As a result of ↓

• More people live alone at marriageable age than in the past (singletons) or live in shared singles households. In 2011 29% of the UK population lived alone, compared with 12% in 1961.
• Many cohabit and have children but never marry. Fewer than one in 100 adults under 50 are thought to have been cohabiting in the early 1960s, compared with one in six in 2010;
• Others cohabit and then marry their partners after some years, having children at some point (Chester's neo-conventional family).
• There has been a long-term rise in the proportion of conceptions and births outside marriage. In 2010, 57% of all conceptions in England and Wales were outside marriage.
• Since 1970 the mean age at first marriage has increased by almost eight years for both men and women. This reflects the fact that men and women are delaying getting married. In 2010 the mean age at marriage for never-married men was 32.1 years. The provisional mean age for never-married women was 30.0 years, compared to 24.4 and 22.4 respectively in 1970.
• Families are smaller as long-term relationships are formed later. Conception rates for women over 30 have increased in recent years, extending to the over-40s. Many families are described as beanpoles, as there are few children (equivalent to branches) but four or five generations may be living at one time (equivalent to the plant's height).