The GHS was 30 years old in 2001. Over the past 30 years it has monitored changes in the demographic, social and economic characteristics of households, families and people in Great Britain. Among the key changes which have been measured by the survey during this time are:

• a decline in household size and changes in household composition
• a growth in the proportion of lone-parent families
• an increase in the proportion of people living alone
• an increase in the proportion of people who are cohabiting
• an increase in home ownership and a decline in the proportion of households living in social housing
• an increase in the household availability of consumer durables
• an increase in the prevalence of self-reported longstanding illness or disability
• a decline in the prevalence of smoking
• changes in the proportion of respondents belonging to occupational pension schemes.

This chapter presents an overview of some of the main changes which the GHS has measured between 1971 and 2001. More detailed analyses of life in Britain in 2001 are given in subsequent chapters. Changes and additions to question wording mean that the time period for which information is available varies between topics. The introduction of weighting for non-response in 2000 had a small effect on some of the trend data. Details can be found in Appendix D. The introduction of the new National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) in 2001 has also affected the presentation of time series data. Details can be found in Appendix E.