Dr Veronique Siegler Office for National Statistics, Measuring National Well-being Phone: ONS perspective on “Family Life in Britain in the 21st Century”

Annual Families and Households publication Gives the most recent estimates of the number of families by type. Source: Labour Force Survey (LFS)

Short reports of topical areas of interest such as family size, young people living with their parents, stepfamilies. For example, in 2011, in England and Wales: There were 544,000 stepfamilies = 11% of couple families with dependent children Nearly 1 in 10 dependent children lived in a step family The number of stepfamilies with dependent children has fallen by 14% from 631,000 in 2001 Contact: Demographic Analysis Unit Telephone: +44 (0)

Measuring National Well-being The Measuring National Well-being Programme aims to provide a fuller picture of 'how society is doing' than is given by economic indicators such as GDP

Why measure Children’s Well-being? - Children’s well-being is an important aspect of the well- being of the nation. In 2012 there were 12 million children = nearly a fifth of the total UK population.. - Research from the Children’s Society (2013) has shown that a significant minority of children in the UK suffer from low well-being and this impacts on their childhood and life chances as well as for the families and communities around them. Article published March 2014: a draft set of measures of national well-being for children aged 0 to 15, alongside a draft set of measures of national well-being for young people aged 16 to 24.

Measuring National Children's Well-being: relationships of children with parents MeasureSourceLatest year Latest data Proportion of children who quarrel with a parent more than once a week (mother/father) Understanding Society 2011/12 28% (mother) 20% (father) Proportion of children who talk to a parent about things that matter more than once a week (mother/father) Understanding Society 2011/12 63 % (mother) 40% (father) Proportion of children who eat a meal with family 3 or more times in the last week Understanding Society 2011/12 75%

Plans for the future ONS will continue to develop the measures for children and young people, taking account of ongoing feedback from users and experts. The headline measures are likely to be maintained regularly as part of the ongoing work of the National Well-being programme. There will be further analytical outputs. Contact: