More than 10,000 Sheffield couples are raising children without being married, census data reveals
More than 10,000 children in Sheffield are being raised by parents who are cohabiting but not married or in a civil partnership - accounting for more than one in four of all couple-family households with dependent children.
The analysis indicates that 25.92% of couple-family households in Sheffield, with dependent children, are headed by unmarried partners. Specifically, the Census recorded 10,756 cohabiting couple households with dependent children, set against 30,742 households where parents were married or in a civil partnership.
Sheffield's absolute number of cohabiting couple households with dependent children surpasses that of some cities which rank higher nationally in terms of the proportion of such families. For example, Hull, which holds the top spot nationally, recorded 8,224 cohabiting households with dependent children, while Doncaster, ranking third, had 8,103. However, both Hull and Doncaster demonstrate a greater percentage of cohabiting parents relative to their total number of couple-family households with dependent children, despite their lower absolute numbers.