“This reflects the younger age structure of this population, the changing attitudes of the general population to marriage and the fact that legal unions have only been recently available for same-sex couples.”Ĭivil partnerships were introduced for same-sex couples in the UK in December 2005 and same-sex marriage has been legal in England, Wales and Scotland since 2014 and in Northern Ireland from February this year. “Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of the LGB population are single and have never married or entered into a civil partnership.
Sophie Sanders, from the Office for National Statistics population statistics division, said: “People in their late teens and early 20s are more likely to identify as LGB than older age groups. More than two-thirds of the UK’s LGB population were unmarried or had not entered into a civil partnership by 2018, according to the figures. Young people, aged between 16 and 24, were the most likely to identify as LGB at 4.4%. In 2018, there were an estimated 1.2 million people aged 16 years and over who identified as LGB. The overall proportion of the UK population that identify as heterosexual, or straight, decreased from 95.3% in 2014 to 94.6% in 2018.
