Families and households, 1 January 2015

From 2014 to 2015, the number of households rose by 30 200. This is mainly due to the growth in the population size and the subsequent increase in the number of residents living in private households.

Household size stabilizes

The long-term trend of continuously smaller households seems to be levelling off. Households are now made up of 2.20 people on average. The proportion of households with just one person has been increasing for several decades. The trend now seems to be turning, and the proportion of people living alone has barely changed in recent years. The share has even declined somewhat in the largest cities in recent years. This trend began in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim in 2009.

On 1 January 2015, 17 per cent of the residents in private households lived alone, 46 per cent lived in households with 2 or 3 people, while 37 per cent lived in a household with four people or more.

Decrease in the share of households with children

Twenty-seven per cent of the households include children aged 0 to 17 years. The share of households with children is shrinking steadily. Twenty-five years ago, 32 per cent of households included children aged 0 to 17 years. As of 1 January 2015 there were 1 111 000 children in this age group. Seventy-six per cent of these children lived with both parents, while the remaining 24 per cent lived with one parent only. Four out of five children lived with siblings. Out of those living with siblings more than 50 per cent were living with one sibling, while about 10 per cent lived with three or more siblings.

Changes in the household formation routine

Prior to this release of family and household statistics, Statistics Norway made some changes in the routine for household formation. Unmarried students registered as living at home with their parents are now moved into households closer to campus, where they are actually living most of the time. Furthermore, the family and household statistics are now coordinated with the housing statistics. As of 1 January 2015, the number of private households in total decreased by 22 600 or 1.0 per cent compared to the number of households under the previous routine. This figure conceals proportionally larger changes for some of the household types. The number of households in the categories One-family households with adult children, Living alone and Lone parents with children 0-17 years, has been revised downwards, while those in the categories Couples without children and Two or more-family households have been revised upwards. The figures previously published on 1 January 2014 are revised, and are now directly comparable with the figures in this release. More information about the new routine, the methodology used and the effect on the statistics is found in About the statistics.