for working-age people over the last four decades, while people of pension age were twice as likely to be living on their own. The rise in the proportion of one-person households has levelled since 1991.
In spite of the growth in the number of one-person households, most people in Great Britain still live in a family household. In 2004, eight out of ten people lived in a family household, compared with nine out of ten in 1961.
More than two thirds of the 24.7 million households in the UK in 2004 were family households.
The largest proportion of households consisted of just one family. In 2004 just 1 per cent (0.2 million) of households in the UK were families sharing with at least one other family. This is down from 3 per cent in Great Britain in 1961. The decline can be attributed to an increase in the provision of first public, and then private, housing in the 1970s and 1980s. Lone-parent families, who historically were more likely than other families to live in multi-family households, increasingly became one-family households throughout this period.
The next most common type of household were one-person households, which by definition is not a family. In 2004, 29 per cent of households were people living alone.
A small proportion of households consisted of two or more people who either were not related or were related but did not form a family. These multi-person households accounted for 3 per cent of households in the UK in 2004 compared with 5 per cent of households in Great Britain in 1961.
In addition, a small proportion of the UK population live in communal establishments. In 2001, 1.0 million people (or 1.8 per cent of the population) in the UK were living in communal establishments. These include for example, students living in halls of residence, people living in residential care homes, hotel staff who live at the hotel, or people staying in hostels (including people sleeping rough).
Sources: Censuses, Office for National Statistics; General Register Office for Scotland; Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency; Household estimates, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Household estimates, Scottish Executive; Labour Force Survey, Office for National Statistics
Notes:
Household: a person living alone, or a group of people living at the same address who have the address as their only or main residence and either share one main meal a day or share the living accommodation (or both).
Family: a married/cohabiting couple with or without child(ren), or a lone-parent with child(ren).
Dependent children: aged under 16, or aged 16-18 in full-time education and never married.
Multi-family households: families sharing a household with at least one other family.
In multi-person households two people who are not related may be a same sex couple.
State pension age is 60 for women, 65 for men.
Communal establishments' data are from the 2001 Census.
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