Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Lonesome number one

We have become a solitary race. Almost a third of UK households comprise of just one person. Back in 1971, the number was only 18 percent.

There are plenty of explanations; higher divorce rate, lower marriage rate, higher female incomes, and the generalised breakdown of the nuclear family. However, I can't help feeling that it is a bad thing. People need other people.

10 comments:

  1. A study into the proportion of bloggers who live alone might be useful.

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  2. You have to split it up into age groups, I'd guess the largest part is widows/widowers.

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  3. There is the benefit from officially living alone to be considered.

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  4. I think you will find that as long as their is a benefit to being a "single parent", you will find people only declaring one person living at an addres.

    single parent benefit
    housing benefit
    council tax paid/reduced
    school meals/uniform free

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  5. It's often the case that married people are the loneliest. Either that or they are spending much of their time with people they'd rather not - such as in-laws.

    Don't assume that singles aren't having a whale of a time just because they live alone - it's often quite the reverse.

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  6. Alice, interesting chart.
    what's the source of the data?

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  7. The definitions are unlikely to have been unchanged.

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  8. As the proportion has barely changed since 1991, I'm not sure this is news. Not saying it's a good thing but it's hardly a trend.

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  9. data source: Social Trends 39 from the ONS.

    www.ons.gov.uk

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  10. Tut tut Alice. Composed of or comprises but never comprised of. But yes bad and sad.

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