Release: Live Births by Socio-economic Status of Father, England and Wales, 2011

Presents data on birth registrations in England and Wales by National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) of father as defined by occupation.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is proposing to make changes to Live Births by Socio-Economic Status of Father. ONS propose to implement the combined method for reporting the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) for birth statistics (using the higher NS-SEC of either parent rather than just the father’s classification). In addition, two recent amendments to the Population (Statistics) Act 1938 mean improved statistical information on the number of previous live births is now collected at birth registration – previous live births is of interest when analysing births by socio-economic classification. Finally, changes are proposed to the existing tables to ensure they continue to meet user requirements. Proposed changes are detailed in an Information Note (63.5 Kb Pdf) on the ONS website. Comments are requested on the proposed changes. Please email any comments to: vsob@ons.gsi.gov.uk by 2 May 2013.

During May 2012 changes were made to the Population Statistics Act 1938, which means that information on the number of previous children and whether previously married is now collected from all mothers at birth registration and not just from married women. This will have an impact on a number of tables and proposals for changes (66.2 Kb Pdf) to outputs for 2012 and 2013 data are available on the ONS website. Feedback from users is welcome.

For information on data quality, legislation and procedures relating to birth statistics, please see Births Metadata (375.7 Kb Pdf) and Births Quality and Methodology Information (117.8 Kb Pdf) .

There is an interactive mapping tool which enables trends in fertility to be analysed at the local level.

There is a lookup table (44.1 Kb Pdf) to show how the current birth tables relate to former Series FM1 tables.

The Vital Statistics: Population and Health Reference Tables provide quarterly and annual births data for the United Kingdom and its constituent countries.

For data for other UK countries please see the latest birth statistics for Northern Ireland and the latest birth statistics for Scotland.

We welcome feedback on the content, format and relevance of this release. The Health and Life Events (HLED) User Engagement Strategy (95.1 Kb Pdf) outlines the divisional approach to user engagement.