Increase in Number of Households in Scotland

20 May 2010

The number of households in Scotland is continuing to increase, the Registrar General for Scotland announced today.

The Registrar General, Duncan Macniven, was commenting following the publication of Estimates of Households and Dwellings in Scotland, 2009 and Household projections for Scotland, 2008-based.

Commenting on the findings, Mr Macniven said:

“The number of households in Scotland is still increasing. This is due partly to a small increase in population, but mainly to changes in household structure, with more people living alone. The rate of growth has slowed in the past two years. The increase from 2008 to 2009 was the lowest in the last five years.

“Over the next 25 years, the number of households in Scotland is projected to increase by more than a fifth to 2.8 million – an average of an additional 19,250 households per year.

“Most of the increase is in households headed by someone aged 60 or over (a projected increase of almost 50 per cent), and households headed by someone aged 85 or over are projected to more than double from 73,000 to 196,000.

“The average household size has fallen from 2.45 people in 1991 to 2.18 in 2008 and is projected to drop to 1.93 by 2033.”

The reports’ main findings are:

Number of households

The number of households in Scotland has been increasing by between 11,000 and 23,000 each year since 1991. Over the last year, there has been an increase of 13,200 households (0.6 per cent).
The rate of growth has slowed in the past two years: between 2008 and 2009, the increase in the number of households was the lowest in the last five years.
The number of households in Scotland is projected to increase by 21 percent to 2.8 million by 2033.

Local authority figures

The number of households has increased since 2008 in every council area except Argyll and Bute (where it remained the same). Since 2004, there has been an overall increase in the number of households in all areas apart from Inverclyde (where it fell slightly). The area with the greatest increase over the last five years has been Highland (8.3 per cent).
The largest projected increases in the number of households between 2008 and 2033 are in Clackmannanshire (41 per cent), East Lothian (40 per cent) and Perth and Kinross (38 per cent). Aberdeenshire, City of Edinburgh, West Lothian and Orkney Islands also have projected increases of over 30 per cent. In contrast, Inverclyde has a projected decrease of five per cent.

Household type

Household structure is changing, with more people living alone. There has been a seven per cent increase in the number of adults living alone in Scotland between 2003 and 2008.
38 per cent of dwellings in Scotland are entitled to a Council Tax discount because there is only one adult living there (either alone, with children, or with those ‘disregarded’ for Council Tax purposes). There are more one-adult households in urban areas (42 per cent in large urban areas, compared to 29 per cent in remote rural areas) and in deprived areas (52 per cent in the most deprived areas, compared with 28 per cent in the least deprived areas).
Looking to the future, a large increase is projected in the number of households of just one adult, from 841,000 (36 per cent of all households) in 2008 to over 1.25 million (45 per cent) in 2033.
Women are more likely to live alone than men. But the number of men living alone is projected to increase more rapidly, from 370,000 households in 2008 to 578,000 in 2033. This is a projected increase of 56 per cent compared with 44 per cent for women.
There are also projected increases in other small households. Households of just two adults without children are projected to rise from 702,000 to 866,000, however there is a projected 21 per cent decrease in the number of households of two or more adults in the 40-59 age groups. The number of households of one adult with children is projected to rise from 163,000 to 238,000.
In contrast, the number of larger households is projected to fall, with households of two or more adults with children decreasing from 433,000 (19 per cent of all households) in 2008 to 315,000 (11 per cent) by 2033. There is also a projected decrease in the number of households of three or more adults, from 192,000 to 140,000.

Age group

Households headed by people aged 60 or over are projected to increase by almost 50 per cent from 783,000 to 1.15 million between 2008 and 2033. In contrast, households headed by someone aged under 60 are projected to increase by just seven per cent, to around 1.66 million. The number of households headed by someone aged 85 or over is projected to more than double from 73,000 to 196,000.