The findings were published of the third Millennium Cohort Study survey (a survey of more than 15,000 children born in the United Kingdom during the first two years of the new millennium). Fewer than two-thirds of children were living with their married natural parents at age 5. Girls were already two months ahead of boys in their learning development when they started school. The children of young, poorly educated mothers were more likely to face health and educational problems before they started school.
Source: Kirstine Hansen and Heather Joshi (eds.), Millennium Cohort Study Third Survey: A User's Guide to Initial Findings, Centre for Longitudinal Studies/University of London (020 7612 6875)
Links: Report | CLS press release | Guardian report (1) | Guardian report (2) | BBC report | Telegraph report
Date: 2008-Oct
An annual survey of social attitudes found that 70 per cent of people thought that there was nothing wrong with sex before marriage, compared with only 48 per cent in 1984. Some two-thirds of people (66 per cent) believed that there was little difference, socially, between being married and living together; and only 1 in 4 – 28 per cent – thought that married couples made better parents than unmarried ones.
Source: Simon Duncan and Miranda Phillips, 'New families? Tradition and change in modern relationships' in Alison Park, John Curtice, Katarina Thomson, Miranda Phillips and Mark Johnson (eds.), British Social Attitudes: The 24th Report, SAGE Publications Ltd (020 7324 8500)
Links: Summary | NatCen press release | Telegraph report | BBC report | FT report
Date: 2008-Jan