Scottish household survey 2019: supplementary analysis

Household Characteristics

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This bar chart shows the estimated number of households per household type in Scotland, in order of how common they are. Starting with the most common: “Single adult” (505,000), “Small adult” (500,000), “Single pensioner” (357,000), “Older smaller” (343,000), “Small family” (318,000), “Large adult” (219,000), “Large family” (128,000), and “Single parent” (108,000)

The average number of people in a household in Scotland was 2.2. This remained fairly consistent over all local authorities.

Around 108,000 (4%) households in Scotland were single parent households.

Single pensioner households (households with only one person who is aged 65 or over), made up 14% of all households. This was around 357,000 households.

115,000 people in Scotland lived in single parent household in the most deprived areas - compared with 33,000 in the least deprived areas

The definition of a single parent does not make any distinction between situations where a child has regular contact and/or partly resides with their other parent and a child who solely resides with and is cared for by one parent

Around one-in-four (26%) adults lived in a household with at least one child who is either at school, pre-school or not yet at school

As people get older they were more likely to live alone.

11% of adults under 65 years old lived alone, while 35% of those aged 65 or over lived alone. This went up to 53 per cent for those aged 80 or over, approximately 121,000 people.

19% of the population were aged 65 or over in Scotland, over a million people. Approximately 713,000 (13%) were aged 70 or over, and 230,00 (4%) were aged 80 or over.

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This bar chart shows the proportion of adults in different age groups who live alone, and the proportion who live in a household with two or more adults. The age groups are as follows: “Aged under 65”, “Aged 65 or over”, “aged 70 or over”, and “aged 80 or over”. It highlights that older adults were more likely to live alone.

533,000 (52%) adults aged 65 or over had a long-term physical or mental health condition

This compared with 153,000 (66%) of those aged 80 or over