The chart given elucidates the proportion of various household types in terms of the number of their family members in Britain between 1981 and 2001.
In general, the proportion of families possessing few members experienced an upwards trend while the opposite was true for large ones after 20 years. Noticeably, 2-member families maintained their predominance over the 20-year period, representing a significantly reverse pattern to that of those possessing 6 members.
In 1981, it can be seen that households with 2 members held the lion’s share with a proportion of 31%. This figure was 11% higher than that of 3-member families, which constituted one-fifths of the chart. The percentage of families having 4 members was 18%, which was relatively the same as those with solely 1 member. Meanwhile, 5-member families only made up around one-twelves of the whole chart with their share of 8%, which was 2% higher than that of households with 6 members.
After 20 years, there had been a significant rise in families owning 1-2 members, which held a share of almost two-thirds of the whole chart. Similar to the year 1981, the percentage of 2-member families still topped the chart with a share of 34%, which was 8% higher than that of those having 1 member. On the contrary, families possessing 3-4 members both registered a downward trend with a proportion of 17% and 15% successively after 20 years. The same pattern can be observed in large families, with a slight decrease of 2% and 4% respectively for those having 5 members and 6 members, remaining at the bottom of the chart with 6% and 2%.