Cohabiters like Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds fastest growing family type

Cohabiting couples such as Boris Johnson and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds are the fastest growing family type over the last decade, it was revealed today.

The number of cohabiting pairs has spiked by a quarter over the past decade to 3.4million, according to official figures.

Mr Johnson and former Tory spin doctor Ms Symonds are the first unmarried couple to live in No10, having resided at her south London flat before he became PM.

Married and civil partner couple families were the most common family type in the UK in 2018, accounting for two-thirds of the total number of families.

But the Office for National Statistics said that since 2008 the proportion of families where couples were married had declined, while the share who were cohabiting had gone up from 15.3 per cent to 17.9 per cent.

Cohabiting families were the second largest family type followed by single-parent families, it added.

The total number of families in the UK has also risen by 7.6 per cent from 17.7million in 2008 to 19.1million in 2018, in line with the growth in the UK population over this period of 7.5 per cent. 

The ONS defines a family as a married, civil partnered or cohabiting couple with or without children, or a lone parent, with at least one child, who live at the same address.

The new figures also showed the number of same-sex couple families surged by more than 50 per cent from 152,000 in 2015 to 232,000 in 2018.

The ONS said that the introduction of gay marriage in 2014 has led to rapid growth in same-sex marriage families, doubling to 68,000 from 2017 to 2018.

The number of people living alone rose to more than eight million for the first time in 2018, up from 7.7million in the previous year.

That was driven by increases in women aged 45 to 64 and men aged 65 to 74 living alone.

In 2018 one in four young adults – 3.4million – aged 20 to 34 were living with their parents, a similar proportion to last year but a 24 per cent increase since 2008.

ONS spokeswoman Sophie Sanders said: ‘The number of families and households in the UK has continued to rise in line with the growth of the UK population over the past decade.

‘However, the ways that people live have been changing.

‘While married couple families remain the most common, cohabiting couples are the fastest growing family type as people increasingly choose to live together before, or without, getting married.

‘There are also more people living alone than ever before, an increasing number of same-sex couple families and more young adults living with their parents.’

Mr Johnson and former Tory spin doctor Ms Symonds (pictured returning to Downing Street last week) are the first unmarried couple to live in No10, having resided at her south London flat before he became PM