Record 10% of UK children are born to parents who live apart

ONE baby in ten is now born to parents who live apart, official figures show.

Last year a record 10.3 per cent of newborns were from families in which the mother and father have different homes.

The breaking of the one in ten barrier marks a watershed for the ‘living apart together’ movement in which a child has two parents who see themselves as a couple but do not share a family home.

Around two million couples are thought to be living apart together.

The arrangement has become fashionable among celebrities.

However for many less well- off couples the advantage is that they can collect much higher state benefits. Some researchers have found that it can make a difference of £200 a week.

The rise in births to ‘living apart together’ families in England and Wales last year was revealed by the Office for National Statistics.

It recorded an increase in parents giving separate addresses when they register their child’s birth.

The 10.3 per cent – 71,917 babies – born to couples who live apart in 2016 compares with 9 per cent in 2006, 7.1 per cent in 1996 and 4.2 per cent in 1986.

Nicola Haines of the ONS said: ‘ The overwhelming majority of births are registered jointly by two parents. Over the last 30 years, the percentage of babies born to parents who are married or in a civil partnership has decreased notably from 79 per cent in 1986 to 52 per cent in 2016.

‘Furthermore, there has been a gradual increase in the percentage of babies registered by parents who are not married or in a civil partnership and who live at different addresses.’

Only just over one in 20 births were registered solely by the mother. Most new parents are married, the figures showed, and the overall levels of married and unmarried parenthood have remained largely unchanged for several years. However, figures disclosed by the Daily Mail earlier this month signalled that wealthier parents are the most likely to be married.

In some poorer northern towns, more than 70 per cent of babies are born to unmarried mothers, while in some wealthy southern districts the rate of unmarried motherhood is around 30 per cent. Some 54 per cent of babies born last year were to mothers over 30, and 68 per cent to fathers over 30.

The majority of mothers under 30 were unmarried, while most over 30 were married.

The average age of motherhood hit 30 for the first time in 2013 and has since been creeping up. Last year the typical age of motherhood was 30.4. The typical age of a mother having her first baby was 28.8 Fathers are on average nearly three years older. The typical age of a new father last year was 33.3.

Of 331,750 babies born to unmarried women, 205,788 were children of women aged under 30.

The number of babies born to women aged 40 and over rose to a new record of 11,541, up from 11,384 in 2015.

The number of babies being born to women in their 40s has more than doubled since 2002.

‘Different addresses’