ABSTRACT
Human beings may well be a social species, but household trends suggest increasing fragmentation or atomisation. The retreat from marriage is clearly a major factor behind the increase in living alone. Even teenage mothers who have their first child within marriage are more likely to be with the same man in their mid-thirties than those who had their first child while cohabiting: 1 in 2 compared with 1 in 3. The biggest decline in babies born to married families has been in homes with around average income. In the 1970s, most children were found in the third and fourth deciles of the income distribution, with declining numbers in successively richer deciles. Unwed childbearing was once a temporary status, typically and often fairly quickly followed by marriage and marital childbearing. This chapter also presents an overview of this book.
