A study used information from the Millennium Cohort Study to examine the characteristics of families where children were born within a marriage, within a cohabiting union, or outside of a co-residential partnership. For this latter group, for the first time in a national data set, an assessment was made of the strength of the parent s relationship at the time of the birth. The authors showed that the context of childbearing varied with respect to geography, ethnicity, age, parity and educational status of the mother, and that the socio-economic wellbeing of families varied according to the partnership status of their parents. (The Millennium Cohort Study is a large-scale survey of babies born in the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom. The first sweep was carried out during 2001 02 and contains information on 18,819 babies in 18,553 families, collected from the parents when the babies were 9 11 months old.)
Source: Kathleen Kiernan and Kate Smith, 'Unmarried parenthood: new insights from the Millennium Cohort Study', Population Trends 114, Winter 2003, Office for National Statistics, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Article (pdf)
Date: 2003-Dec
An article analysed age differences between spouses by year, age at marriage and previous marital status (based on marriage registration statistics for 1963 and 1998, for England and Wales). The median age gap hardly changed between 1963 and 1998: but this concealed a considerable increase in the proportion of marriages where the man was younger than the woman or to a lesser extent where the man was six or more years older.
Source: Ruth Hancock, Rachel Stuchbury and Cecilia Tomassini, 'Changes in the distribution of marital age differences in England and Wales, 1963 to 1998', Population Trends 114, Winter 2003, Office for National Statistics, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Article (pdf)
Date: 2003-Dec
A report said that commonly made claims about changes in family and other intimate relations were not supported by actual research. It argued that evidence drawn on to show an increased diversity of living arrangements, such as the numbers of divorcees, lone parents and step-families, could also be used to demonstrate an enduring continuity of traditional ties, with the majority of families still composed of a heterosexual couple.
Source: Val Gillies, Family and Intimate Relationships: Review of the sociological research, Working Paper 2, Families and Social Capital ESRC Research Group/South Bank University (020 7815 5750)
Links: Report (pdf) | ESRC press release
Date: 2003-Aug
There were 5,459 adoptions in England and Wales in 2002, an increase of 1.4 per cent on the number in 2001, but 27 per cent fewer than the 1992 total of 7,466.
Source: Marriage, Divorce and Adoption Statistics: Review of the Registrar General on marriages, divorces and adoptions in England and Wales, 2001, Series FM2 29, Office for National Statistics (0845 601 3034)
Links: Report (pdf) | ONS press release (pdf)
Date: 2003-Jul
An article investigated care provided to parents and parents-in-law by mid-life adults with dependent children at home. General Household Survey data were used to estimate the prevalence of this two-way care. Having a higher education qualification was associated with later ages both of caring for parents and of having children at home. Increasingly late first childbearing, however, pointed towards a potentially greater caring squeeze for higher qualified women, with a little over 1 in 10 at age 45 projected to be caring for a parent while still having a child under 18 in the household.
Source: Emily Agree, Beverley Bissett and Michael Rendall, 'Simultaneous care for parents and care for children among mid-life British women and men', Population Trends 112, Summer 2003, Office for National Statistics, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Article (pdf) | ONS press release (pdf)
Date: 2003-Jun
An article considered the contribution of changes in mortality and fertility to the likelihood of having one or more surviving children at a given age and/or a surviving parent. The proportion of people aged 60 with a mother alive was projected to more than double between those born in 1911 and 1970, and to increase for at least the next 30 years. While there were increasing concerns about the availability of informal care for elderly people from children, the authors concluded that a higher proportion of elderly people were likely to have a surviving child than for any generation ever born in Britain.
Source: Michael Murphy and Emily Grundy, 'Mothers with living children and children with living mothers: the role of fertility and mortality in the period 1911 2050', Population Trends 112, Summer 2003, Office for National Statistics, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Article (pdf) | ONS press release (pdf) | LSTHM press release
Date: 2003-Jun
Results from the 2001 Census for England and Wales showed that nearly half of all children were not being brought up in a 'traditional' family (with married parents in the same home). Around 2.7 million children lived in lone parent families, 725,000 lived with a step-parent, and 1.3 million lived with unmarried cohabiting parents.
Source: Census 2001: National Report for England & Wales, Office for National Statistics, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Link to report and tables | ONS press release (pdf) | Guardian report
Date: 2003-May
A paper reported research on 'personal communities' - the set of active and significant ties which are most important to people, even if geographically distant. It examined the degree to which families of choice are replacing traditional, given families.
Source: Ray Pahl and Liz Spencer, Personal Communities: Not simply families of 'fate' or 'choice', Working Paper 2003-04, Institute for Social and Economic Research/University of Essex (01206 873087)
Links: Working paper (pdf)
Date: 2003-Mar
Analysis of the 2001 Census results showed that lone parents accounted for 10 per cent of all households in England and Wales. Nine out of ten lone parents were women. Nearly half of female lone parents and nearly two-thirds of male lone parents were in paid work.
Source: Press release 13.2.03, Office for National Statistics (0845 601 3034)
Links: Census website | Press release (pdf)
Date: 2003-Feb