Alan has been involved in the household projections since 1968 when they were first produced by ‘modern’ methods (projecting trends in headship rates from actual data) and has continued to work with them after retiring from the Department of the Environment in 1994, including devising a method for using them to produce estimates of future needs for social sector rented housing. Alan has drawn on this experience to prepare this history of household projections and commentary on their uses.

The paper is a review of the household projections, not their future. In particular, the paper ends with a comparison of the projections with the actual outcomes. The reasons why outcomes have not always matched the projections are discussed, including the impact over time of changes in birth rates e.g. the ‘baby boom’ from 1956 to 1964.

Please click here to download the paper