By 2011 just under a quarter of people in the UK were living in households consisting of a couple (either married, cohabiting or joined legally together by a civil ceremony) but had no children living with them. Just over a quarter were similar couples but with children, and only just under 8% of people were part of a family with a mum and dad and three or more children. That latter category was the norm not many Censuses ago; today half the population live in households without children.

Between 2011 and 2014 only three types of family became more common, in terms of the kinds of household people live in across the UK. The largest rise was of people living in multi-family households, which was still the smallest group in 2011. These are families who share a home and kitchen with at least one other family. By 2014 compared to 2011, one extra person in every 200 lived in these kinds of households, which had been very common in the Victorian slums. The next largest rise was in families with grown-up children living with their parents. Both these groups grow in size when there are affordable housing shortages. Third, families with one or two dependent children also grew in size slightly – today’s ‘traditional’ family, which would have been considered as small in our grandparents’ day. In contrast, the largest falls were in people living on their own under the age of 65; again, housing shortages make it harder to live alone today.