Social trends indicate more variety of families and households

There's now no such thing as 'the British family' as there are several family structures that exist.
In 2002 there were 24.4 million households in the UK which had gone up sice 1971. The average size of household is getting smaller and the number of households made up of 5 or more has fallen from 14% in 1971 to 7% in 2002. The percentage of households which are nuclear famillies has fallen from 33% in the 1971 to 25% in 2002. Two of the biggest increases have been in single person households and lone parent family households. This explains why the average size of households has got smaller. There has also been an increase in the proportion of families which are reconstituted (also known as step families). There are more step families now that there is more divorce. In 2001-2, 8% of all households were reconstituted families.

There's been an increase in the diversity of families in the UK. There are more different kinds of family. Nuclear families are still the most common type of family, even though the proportion of nuclear families is going down. In 2002, 78% of children lived in nuclear families.