The Office for National Statistics has just released a new report called ‘Household projections for England – household type projections: 2016-based’. This is to give us an indication of the future number of households in England and its regions and local authorities.
- What does the report say?
- The number of one-person households in England is projected to increase by 26% between 2016 and 2041, driven by increases in the number of people aged 65 years and over living on their own.
- The number of people aged 90 years and over living on their own is projected to more than double, from 241,073 in 2016 to 587,724 in 2041.
- The number of households with dependent children is projected to remain broadly similar between 2016 and 2041, with around a quarter of households having dependent children by 2041.
- Almost all the projected increase in households by 2041 will be among one-person and multiple adult households without dependent children.
Joanna Harkrader, Centre for Ageing and Demography, Office for National Statistics said:
“Today’s figures show that the number of people in England living on their own is projected to increase by over a quarter over the next 25 years, driven mostly by increases in the number of older people living alone. In contrast, the number of households with dependent children is projected to remain broadly similar. These figures reflect the potential impact of an ageing population and lower numbers of children being born on future living arrangements.”
Why is this interesting? Well, it gives us all sorts of questions to think about. We are struggling with housing as it is. These figures are suggesting we are all going to be living longer and we are going to need housing for that and for the younger people looking to get onto the property ladder.
And what of all of the social services we use? The NHS is groaning under the strain. The original idea of the NHS was that by getting the nation healthy, the cost to the NHS would go down. What was not factoring in was that by getting us healthy, we would live for longer and that increases the demand on the health service.
What about support care for the elderly, either in residential care or living in their own homes? I can only see that demand will increase. We are struggling to fund it and to provide it at the moment so if the demand increases………
And lastly, pensions. State retirement age is slipping onwards and upwards. I think we will se older people remaining in the work place. Why not?
Will there be enough money for state pensions to be paid at all? That’s a worry particularly for women who statistically are more ‘pension poor’ that men. (See my blog post on that point: ). Pensions seem to be more important then, if we are going to be living longer, so don’t dismiss them if you are in the process of getting divorced.