COUPLE FAMILIES

As noted in What is a Family?, couple families are based around a couple relationship between two people who are either married or in a de facto partnership and usually resident in the same household. It includes couples with or without dependants, and same-sex partners.

In June 2016, there were:

• 5.7 million total couple families (up from 5.5 million in 2015).
• 2.5 million opposite sex couple families with dependants (including children under 15 and dependent students aged 15–24 years) (representing little change from 2015).
• 3.2 million couple families without children under 15 or dependent students (up from 3.1 million in 2015).
• 52,400 same-sex couple families (up from 48,000 in 2015). (Datacube 1)
• 1.6 million couple families with children or dependent students where both parents were employed (representing little change from 2015). (Datacube 9)

TOTAL COUPLE FAMILIES WITH DEPENDANTS

The proportion of couple families with dependants in which one or both parents were employed was 94% in June 2016. The majority of couple families with dependants had both parents employed (64%), of which 1.3 million had at least one child aged less than 15 years. (Datacubes 1, 3)

There were 460,200 couple families which had a youngest dependent aged 15–24 years living with them; this represented 8% of all couple families. (Datacube 8)

In 2016, the wife/partner was employed in 69% of all couple families with dependants. As in previous years, the percentage of mothers employed full-time in couple families increased with the age of the youngest dependant, from 22% for mothers of 0–4 year olds to 43% of mothers of dependants aged 15–24 years. In 38% of couple families with dependants, the mother was employed part-time. This pattern has remained consistent from 2012-2016. (Datacube 7)



TOTAL COUPLE FAMILIES WITHOUT DEPENDANTS

In June 2016, 56% of couple families had no dependants. (Datacubes 1,10)