Two decades of family change: secondary analysis of continuous government surveys

"Secondary analysis of General Household Survey and Labour Force Survey data shows how the structure of families in Great Britain has changed over the last 20 years. Dependent children are now less likely to be living in a couple family and more likely to be living with a lone mother who is either single or divorced. Families in simple households with just two generations have become more common over time. Lone mothers are now more likely to be living in simple households. The paper also considers how the number and ages of dependent children are associated with family and household type. Log-linear models are used both to smooth the data and to predict family structure in the year 2000. Gaps in our knowledge about current family structures are discussed together with implications of the findings for social policy."