What the UK census says about women

Story published on Women's Views on News, December 19, 2012

The latest data shows England and Wales turning away from marriage, but women still working less

Most of the tables in the latest census release are not broken down by gender, so we will have to wait to see what these figures really tell us about our changing roles.

But according to figures released on 11 December people living in England and Wales are rejecting traditional values like marriage and religion. 

The proportion of people with no religious affiliation rose from 15 to 25 per cent. 

And the proportion of households containing a married couple or same sex civil partnership fell from 37 to 33 per cent.  The percentage of households containing a cohabiting couple increased from 8 to 10 per cent.

We also seem more prepared to live with people from different ethnic backgrounds.  Twelve per cent of households now contain people with more than one ethnicity, up from 9 per cent in 2001.

The proportion of those providing unpaid care to friends or relatives has remained the same as in 2001 at 10 per cent.  This is welcome as the majority of unpaid carers are women.

But despite some evidence of changing social attitudes, women continue to work fewer hours than men and are less likely to own their own businesses. 

A third of women work part-time, compared with 8 per cent of men, and only 9 per cent are self-employed, compared with a fifth of men.

Women are more likely to be studying full time however, 5.7 per cent of women are students, compared with 4.3 per cent of men.

There are over a million more women than men registered for the UK census, 28.5m women compared to 27.6m men.

While the main explanation for this is that women live longer, Prof Jane Falkingham, director of the Centre for Population Change told the BBC fewer women chose to or have the opportunity to live and work abroad.

But there may be a more administrative explanation. “Men are not good form-fillers,” she said.