§ Mr. Alex CarlileTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the definition of a typical family used by his Department; and if he will make a statement. [8247]
§ Mrs. Angela Knight[holding answer 11 December 1996]: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the chief executive of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Alex Carlile, dated 16 December 1996:
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked me to reply as the Director of the Office for National Statistics to your recent question on the definition of a typical family.The Office for National Statistics does not define a "typical family". In the General Household Survey (GHS), the source of most statistics on families, a family is defined as:
- (a) a married or opposite sex cohabiting couple on their own or
- (b) a married or opposite sex cohabiting couple/lone parent and their never-married children, provided these children have no children of their own.
Persons who cannot be allocated to a family as defined above are said to be persons not in a family although they could be related to one or more family members.The type of family which is relatively most numerous depends on the classification of families which is used, but from the 1994 GHS, of all the families defined above (and where the family head was resident in Great Britain and aged under 60):
- 21% were married couples with no children
- 6% were opposite sex cohabiting couples with no children
- 50% were married couples with children
- 4% were opposite sex cohabiting couples with children
- 18% were lone parents families with children
(Due to rounding the percentages do not total to 100)An analysis of the trends, numbers and characteristics of families was recently published in an article entitled Population Review: (6) Families and households in Great Britain which appeared in Population Trends 85, a copy of which is available in the House of Commons Library.