Sex, lives and statistics

IT all started with the Domesday Book. Commissioned by William the Conqueror to reveal the extent of his new kingdom, it was the first attempt to translate the nation into figures. Today, few countries have been so dissected as Britain in the 21st century.

From how long we can expect to live to how often we have sex, every aspect of our lives can be reduced to numbers, and the information used for everything from selling us baked beans to persuading us how to vote. And figures have taken over politics. Whether it's cutting hospital waiting lists or increasing the pass rates for maths and English tests, huge areas of government policy are directed towards - and dictated by - targets. It all adds up to living by numbers.

But a new book aims to rehabilitate the much-abused statistic. Simon Briscoe, statistics editor of the Financial Times, has brought together figures divided into 78 different themes, from housing to animal testing, abortion to wealth. And the figures reveal some surprises about the state of Britain today.

POPULATION

In 2003 the UK was home to 59.6 million people. The average age was 38.4 years, one in five were 16 and under and one in six were 65 and over. The population has grown by 6.5 per cent over the last 30 years, the majority of that from immigration.

There is a disproportionately high number of 84 and 85 year olds, reflecting the end of the First World War, and a low of 62 and 63 year olds, reflecting the outbreak of the Second World War. Since 1901, there have been more births than deaths in the UK every year. Apart from 1976.

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

Almost 31 million people live in a married couple family in England and Wales, about six-and-a-half million live alone and five-and-a-half million in a cohabiting couple. Almost seven out of ten marriages are civil ceremonies.

The number of divorces peaked at 180,000 in 1993 and in 2003 was 166,700.

LIFE EXPECTANCY

At the age of 39, a man in England is on average half way through his life. For women, this stage is reached at 41. Improvements expected mean for a boy born in 2004 it is 43.

BIRTH

The family of 2.4 children has been consigned to history. In 2003, the total fertility rate was 1.71 children per woman, up from a low of 1.63 in 2001, after peaking at 2.95 in 1964. Assuming mortality rates remain constant and no net migration, an average of just under 2.1 is required for the population to replace itself.

DEATH

Death rates are slightly higher for baby boys than for baby girls, but from a year old they equal out until the mid-teens, when the death rate for boys again pulls ahead, so that by their early 20s, more than three men die for every woman. It then becomes more even, although men are more likely to die than women at every age. For men over 85, the death rate is almost one in five every year.

RELIGION

Christians make up almost three quarters of the population. The next largest group is those of no religion, 15 per cent, followed by Muslims (three per cent). In the 2001 Census, 390,000 people wrote "Jedi" as their religion, which would have been the fourth largest group, after Christians, Muslims and Hindus.

SCHOOLS

There are 17 pupils to every teacher, up from 16 before 1997. The number of children in independent schools is at a record high of 586,000. There are fewer teachers employed in primary schools than in 1997. About one in 800 pupils are permanently excluded from school. Pupils in state schools miss an average of one in every 12 days.

EMPLOYMENT

A record 27.4 million people are in work, 74.7 per cent of the working age population. The one per cent increase in jobs from 1998-2003 was in line with other developed countries. One in six men of working age are economically inactive, up from one in nine in the early 1990s. Trade union membership stands at 7.7 million, down from 12 million 30 years ago.

SICKNESS

The number claiming incapacity benefit has risen from 0.6 million in 1981 to 2.2 million in 2004. The North-East has the highest proportion of people of working age receiving sickness benefit, 13 per cent, and in Easington, Co Durham, it is 23 per cent. Doctors estimate that nine million of the 22 million requests for sicknotes they receive every year are bogus.

HEALTH

The NHS is the world's third biggest employer, after the Chinese army and the Indian railways. Public spending on the health service is the equivalent of £1,400 per person per year. The number of consultant episodes - used as the measure of NHS treatments - has risen from around ten million in 1993/4 to 13.2 million in 2003/4.

TRAVEL

Each person travels around 7,000 miles a year, up from less than 5,000 in the 1970s. Around six per cent of this is by bus, another six per cent by rail, and most of the rest by car. Men commit 97 per cent of all dangerous driving offences and 94 per cent of offences causing death or injury. Plane journeys are more likely to end in death than journeys by car, but per mile air travel is much safer.

IMMUNISATION

The number of children given the combined MMR vaccination fell to an all-time low of 80 per cent in 2003/4, from a peak of 92 per cent.

OBESITY

The average weight for men has increased by 3.5kg in the last decade to 82.5kg, and for women by 3kg to 69.5kg. More than 22 per cent of both men and women are obese, compared with 13 and 16 per cent respectively ten years ago.

ABORTION

Legal abortions reached a record high in England and Wales in 2003, at 190,000. There are three abortions for every ten births.

TAX

There have been more than 100 tax rises since 1997. For an average Monday-Friday 9-5 worker, everything they earn is paid to the tax man until 9.30am on Wednesday.

HOMES

In 2003, 3,149 homes worth £1m or more were sold, a ten-fold increase on the 1996 figure. Seven out of ten homes are owner-occupied, 85 per cent of households have access to a garden and 78 per cent have double glazing. There are around 20.9 million homes, of which 175,000 are second homes. Around 860,000 homes are empty. Each home is sold on average once every 14 years.

DEBT

Personal debt broke the £1 trillion barrier last year and is increasing by £1m every four minutes. About £867bn is owed in mortgages. The average family spends twice as much in December than in any other month.

WEALTH

The richest one per cent own nearly a quarter of the wealth; the richest half own 95 per cent. The poorest fifth earn a 40th of the total income.

HOMELESSNESS

In 2003 there were an estimated 500 rough sleepers, down from 1,850 in 1998. Around half were in London; the Isle of Wight and Wolverhampton had just one each.

POLICE

England and Wales have 281 police officers per 100,000 people, compared with 472 in Italy and 337 in the EU as a whole.

CRIME

Young men are twice as likely as young women to be victims of violent crime. There is a roughly one in four chance of being a victim of crime in any one year. The number of violent crimes has trebled since 1997. A third of murder victims are female and two thirds of them knew their killer; 40 per cent of male murder victims knew their killer.

ALCOHOL

Average weekly alcohol consumption is 17 units for men and seven and a half for women. A quarter of men and a fifth of women drink more than 21 and 14 units respectively. Binge drinking is highest in the North-East, where almost three out of ten men binge at least one day a week. The cost to the NHS of alcohol misuse is estimated at £1.7bn .

SEX

More than 600,000 diagnoses of sexually transmitted diseases were made in 2003, a record, with all the major diseases - syphilis, gonorrhoea, chlamydia, genital warts and HIV - at an all time high. Out of 6,500 new HIV infections diagnosed, 3,500 were believed to be contracted through heterosexual sex.

RUBBISH

More than half a tonne of household rubbish is collected per person. Households in the North-East recycle just 1.6kg of waste per week, the lowest in the country. The average household spends a sixth of its food budget on packaging.

* Britain in Numbers by Simon Briscoe (Politico's £14.99).