Official figures published this week suggest that only 15.2 per cent of families with children are headed by a married father and mother.
The news comes at a time of increasing concern over instability within families, and the adverse effects of family breakdown on children.
Census
According to data from the 2011 Census, just 4,017,793 households comprise of married couples with children under 16, or under 18 if they are still attending school or college.
This number has fallen by more than 300,000 since the 2001 Census, when there were 4,323,069 married couples with dependent children.
Concern
The Marriage Foundation think tank, launched by High Court Judge Sir Paul Coleridge, recently called on ministers to tackle family breakdown in Britain by encouraging cohabiting couples to marry.
The recommendations were made in the first published evidence to the Family Stability Review launched by the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith.
The review is aimed at gathering information on how families are changing, which are at the most at risk of failing and what the State can do to keep them together.
Disincentive
Concerns have also been raised that the UK Government is "incentivising couples not to commit to marriage" by imposing a financial penalty on couples who share a home together.
Harry Benson of the Marriage Foundation said: “‘There is a couple penalty on all partners who share a home
"It can cost parents with one child up to £7,100 per year in lost tax credits the moment they move into together.”
He added that the Government spends a huge amount of money on problems tied to family breakdown, including juvenile delinquency and truancy and warned that the “effects of family instability in early years are felt decades later.”
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