Scottish Household Survey 2019: twenty years of Scotland's people - summary report

This publication synthesises 20 years of change (1999-2019) in Scottish society as measured by Scottish Household Survey data.


Households in Scotland are changing

This horizontal bar chart shows the proportion of different household types in 1999 and 2019. They are ordered according to how common they were in 2019, meaning that they appear in the following order: single adult households, small adult households, single older households, older smaller households, small family households, large adult households, large family households and single parent households. Single adult households, small adult households and large family households show the biggest difference between 1999 and 2019.

The number of households in Scotland increased from approximately 2.2 to 2.5 million, but they were getting smaller – single adult and small adults families were the most common in 2019.

There has been an increase of adults under 65 living alone, from 16% in 1999 to 20% in 2019. However, single older households decreased from 16% in 1999 to 14% in 2019.

Among the lowest income households the proportion of single older households decreased from 43% in 1999 to 32% in 2019, while the proportion of single and small adult households both increased.

In the highest income groups, the most notable change was a decrease in large family households, from 15% in 1999 to 11% in 2019.

1 in 3 or 32% of adults in the lowest income group were single adult households in 2019, an increase from 25% in 1999

Contact

Email: shs@gov.scot

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