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Office
for National Statistics News Release.
An ageing and more diverse society
- Social
Trends - 35 years of social change
The
United Kingdom
population is ageing and within 10 years
there will be
more
people aged 65 and over than children under 16, according to Social
Trends
published by the Office for National Statistics.
This is the 35th year of Social Trends and the publication looks back
over
these
years of social change in a special review by National Statistician
Len
Cook and Research Director Jean Martin.
It shows growth in the minority ethnic population, which has resulted in
a
more
diverse society. Household income has risen, although income
inequality
has widened. Life expectancy has increased but so have the
number
of years that we can expect to live in poor health or with a
disability.
Technology has transformed many of our lives and our dependence
on
the car is greater than ever.
Social Trends contains a wide range of statistics on many aspects of
contemporary
British society and how it has changed over the years. Some
other
interesting findings from the new edition include:
· The
United Kingdom
has an ageing population. Between 1971 and
2003
the
number of people aged
65 and over rose by 28 per cent while the
number
of under 16s fell by 18 per cent.
· In
1971, half of the
UK
population was aged under 34.1 years. This
median
age rose to 38.4
years in 2003.
·
The proportion of children living in lone-parent families in
Great
Britain
tripled between 1972 `and spring 2004, to 24
per cent.
· In
spring 2004, 58 per cent of young men (aged 20 to 24), and 39 per
cent
of young women of the same
age lived at home with their parents in
England
.
· With
the exception of mathematics and science at Key Stage 2, in
2004,
girls outperformed
boys in
England
in all subjects at Key Stages
1, 2 and 3; the greatest differences were for
English.
· The
proportion of three and four year olds enrolled in all schools in
the
United Kingdom
tripled
from 21 per cent in 1970/71 to 65 per cent in
2003/04.
· Long/term
sickness or disability was the most common reason given for
economic
inactivity by working-age
men in spring 2004; for women the most
common
reason was looking after the family
or home.
· Wealth
is very much less evenly distributed than income: in 2002 half the adult
UK
population
owned only 6 per cent of total wealth.
· In
2002/03, 7 to 15 year old girls in the
United Kingdom
spent about
12
per cent more than boys
of the same age.
· Household
spending on communications in the
United Kingdom
almost
trebled
in volume terms
between 1991 and 2003.
· The
proportion of adults in
England
who were obese increased between
1993
and 2003: from13 to 23 per cent of men and from 16 to 23 per cent
of
women.
· In
2003/04, smoking was most common among adults in routine and
manual
households in Great Britain
(35 per cent of men and 31 per cent
of
women) and least prevalent among those in
managerial and
professional
households (20 per cent and 17 per cent respectively).
·
The proportion of NHS GP consultations in
Great Britain
that took
place
in the home in the 14 days
before interview fell from 22 per cent
in
1971 to just 4 per cent in 2003/04.
· In
2001?02, 64 per cent of parents in the
United Kingdom
with babies
aged
9 to 10 months had
used grandparents to look after their babies
while
the main carer was at work or college.
· Over
seven in ten of both men and women previously convicted for
theft
and handling stolen goods in
England
and
Wales
were reconvicted
within
two years of their discharge from prison in
1999.
· The
number of owner-occupied dwellings in
Great Britain
increased by
44
per cent between 1981 and 2003,
while the number of rented dwellings
fell
by 17 per cent.
· The
United Kingdom
produced around 4 per cent of its
electricity from
renewable
sources in 2003, compared
with an EU-25 average of 14 per
cent.
· The
number of licensed cars on
Britain
's roads continued to increase
to
nearly 28 million in
2003, over four times the number in 1961.
·
UK
residents took 41.2 million holidays abroad
in 2003, six times the
number
in 1971;
Spain
was
the most popular destination in both years.
Please
find below a link to the news release on the National Statistics
website
titled "An ageing and more diverse society Social Trends ? 35 years
of
social change"
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/sot0305.pdf
*
Social Trends 35
Palgrave
Macmillan £41 ISBN 1 4039 9070 0
Available free on the National Statistics website:
www.statistics.gov.uk/socialtrends35
BACKGROUND
NOTES
1. The
publication is also available electronically, with links to the
data
contained in the charts and tables, from the
National Statistics
website:
www.statistics.gov.uk/socialtrends35.
2. Details of
the policy governing the release of new data are available
from
the press office.
3. National
Statistics are produced to high professional standards set
out
in the National Statistics Code of Practice.
They undergo
regular
quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs.
They
are produced free from any
political interference. Crown
copyright
2005.
For the latest data on the economy and society
consult
National Statistics at
http://www.statistics.gov.uk
(24/3/05)
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