FOI Reference: FOI/2022.4236
You asked
Please can you provide:
1) The total number of births in the UK over the last 5 years broken down by year
2) The total number of households without children over the last 5 years broken down by year and family type (inc lone household)
We said
Thank you for your enquiry
We are responsible for the production of births and life event data for England and Wales. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
In collaboration with NRS and NISRA, we publish headline UK births as part of our Vital statistics in the UK: births, deaths and marriages. This as data up to 2020 for the UK as a whole.
2021 data for the UK will be available in December 2022. Data for England and Wales only will be available in August 2022 as part of our Live Births series.
| Year | Number of live births | | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | United Kingdom | England and Wales | England | Wales | Scotland | Northern Ireland |
| 2020 | 681,560 | 613,936 | 585,195 | 28,638 | 46,809 | 20,815 |
| 2019 | 712,680 | 640,370 | 610,505 | 29,704 | 49,863 | 22,447 |
| 2018 | 731,213 | 657,076 | 625,651 | 31,274 | 51,308 | 22,829 |
| 2017 | 755,042 | 679,106 | 646,794 | 32,176 | 52,861 | 23,075 |
| 2016 | 774,835 | 696,271 | 663,157 | 32,936 | 54,488 | 24,076 |
| 2015 | 777,165 | 697,852 | 664,399 | 33,279 | 55,098 | 24,215 |
Download this table
.xls .csvIf you have any further questions on England and Wales data, please contact Health.data@ons.gov.uk. If you have any questions on Scotland and Northern Ireland data, please contact foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
Regarding your second query, please see Households by type of household and family, regions of England and GB constituent countries, which will give the number of households or People in households by type of household and family, regions of England and GB constituent countries which provides the number of people living within the household. For both datasets, under 2015 to 2021 edition of the dataset, click on and open the xlsx file, you can then select tabs 1-9 which cover estimates for the nine regions of England or select tabs 10 -12 which cover estimates for the three nations of Great Britain.
Please also see the Families and households dataset which provides the equivalent figures for the UK, under current edition, click on and open the xlsx file, then select tab 7 -- Table 7: Households by type of household and family, United Kingdom, 1996 to 2021 or tab 8 -- Table 8: People in households by type of household and family, United Kingdom, 1996 to 2021.
It should be noted that in the tables above there is a category "multi-family households" (households containing at least two families - the families may be related, for example a couple with their daughter and her child, or two brothers and their wives). Some of these households might also have no children resident but these are not separately identified from those that do. The number of multi-family households are relatively small.
Please also see Childbearing for women born in different years, England and Wales:2020 this data provides the number of births to women born in a particular year, please note that these are for England and Wales only.
When accessing any of our files, please read the 'notes, terms and conditions' contained within them.
Should you require anything further, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at pop.info@ons.gov.uk.