Families and children in the UK by family type including married couples, cohabiting couples and lone parents. Also shows household size and people living alone.

There are estimated to be around 12.7 million married couple families in the United Kingdom as of 2023, with a further 3.3 million opposite-sex cohabiting couple family families, and 3.2 million lone parent families.

Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates including measures of uncertainty of the number of people in families by specific family types and presence of children, for England, Wales and Scotland, as well as the regions of England.

In 2023 there were estimated to be approximately 2.75 million families living in South East England, the most of any region of the United Kingdom. The region with the second-highest number of families was London, which had 2.46 million families there.

The Families and Children Study (FACS), formerly known as the Survey of Low Income Families (SOLIF), originally provided a new baseline survey of Britain's lone-parent families and low-income couples with dependent children. The survey was named SOLIF for Waves 1 and 2, and FACS from Wave 3 onwards.

The FACS study has become a 'true panel', whereby 1999 respondents have been re-interviewed in subsequent annual waves in from 2000 to 2004, and new families added in each of these years, to allow representative cross-section as well as longitudinal comparisons. Starting with Wave 3 (2001) the survey was extended to include higher-income families, thereby yielding a complete sample of all British families (and the subsequent name change). From Wave 4 (2002) onwards, longitudinal comparisons can now be made.

The main objectives of the survey are to:

• evaluate the effectiveness of the Government's work incentive measures in terms of helping people into work, improving living standards and improving child outcomes
• compare the living standards and outcomes for children and for families across the income distribution
• compare changes in the above across the waves since 1999

FACS also aims to provide commentary on longer-term objectives such as the Government's Public Service Agreement to eradicate child poverty within a generation.

Further information, including links to reports and other publications, may be found on the DWP FACS web pages.

Users should note that, in addition to the survey name change noted above, some of the documentation for the early waves refers to the survey as the Study of Families with Children.

The original deposit of FACS, released in December 2001, contained data and documentation from the first wave. Further waves have been added at subsequent editions in 2003, 2004 (twice), 2005, 2006 and 2007.

For the eighth edition (October 2010), three major changes were made to the study: data and documentation for Waves 8-10 were deposited for the first time; updated and improved data and documentation for Waves 3-7 were deposited to replace previous materials; and updated documentation covering all waves was deposited. Details of improvements to the redeposited Wave 3-7 data are included in the all waves user guide. For the ninth edition (January 2011), the Wave 10 technical report was added to the study.

Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, is a longitudinal survey of the members of approximately 40,000 households (at Wave 1) in the United Kingdom. The overall purpose of Understanding Society is to provide high quality longitudinal data about subjects such as health, work, education, income, family, and social life to help understand the long term effects of social and economic change, as well as policy interventions designed to impact upon the general well-being of the UK population. The Understanding Society main survey sample consists of a large General Population Sample plus three other components: the Ethnic Minority Boost Sample, the former British Household Panel Survey sample and the Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Boost Sample.

There were estimated to be over **** million families in the United Kingdom as of 2023, compared with ** million in 2010, and **** million in 2000.

This dataset shows official annual experimental statistics for numbers and percentages of Children age under 16 living in Relative and Absolute low income families, by Local Authority District and Ward. More detailed data breakdowns (such as Age of Child, Family Type and Work Status, plus data for other small area geographies and trend data), are available at the Source link. Percentages are calculated by dividing the number of children age 0-15 living in low income families by resident children age 0-15 from mid-year population estimates. The latest data is marked P for Provisional and is subject to future revision. Data source: Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs. Updates are according to government statistics releases. For more information about this data and its methodology, please see the Source link.

Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates including measures of uncertainty of the number of people in households by types of household and families, for England, Scotland and Wales, as well as the regions of England.

In 2023, there were approximately 7.96 million households in the United Kingdom composed of a couple with no children, which was the most common type of household arrangement in this year. The second-most common type of household were couples living with one or two dependent children, at around 5.21 million.

There are estimated to be around 3.7 million one-child families in the United Kingdom as of 2023, with a further 3.38 million two-child families, and 1.18 million families that have three or more children.

Total number of young adults aged 15 to 34 years and total number of young adults aged 20 to 34 years in the UK living with their parents.

A statistical digest that looks at family types and explores similarities and differences between them. It also examines the relationship between families and health, unpaid care and education. Source agency: Office for National Statistics Designation: Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics Language: English Alternative title: Focus on Families

This collection consists of 54 qualitative interviews conducted in Northern Ireland in 2012 as part of the Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK study (PSE UK). The interviews provide in-depth information about experiences and coping strategies of families living on a low income.

This statistic shows the share families receiving state support in the United Kingdom (UK) in the fiscal year 2017/18, by employment status. In this fiscal year, ** percent of the families, where one partner was working full-time and the other was not working, received some form of state support.

Background:
The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is a large-scale, multi-purpose longitudinal dataset providing information about babies born at the beginning of the 21st century, their progress through life, and the families who are bringing them up, for the four countries of the United Kingdom. The original objectives of the first MCS survey, as laid down in the proposal to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in March 2000, were:

• to chart the initial conditions of social, economic and health advantages and disadvantages facing children born at the start of the 21st century, capturing information that the research community of the future will require
• to provide a basis for comparing patterns of development with the preceding cohorts (the National Child Development Study, held at the UK Data Archive under GN 33004, and the 1970 Birth Cohort Study, held under GN 33229)
• to collect information on previously neglected topics, such as fathers' involvement in children's care and development
• to focus on parents as the most immediate elements of the children's 'background', charting their experience as mothers and fathers of newborn babies in the year 2000, recording how they (and any other children in the family) adapted to the newcomer, and what their aspirations for her/his future may be
• to emphasise intergenerational links including those back to the parents' own childhood
• to investigate the wider social ecology of the family, including social networks, civic engagement and community facilities and services, splicing in geo-coded data when available

Additional objectives subsequently included for MCS were:

• to provide control cases for the national evaluation of Sure Start (a government programme intended to alleviate child poverty and social exclusion)
• to provide samples of adequate size to analyse and compare the smaller countries of the United Kingdom, and include disadvantaged areas of England

Further information about the MCS can be found on the Centre for Longitudinal Studies web pages.

The content of MCS studies, including questions, topics and variables can be explored via the CLOSER Discovery website.

The first sweep (MCS1) interviewed both mothers and (where resident) fathers (or father-figures) of infants included in the sample when the babies were nine months old, and the second sweep (MCS2) was carried out with the same respondents when the children were three years of age. The third sweep (MCS3) was conducted in 2006, when the children were aged five years old, the fourth sweep (MCS4) in 2008, when they were seven years old, the fifth sweep (MCS5) in 2012-2013, when they were eleven years old, the sixth sweep (MCS6) in 2015, when they were fourteen years old, and the seventh sweep (MCS7) in 2018, when they were seventeen years old.

End User Licence versions of MCS studies:
The End User Licence (EUL) versions of MCS1, MCS2, MCS3, MCS4, MCS5, MCS6 and MCS7 are held under UK Data Archive SNs 4683, 5350, 5795, 6411, 7464, 8156 and 8682 respectively. The longitudinal family file is held under SN 8172.

Sub-sample studies:
Some studies based on sub-samples of MCS have also been conducted, including a study of MCS respondent mothers who had received assisted fertility treatment, conducted in 2003 (see EUL SN 5559). Also, birth registration and maternity hospital episodes for the MCS respondents are held as a separate dataset (see EUL SN 5614).


How to access genetic and/or bio-medical sample data from a range of longitudinal surveys:
For information on how to access biomedical data from MCS that are not held at the UKDS, see the CLS Genetic data and biological samples webpage.

Secure Access datasets:
Secure Access versions of the MCS have more restrictive access conditions than versions available under the standard End User Licence or Special Licence (see 'Access data' tab above).

Secure Access versions of the MCS include:

• detailed sensitive variables not available under EUL. These have been grouped thematically and are held under SN 8753 (socio-economic, accommodation and occupational data), SN 8754 (self-reported health, behaviour and fertility), SN 8755 (demographics, language and religion) and SN 8756 (exact participation dates). These files replace previously available studies held under SNs 8456 and 8622-8627
  
• detailed geographical identifier files which are grouped by sweep held under SN 7758 (MCS1), SN 7759 (MCS2), SN 7760 (MCS3), SN 7761 (MCS4), SN 7762 (MCS5 2001 Census Boundaries), SN 7763 (MCS5 2011 Census Boundaries), SN 8231 (MCS6 2001 Census Boundaries), SN 8232 (MCS6 2011 Census Boundaries), SN 8757 (MCS7), SN 8758 (MCS7 2001 Census Boundaries) and SN 8759 (MCS7 2011 Census Boundaries). These files replace previously available files grouped by geography SN 7049 (Ward level), SN 7050 (Lower Super Output Area level), and SN 7051 (Output Area level)
• linked education administrative datasets for Key Stages 1, 2, 4 and 5 held under SN 8481 (England). This replaces previously available datasets for Key Stage 1 (SN 6862) and Key Stage 2 (SN 7712)
  
• linked education administrative datasets for Key Stage 1 held under SN 7414 (Scotland)
• linked education administrative dataset for Key Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4 under SN 9085 (Wales)
  
• linked NHS Patient Episode Database for Wales (PEDW) for MCS1 – MCS5 held under SN 8302
• linked Scottish Medical Records data held under SNs 8709, 8710, 8711, 8712, 8713 and 8714;
• Banded Distances to English Grammar Schools for MCS5 held under SN 8394
• linked Health Administrative Datasets (Hospital Episode Statistics) for England for years 2000-2019 held under SN 9030
• linked Hospital of Birth data held under SN 5724.

The linked education administrative datasets held under SNs 8481,7414 and 9085 may be ordered alongside the MCS detailed geographical identifier files only if sufficient justification is provided in the application.

Researchers applying for access to the Secure Access MCS datasets should indicate on their ESRC Accredited Researcher application form the EUL dataset(s) that they also wish to access (selected from the MCS Series Access web page).

The MCS Longitudinal Family File can be used for research that focuses on a single sweep of MCS or cross-sweep. The file contains the outcomes of MCS families and weights for each sweep released so far. This means that it can be used to follow cases longitudinally. Specific information on how the weight variables have been constructed for each sweep is provided with the User Guide of the respective sweep. The user guide of the MCS longitudinal family file provides guidance on specific variables.

For the fourth edition (September 2020), the data file has been updated to include the weights for the seventh survey (MCS7).