Living Arrangements
Marriage is most common form of partnership
Marriage and divorces, UK
Despite an increase in the proportion of people cohabiting and a decrease in the overall number of people getting married, marriage is still the most common form of partnership for men and women. In Great Britain in 2006, 52 per cent of men and 50 per cent of women were married.
Provisional figures for the UK show that there were just over 275,000 marriages in 2006, of which more than 60 per cent were first marriages for both partners, down from 69 per cent in 1976. While the marriage rate for first marriages (number marrying per 1,000 of the single population) was higher for women (25.3 compared with 21.0 for men), the rate for remarriages (per 1,000 widowed or divorced people) among men was more than double that of women (28.4 compared with 13.8). The remarriage rate has decreased markedly over the last 30 years, although the number of remarriages has remained fairly stable.
Divorces in the UK generally rose over the two decades from 1973 (113,000) to reach a high of 180,000 in 1993. Divorces then fell steadily from 1993 to 2000, (with the exception of a slight rise between 1995 and 1996), when they reached a low of 155,000. From 2000 they rose for four successive years to reach 167,000 in 2004 and then fell again to around 148,000 in 2006. This is the lowest number of divorces since 1977, a rate of 12.2 divorces per 1,000 married men/women.
In 2006 the most common age at divorce for both men and women was 25 to 29 years. For women there were 27 divorces per 1,000 married women and for men 26 per 1,000 married men. Divorce rates for men and women under 40 have fallen most steeply. In 2006 the male divorce rate of 23.4 per 1,000 married men aged 16 to 39 was the lowest rate since 1984. The female equivalent rate of 23.3 is the lowest since 1987.
Percentage of people cohabiting by marital status, 2006, Great Britain
Partnership trends show a marked increase in the proportion of people cohabiting. In 2006 in Great Britain, 13 per cent of men and women aged 16 to 59 were cohabiting. For unmarried men the proportion cohabiting increased from 11 per cent in 1986 to 24 per cent in 2006. There was a similar change for unmarried women, where the equivalent figures are 13 per cent and 25 per cent respectively.
Among men, those aged 25 to 29 were more likely to cohabit than any other age group, 33 per cent compared with less than 23 per cent in all other age groups. Women in their twenties were more likely to be cohabiting than other age groups, 27 per cent aged 20 to 24 and 29 per cent aged 25 to 29 compared with 21 per cent or less in the other age groups.
Divorced men were more likely to cohabit compared with men in other marital status groups. In 2006, 34 per cent of divorced men were cohabiting, compared with 23 per cent of separated men and 22 per cent of single (never-married) men. For women, the most likely group to cohabit were the never-married. The proportion of single women cohabiting was 27 per cent compared with 24 per cent of divorced, 9 per cent of separated and 8 per cent of widowed women.
Seventy-five per cent of families with dependent children in Great Britain in 2006 were headed by either a married or cohabiting couple, a fall from 92 per cent in 1971. The percentage of dependent children families headed by a lone mother rose from 7 per cent in 1971 to 22 per cent in 1998 and has remained relatively stable since then. The proportion headed by lone fathers has risen slightly since the early 1970s, remaining at around 2 to 3 per cent since the mid-1990s.
A notable change in living arrangements over the last two decades is the increase in one-person households. There were more than seven million people living alone in the UK in 2007. In Great Britain in 2006, more than 60 per cent of women aged 75 and over lived alone, a similar proportion to 1986/87. However, the proportion of men in this age group who live alone has increased over the years; nearly one-third of men aged 75 and over lived on their own in 2006 compared with less than one-quarter in 1986/87.
Source: Office for National Statistics; General Register Office for Scotland; Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency; Labour Force Survey; General Household Survey
Note: Data related to cohabitation and stepfamilies are for people and family heads aged 16 to 59. All other data relate to people aged 16 and over.
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