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key facts, key trends
· First
partnerships: 70% of first partnerships are cohabitations and
last on average two years. (1)
· Pre-marital cohabitation: About
60% of first cohabitations turn into marriage and about 30% end within
ten years. (1)
· Cohabitations among young people:
Cohabitation is most common among men aged 30 to 34 and women aged 25
to 29. (2) Overall among non-married
people aged 16 to 59, 25% of both men and women were cohabiting. (2)
· Young
partnerships are more likely to be cohabitations: By the time
women born in 1946 were age 20, 40% were married. For women born in
1970 just over a quarter had lived with a partner by the time they were
20. (5)
· More women remain single for longer:
Single women cohabiting increased from 8% in 1979 to 23% in 1991 and
31% in 2002. (2) The proportion of single
women has more than doubled from 18% in 1979 to 38% in 2002. (2)
· Cohabitation
after divorce: Higher proportions of divorced people cohabit
compared with other marital statuses: 34 % of divorced men and 30% of
divorced women lived in a cohabiting relationship in 2001/02. (2)
· Expectations
of marriage: 73% of cohabiting people aged under 35 expect to
marry each other - about one in eight never expect to marry. (3)
· Pre-marital
cohabitation: In 2001, 76% of couples lived together before they
married (4) and 73% chose a civil wedding
ceremony. (4)
· Decline in first marriages:
The number of first marriages in England and Wales peaked in 1970 at
almost 340,000, and has since fallen to less than half this number -
150,200 in 2002. (6)
The 2001 figure was the lowest annual number of marriages since 1897.
(6)
· Marrying
later: In 2001 the average age at first marriage was 30.6 years
for men and 28.4 years for women, compared with 24.6 years for men and
22.6 years for women in 1971. (2)
· Fewer
married women: Since 1979 the proportion of married women has
continuously declined: from 74% in 1979 to 61% in 1991 and to 49% in
2002. (2)
· Cohabiting
couples with children: In 2001, 14% of families were headed by
a cohabiting couple and 70% by a married couple. (7)
26% of all babies were born to cohabiting couples in 2001. (8)
· Cohabiting
families are more fragile: 70% of children born within marriage
are expected to live with both natural parents up to their sixteenth
birthday, but only 36% of children born in a cohabiting union. (1)
· Rise
in non-marital births: Just over 40% of births were outside of
marriage in 2002, more than four times the proportion seen 25 years
earlier. (8) 18% of babies whose parents
are not married parents are registered solely by their mothers. (8)
References
(1) Ermisch, J. &
Francesconi, M. (2000). Patterns of household and family formation.
In R. Berthoud & J. Gershuny (Eds) Seven years in the lives of
British families: Evidence on the dynamics of social change from the
British Household Panel Survey. (Bristol: The Policy Press.)
(2) National Statistics
(2004). Social Trends 34. (London: The Stationery Office.)
(3) Ermisch, J.F. (2000)
Personal Relationships and Marriage Expectations: Evidence from the
1998 British Household Panel Study. (Working Paper: Institute for
Social and economic research, University of Essex).
(4) National Statistics
(2003). Marriage, divorce and adoption statistics: Review of the
Registrar General on marriages, divorces and adoptions in England and
Wales, 2001. Series FM2, no 29.
(5) Ferri, E., Bynner,
J., and Wadsworth, M. (Eds) Changing Britain, Changing Lives: Three
generations at the turn of the century. (London: Institute of Education)
(6) National Statistics
(2004). News release: Marriages in 2002: England and Wales. www.ons.gov.uk
(7) National Statistics
(2003) Census 2001: National report for England and Wales. (London:
The Stationery Office)
(8) National Statistics
(2004). Birth statistics: Review of the Registrar General on births
and patterns of family building in England and Wales, 2002. Series
FM1, no 31.
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