The Rise of the Small Household:
Demographic Change and Household
Structure in Paris
Philip E. Ogden1
* and François Schnoebelen2
1
Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1 4NS, UK
2
Human Resources Manager, Bouygues Telecom, Site d'Alsacia  Illkirch-Graffenstaden, France
size of generations points to a sharp increase
in older adults in their forties and fifties
during the 1990s. As in other leading French
cities, gender, occupational status and housing
are found to be important ingredients in the
explanation of one-person households, with
the increase in women in professional
employment a particular feature. A case study
of one quartier exemplifies these relationships.
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 13 August 2004; Revised 12 January 2005; accepted 13
January 2005
Keywords: households; demographic change;
Paris
INTRODUCTION
E
ric Rohmer's 1984 film `Les nuits de la
pleine lune' was part of his series Comédies
et Proverbes depicting aspects of French,
and especially Parisian, life in the 1980s. The
young Louise (played by Pascale Ogier), whilst
working in Paris, lives with her partner, Rémi, in
the suburban new town of Marne la Vallée to the
east of Paris. However, she craves a certain inde-
pendence and, egged on by her journalist friend
Octave, rents a studio flat in central Paris. Rémi
cannot accept this bid for partial independence
and the relationship folds. The film was a clever
and touching evocation of the tension between
central city and suburban living and of the
complex relationships characterising young
Parisian adults. More prosaically, Louise, finding
herself a one-person household in Paris, unwit-
tingly becomes a statistic in the 1990 census
POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE
Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/psp.370
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the changing numbers
and structure of households in the City of
Paris during the 1980s and 1990s. It sets the
findings in the context of the Paris
agglomeration and considers the results in the
light of broader demographic trends
associated with the second demographic
transition. Although part of a longer-term
historical process of declining household size,
the growth of one-person households was
rapid in this period, accounting for most of
the growth in numbers of households. Over
50% of all households were one-person in
1999 in the City of Paris, and four-fifths
consisted of just one or two people. The
greatest increase was in the pre-retirement age
groups. The paper examines the demographic
structure of these households and their
geographical distribution, raising questions
about the relationship between household
changes, occupational structure, housing
markets and patterns of residential mobility.
Whilst the analysis confirms the well-
established concentration of one-person
households in the central city, it indicates
considerable dispersion of new household
forms to the rest of the agglomeration.
Moreover, although young adults continue to
play an important role in the City of Paris, the
effects of previous demographic change on the
* Correspondence to: P. E. Ogden, Department of Geography,
Queen Mary, University of London, London, E1 4NS, UK.
E-mail: p.e.ogden@qmul.ac.uk
which, with the results of the most recent census
taken in 1999, lies at the core of the present paper.
In contrast to Marne la Vallée, where about 10%
of households were one-person in 1990, central
Paris recorded a figure of over 50%. The general
proportion of the population living alone has
risen rapidly in France as a whole, in common
with many other European countries, and is a
reflection of much wider inter-related processes
of demographic change, household structure and
occupational patterns, as well as of changing
attitudes towards living alone. The central areas
of major cities have been undergoing profound
changes in their demographic composition over
recent decades, in response both to changing
patterns of individual behaviour and to the trans-
formation of labour and housing markets.
This paper examines the relatively neglected
theme of the changing numbers and structure of
households. It completes a series of papers which
deals with the general rise of one-person house-
holds in France and the UK (Hall et al., 1997, 1999;
Ogden and Hall, 2004); the links between house-
hold change and population mobility (Ogden
and Hall, 1998); recent change in London (Hall
and Ogden, 2003) and in the cores of French cities
(Ogden and Hall, 2000). Although some limited
attention was paid in these papers to the distinc-
tiveness of the Paris case, the recently published
results of the 1999 census of population now
allow a full and up-to-date analysis. This paper
focuses on the core of the urban area, the City of
Paris (Ville de Paris), with a population of just
over two million and with about 1.1 million
households, but provides some discussion of
the suburban departments, which constitute the
Paris agglomeration,1
with a total population of
9.4 million and a little over 4 million households
in 1999 (Table 1).
DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE AND THE
GEOGRAPHY OF HOUSEHOLD
STRUCTURES
The paper draws upon two bodies of theoretical
work by way of background: firstly, the so-called
`second demographic transition', and secondly,
ideas on the geography of demographic struc-
tures in urban areas. In addition, the paper also
relies on, and aims to contribute to, recent work
on gentrification, professionalisation and migra-
tion in urban populations and their impact on
household structures ­ ideas discussed in the fol-
lowing section with specific reference to Paris.
The `second demographic transition' (van de
Kaa, 1987; Lesthaeghe, 1995; Kuijsten, 1996),
which has characterised much of Europe over the
last two decades, has a number of aspects that
have a direct impact on household structures.
These have recently been explored at some length
by Ogden and Hall (2004) but, as a background
to the analysis which follows, it is worth outlin-
ing the argument here in summary. Households
are the basic units of consumption and repro-
duction, influencing income and social well-
being (Wallerstein and Smith, 1992). Changes in
household size and structure come about both
directly through the demographic processes of
fertility, mortality, rates of partnership, marriage
and divorce, and indirectly through wider
changes in economic and social structures.
Within the general context of declining fertility,
marriage is both less widespread and takes place
at later ages. Rising rates of divorce and couple
252 P. E. Ogden and F. Schnoebelen
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
Table 1. Population and household change for France, the Paris Agglomeration and the City of Paris, 1982­1999.
Total population One-person
(in households)
% change
Households
% change
households
% change
1982 1999 1982­1999 1982 1999 1982­1999 1982 1999 1982­1999
France 52,987,260 57,226,208 +8.0 19,588,924 23,810,161 +21.5 4,816,700 7,380,512 +53.2
City of Paris 2,127,656 2,077,806 -2.3 1,097,452 1,110,912 +1.2 528,796 581,691 +10.0
Inner Crown 3,810,188 3,954,099 +3.8 1,495,397 1,648,717 +10.2 412,464 558,136 +35.3
Outer Crown 2,907,334 3,407,813 +17.2 1,002,569 1,279,720 +27.6 185,416 320,532 +72.9
(within the
agglomeration)
Total 8,845,178 9,439,718 +6.7 3,595,418 4,039,349 +12.3 1,126,676 1,460,358 +29.6
agglomeration
separation have had a major impact on house-
holds, creating both more single-parent house-
holds and more adults living alone. Improving
life expectancy has produced larger proportions
of elderly in the population and, consequently,
larger numbers of elderly, especially women,
living alone in widowhood. Finally, there have
also been significant changes in the age at which
young people leave the parental home (Kiernan,
1986), in the employment pattern of women in
particular, and in the tendency for both men and
women to live alone.
Several of these factors combine to increase
both the number of households and the level of
transitions from one household type to another,
so that a higher proportion of the population
spends at least some part of the life course living
alone. In addition, changing lifestyles are adding
to the complexity and diversity of living arrange-
ments, for example, step families (Bornat et al.,
1999), gay relationships (Lauria and Knopp,
1985) or dual career couples (Green, 1997), where
one partner lives alone for part of the week,
although these arrangements are not necessarily
recorded in the census or other data sources. At
any one moment, the proportion of one-person
households is a reflection both of age structures
(which in turn reflect, for example, previous
shifts in fertility) and of changes in the desirabil-
ity and practicality of living alone. Recent litera-
ture has begun to explore the relationship
between so-called new family and household
forms and wider socio-economic and geographi-
cal processes in major cities. Thus, for Sassen
(1991), demographic change represents one of the
ways in which the global city ­ in her analysis
Tokyo, London and New York ­ has evolved over
the last two or three decades. Yet the burgeoning
literature on world cities pays relatively little
attention to the relationship between their
demography and their role as financial, commer-
cial, administrative and cultural centres, despite
the earlier promising lead given by Savitch (1988)
in his analysis of London, Paris and New York,
or Gober (1990) in her discussion of urban
demography. The arguments for studying the
household as the link between housing and
labour markets have nevertheless been elegantly
summarised by Randolph (1991) and Ermisch
(1988).
An important idea to be tested here for the
wider agglomeration, as well as for the City of
Paris, is the evolution of the geography of house-
hold structures and the influence of the second
demographic transition on that geography. Has
the `traditional' pattern of increasing household
size from the centre of the agglomeration out-
wards, accompanied by an increasing prepon-
derance of family households, been sustained?
Gober (1986, 1990: 234) has pointed to the weak-
ening of the patterns that had been assumed in
conventional models of urban ecology and the
`life-cycle':
`As household structure has increased in
complexity, the family-status dimension has
become an increasingly narrow and fuzzy
dimension of residential location . . . most
neighbourhoods contained a relatively wide
range of family types. To differentiate areas,
therefore, according to how closely they
conform to the norm of married couples with
children captures only a narrow slice of all
households and ignores the multidimensional-
ity of contemporary household structure'.
Frey (1985), too, has insisted on the demographic
heterogeneity of the suburbs, while more
recently Mullins (1995) has argued not only for
more attention to be given to the household's
place in urban social structures, but also for the
interest shown in gentrification in the central city
to be matched by a greater concern for new
developments on the city fringe.
This paper addresses, therefore, two principal
questions, prompted by the snapshot provided
by the 1999 population census. Firstly, for the
agglomeration of Paris as a whole, how far have
the effects of the second demographic transition
influenced the general geography of household
structures? And secondly, concentrating on the
City of Paris alone and at greater length, what
has been the detailed evolution of household
composition over the last two decades and how
may it be explained? The briefest examination of
the statistical data reveals that recent household
change has been particularly rapid. In France as
a whole (Ogden and Hall, 2004), the number of
households increased by 22% (from 19.6 to 23.8
million) between 1982 and 1999, compared with
a population increase of just under 8%. The
numbers of people living alone rose by 53% from
4.8 million to 7.4 million over the same period,
the latter representing almost one in three of all
households. In the Paris agglomeration, as Table
Small Households in Paris 253
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1 shows, household increase has easily out-
stripped population growth, with a sharp rise in
the number of very small households. In the City
of Paris by 1999, over 52% of all households con-
sisted of just one person. While the trend towards
smaller mean household size is characteristic
of other French and indeed Western European
cities, the City of Paris remains exceptional and
the analysis of its household structure is at the
core of this paper.
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGE IN
PARIS IN THE 1980s AND 1990s
There are three further significant points at which
the analysis of urban households intersects with
wider theoretical issues in the current literature,
and which may be illustrated with reference to
Paris and its agglomeration. Firstly, professional-
isation of the labour force noted for London
(Hamnett, 1994a, b) is also a clear feature of
other European and French cities (Jobse and
Musterd, 1993; Ogden and Hall, 2000). Census
evidence from the 1980s and 1990s certainly sup-
ports the notion of professionalisation both for
France as a whole and overwhelmingly for Paris
itself, which has long occupied a leading role
in French commerce, politics and culture, with
a greater dominance within the national urban
structure than most European capitals (Rhein,
1996). As Sallez (1998: 99) has recently pointed
out, Lyon is seven times smaller than the Paris
agglomeration and Bordeaux (the fifth agglom-
eration in France) is only one thirteenth the size
of Paris. If we look at the City of Paris itself, by
1999, 87% of employment was in the tertiary
sector. Table 2 illustrates the large increase in
manager/professional occupational categories
between 1982 and 1999, the smaller increase in
intermediate professionals, and the decline in
numbers in all other occupational groups. The
increase in professionals was particularly large
among women, doubling between 1982 and 1999.
Women accounted for 43% of professionals in
the City of Paris in 1999, compared with 35% in
France as a whole and 34% in Paris in 1982.
The increase among intermediate professionals
was concentrated almost entirely among women.
This is further reflected in the educational level
of the Parisian population: some 28% of the
population aged 15 or more in 1999 had a higher
education qualification, compared with a little
under 10% for France as a whole. Even compar-
ing Paris with other central cities, it is in a league
of its own: 26% of all households were headed by
someone in a professional job, compared with
16% in Lyon, its nearest rival, and 10% in France
as a whole.
Secondly, gentrification has had a profound
influence on the social class composition of
French central cities, as elsewhere in the devel-
oped world (Hamnett, 1991), and here gender
(Bondi, 1991) and demography (Gale, 1986) also
play a leading role. Savitch (1988) has discussed
the process of deindustrialisation and gentrifica-
tion in the centre of Paris and the influence of
increased right-wing political control, including
the extensive intervention by planners from the
1960s, given the aim of reducing population
densities and improving housing conditions. This
254 P. E. Ogden and F. Schnoebelen
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
Table 2. Economically active population by sex, City of Paris, 1982­1999.
Total Males Females
1982 1999 % change 1982 1999 % change 1982 1999 % change
TOTAL 1,016,748 990,524 -2.58 539,784 501,663 -7.1 476,964 488,861 +2.5
1. Agriculture 530 252 -51.5 240 96 -60.0 280 156 -44.3
2. Artisans/ 79,460 62,961 -20.8 52,580 45,262 -13.9 26,880 17,699 -34.2
commerce
3. Managers/ 236,928 371,665 +56.9 156,636 212,079 +35.4 80,292 159,586 +98.8
professionals
4. Intermediate 200,216 229,550 +14.7 96,100 98,411 +2.4 104,116 131,139 +25.9
professionals
5. Employees 326,648 237,022 -27.1 94,636 74,611 -21.2 232,012 162,411 -30.0
6. Workers 172,976 89,074 -48.5 139,592 71,204 -49.0 33,384 17,870 -46.5
provoked major changes in population structure:
`those who could afford it would settle in the
urban core and remould it. Those who could not
afford it would move into the new towns and
suburban growth poles or still further out into
the provinces of France' (p. 105). Rapid changes
in the housing market of inner Paris were part of
these processes, and gentrification is well estab-
lished in many parts of the city (Rhein, 1996; Hall
et al., 1999), leading to a greater social homo-
geneity (Noin and White, 1997: 192). A good
example is the Marais, where the physical reno-
vation of the area was accompanied by the loss
of large numbers of its population classified as
`workers' or in unskilled services, to be replaced
by business executives and professionals
(Savitch, 1988: 119), who were likely to be living
in small households and often alone. Other
arrondissements are also experiencing this pro-
cess of gentrification, as well as other forms of
urban renewal (Carpenter et al., 1994; Carpenter
and Lees, 1995), for example Belleville in the
north or the Bastille area, the subject of the brief
case study presented below.
Changes in tenure and other aspects of housing
provision in the City of Paris make these points
very well. There has been a long-term increase in
owner-occupation ­ from 20% in 1962 to 30% by
1999. This has been the case in all 20 arrondisse-
ments, although the level remains relatively low
even by the standards of other French central
cities. Paris has also experienced a sharp decline
in furnished dwellings for rent (the chambres and
hótels meublés), and an increase in the rent levels
for unfurnished property and in the numbers of
pieds  terre. While the housing stock remains
dominated by pre-1914 property, there has been
a certain amount of new development in the
peripheral arrondissements of, for example, the
12th
, 18th
or 20th
, with a particular increase of local
authority HLM (habitations  loyer modéré). The
size of dwellings is crucial to the geography of
household structures. Much of the character of
the City of Paris is related to its dense pattern
of small flats in apartment blocks. Nevertheless,
the average number of rooms per dwelling
increased from 2.24 in 1962 to 2.54 in 1999; and
the average number of persons per room declined
from 1.02 to 0.74. The continuation of a large and
increasingly modernised privately-rented sector,
as well as the rise of owner-occupation, means the
housing market is conducive to the increase of
affluent living alone. The contrast between the
City of Paris and the rest of the agglomeration is
sharp. The great twentieth-century expansion of
the population in the latter was accommodated
both in private individual dwellings and in the
great HLM estates of the inner suburbs, to which
much of the population displaced by gentrifica-
tion from the City itself was destined (Noin and
White, 1997). The changing distribution of immi-
grant and ethnic minority groups illustrates this
point, with a small decline in numbers of foreign
nationals and of the naturalised population in the
City of Paris and sharp increases in the inner
suburbs. The make-up of the immigrant popula-
tion has also changed in the City, with a decline
in the numbers of single migrant workers who
were characteristic of the 1960s and 1970s (Rhein,
1998: 436).
A third factor, migration, has been a key medi-
ating influence between demographic structure,
labour and housing markets. The relationships
between geographical and social mobility are
complex (Gober, 1990) and particularly repay
analysis for the largest cities. The central cities at
the core of urban regions clearly exert a particu-
larly important attractive force for young adults,
given their key role as centres of cultural con-
sumption and their potential for upward social
mobility. As Lelivre and Bonvalet (1994: 1663)
remarked `The Paris region appears to be the
ideal location to improve one's chances of social
advancement'. Recent trends in the rest of France
have provided evidence (Ogden and Hall, 2000,
2004) of repopulation of the city centres, fuelled
particularly by the growth in household numbers
(even when population continues to decline), of
which a high proportion are people living alone.
As far as the Paris region is concerned, the evi-
dence from the 1999 census is mixed. The Ile de
France as a whole has become rather less attrac-
tive over the last two decades, with net out-
migration affecting not only the Ville de Paris
and the inner suburban departments, but also the
outer areas. The region is still strongly attractive
to migrants aged 20­35, although net migration
is negative for all other age groups (Baccani,
2001: 49). In the central city itself, Bonvalet and
Tugault (1984) have pointed out that net popula-
tion loss has been a feature since the 1920s, with
particularly pronounced declines in the six
central arrondissements. Yet, after a long period
of out-migration there has, since the later 1970s,
Small Households in Paris 255
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
been some tendency towards a lessening of the
effect (INSEE, 2000) and the City of Paris has re-
tained its strong appeal for young adult migrants.
SPATIAL DEMOGRAPHIC SEGREGATION OF
HOUSEHOLD TYPES
Demographic change over the last two decades
both reflects and influences the wider socio-
economic changes outlined above. Figures 1 and
2 demonstrate some aspects of the population
geography of the City of Paris and the agglom-
eration. With respect to the geography of
households, we may make three points. Firstly,
there was a sharp decline in mean household
size during the 1980s and 1990s throughout
the agglomeration (Fig. 1a, b). Secondly, mean
household size does indeed, as we might expect,
show the classic concentric pattern of small
households being at the centre and a gradual
increase in size towards the suburbs. Figure 2a
shows this concentricity particularly clearly
in the distribution of one-person households.
Figure 2b, however, demonstrates the third point,
that this pattern is being disturbed by the
widespread changes in demographic behaviour,
leading to a growth in one-person households in
many areas. The agglomeration, with 36% of all
households being one-person in 1999, saw the
numbers of people living alone rise from 1.12
million in 1982 to 1.46 million in 1999. The great-
est absolute percentage growth in one-person
households was in the outer ring of departments.
As in France as a whole, and as Table 1 has
demonstrated, for the agglomeration there
was a disparity between population change and
changes in the number of households, the latter
increasing at twice the rate of the former. These
households are becoming more diverse: as well
as the rise of living alone in suburbia, there is also
a steep rise in one-parent families and a decline
in the `conventional' family of two parents and
one or more children. For the Ile de France as
a whole during the 1990s, while the number of
households increased by 6.5%, the number of
one-parent families increased by a fifth (for both
male- and female-headed households).
The Rise of Living Alone in the City of Paris
Whatever the changes in suburbia, the preceding
maps continue to point to the great distinctive-
ness of the core of the agglomeration. The City of
Paris has long had a distinctive demography (see
e.g. Bertillon, 1882), and Coppée (1990) demon-
strated that as early as 1900 the mean household
size in Paris had fallen to 2.72 compared with
a national average of 3.47, itself the lowest in
Europe at that date (Bongaarts, 2001). Figure 3
shows trends over the last 40 years for the City
of Paris itself. Rapid population loss from 1962
to 1982 was matched by a decline, although less
marked, in the number of households. From
1982, population losses were much less and the
number of households stabilised during the
1980s and increased slightly during the 1990s,
by just under 16,000 households. This was due
above all to the increase in one-person house-
holds ­ some 36,000 extra ­ and the decline in all
other household sizes (Roussel, 1983; Chauviré,
1988; Delbs and Gaymu, 1990). Average house-
hold size in France was 2.40 in 1999 compared
with 2.70 in 1982; and in Paris 1.87 in 1999 com-
pared with 1.94 in 1982. Perhaps the most strik-
ing figure of all is that by 1999, some 25% of men
and 31% of women were living alone, compared
with national figures of 11% and 15%. At the
same time, as in the agglomeration as a whole,
there have been increases in other `non-
traditional' living arrangements. Only 36% of the
population were couples with children (and of
course of these a good number would be step-
children; see Barre, 2003); a further 9.5% were
one-parent families with their children; and 6%
were in non-family households of more than one
person (Table 3). The proportion of households
made up of just one or two people rose from
66.5% in 1962 to 76% in 1982 and 78% by 1999.
Geography
Within the City, as we have shown for earlier
decades (Hall et al., 1999), there is considerable
variation in the pattern of population and
household change and in the distribution
of one-person households amongst the 20
arrondissements. Continued population decline
is still apparent in the ten central arrondisse-
ments, with a more mixed picture, including
some areas of marked household increase, in the
outer arrondissements. As far as one-person
households are concerned, in individual quarters
within arrondissements, the proportion may
exceed 60%. Figure 4 shows for the quarters
the dominance of one-person households in the
256 P. E. Ogden and F. Schnoebelen
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
Small Households in Paris 257
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
0 20 km
0 20 km
Ville de Paris
Inner Crown
Outer Crown
(a)
1.66 ­ 2.45
2.46 ­ 2.69
2.70 ­ 2.82
2.83 ­ 3.01
3.02 ­ 3.69
Household size
(b)
1.66 ­ 2.45
2.46 ­ 2.69
2.70 ­ 2.82
2.83 ­ 3.01
3.02 ­ 3.69
Household size
Figure 1. Mean household size for the Paris agglomeration (a) 1982 and (b) 1999.
258 P. E. Ogden and F. Schnoebelen
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
0 20 km
0 20 km
(a)
8.8 ­ 18.4
18.5 ­ 22.6
22.7 ­ 27.2
27.3 ­ 36.0
36.1 ­ 42.5
42.6 ­ 60.2
Mean = 36.10
< mean
> mean
% households 1999
(b)
-7.7 ­ 2.8
2.9 ­ 4.8
4.9 ­ 6.3
6.4 ­ 8.2
8.3 ­ 14.4
Mean = 4.8
< mean
> mean
% point change in
one-person households
Figure 2. (a) Percentage of one-person households in 1999. (b) Percentage point change in the proportion of one-
person households in the total number of households, 1982­99, for the Paris agglomeration.
centre (4a), especially for the younger age groups
(4b) who tend to dominate in the centre and east
of the city. Figure 4c shows the way in which
the phenomenon is, as in the agglomeration as
a whole, diffusing outwards, with some of the
largest increases in the more peripheral quarters.
Age, Gender, Social Class and Mobility
In the City of Paris, one-person households are
markedly younger than elsewhere in France. In
every age group, a considerably higher propor-
tion live alone and the differences are especially
marked for those aged between 20 and 50 (Fig.
5). While nationally some 46% of those living
alone are aged over 60, this figure falls to 36% for
the Ile de France and 31% for the City of Paris
itself. The proportion of women living alone is
greater than men in all age groups apart from the
25­50 year olds. An influential factor here is that
following divorce or separation, it is generally
the woman rather than the man who keeps the
child. It is important to distinguish between
changes in the propensity to live alone, as noted
for the other major French cities during the same
period (Ogden and Hall, 2000, 2004), due to
changing behaviour, and in the numbers living
Small Households in Paris 259
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2000
2100
2200
2300
2400
2600
2700
2800
2900
2500
3000
1000
1020
1040
1060
1080
1100
1120
1140
1160
1180
1200
400
420
440
460
480
500
520
540
560
580
600
1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999
Population(000)
Numberofhouseholds(000)
Numberofone-personhouseholds(000)
Households
One-person
households
Population
Figure 3. Evolution of the total population, numbers of households and of one-person households, 1962­1999,
City of Paris.
Table 3. Population living in different household structures for France, the
City of Paris and the sample quarter, 1999 (%).
La Roquette
France City of Paris (11th
)
1. Total population in households 100 100 100
2. Population in families 84.0 65.7 60.2
Children in families: 31.2 22.9 20.3
of a couple 25.8 17.3 14.9
of one-parent family 5.3 5.6 5.4
Adults in families: 52.8 42.7 39.9
of couple without children 21.9 19.9 19.7
of couple with children 27.4 18.9 16.4
of one-parent family 3.5 3.9 3.8
3. Outside family in households 3.1 6.3 7.5
of more than one person
4. Living alone 12.9 28.0 32.3
Source: Population Census 1999, Table MEN 3.
260 P. E. Ogden and F. Schnoebelen
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
I
IIII
IIIIII
IVIV
V
VIVI
VIIVII
VIIIVIII
IXIX X
XIXI
XIIXII
XIIIXIII
XIVXIV
XVXV
XVIXVI
XVIIXVII
XVIIIXVIII
XIXXIX
XXXXI
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
(a)
< Paris mean
41.82 ­ 50.65
50.66 ­ 52.35
52.36 ­ 55.26
55.27 ­ 57.45
57.46 ­ 64.50
> Paris mean 52.36
0 1 2 3 4 5
kilometres
I
IIII
IIIIII
IVIV
V
VIVI
VIIVII
VIIIVIII
IXIX X
XIXI
XIIXII
XIIIXIII
XIVXIV
XVXV
XVIXVI
XVIIXVII
XVIIIXVIII
XIXXIX
XXXXI
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
(b)
< Paris mean
57.68 ­ 66.26
66.27 ­ 69.34
69.35 ­ 71.61
71.62 ­ 75.05
75.06 ­ 80.29
> Paris mean 69.35
I
IIII
IIIIII
IVIV
V
VIVI
VIIVII
VIIIVIII
IXIX X
XIXI
XIIXII
XIIIXIII
XIVXIV
XVXV
XVIXVI
XVIIXVII
XVIIIXVIII
XIXXIX
XXXXI
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
(c)
< Paris mean
-4.05 ­ 1.38
1.39 ­ 2.90
2.91 ­ 4.17
4.18 ­ 5.72
5.73 ­ 10.42
> Paris mean 4.18
**
*Case study Quarter
(La Roquette)
Figure 4. One-person households by quarter in the City of Paris. (a) Proportion of one-person households, 1999.
(b) Proportion of one-person households aged under 60, 1999. (c) Percentage point change in proportion of one-
person households, 1982­1999.
Source: Special tabulations from the 1982, 1990 and 1999 population censuses.
alone due to changing age structures. As far as
the former is concerned, the greatest increase
in propensity was amongst those aged 20­50.
Changes in the absolute numbers by age, on the
other hand, reflect the effects of the post-war
baby boom (for whose varied effects see, for
example, Ley, 1996 or Macunovich, 2002). Figure
6 gives a longer-term view of this cohort effect. It
shows that population decline between 1962 and
1999 considerably reduced the numbers of chil-
dren and older adults in the city, the relative role
of young adults being reinforced. Between 1982
and 1999, however, the effect of the large post-
war generations may be seen in the increase in
the numbers of women and men aged between
35 and 55. During the most recent period of the
1990s, even when there was a decline in numbers
in some adult groups, there was an increase in all
age groups in the numbers living alone (Table 4).
The effect of the baby-boom generations is very
clear, and the 1990s saw the numbers of both men
and women in their fifties growing rapidly. Thus,
there was an increase of nearly a third of men and
a quarter of women living alone in their fifties
over the last decade.
How far is living alone related to the changing
social class composition of the city outlined
above? As we have seen (Table 2), numbers in
professional and semi-professional employment
increased substantially between 1982 and 1999
within a stable population. While the numbers of
men in the former rose by 35% from 1982 to 1999,
the numbers of women almost exactly doubled.
When we look at the living arrangements of that
population, we find that the highest proportions
living alone in 1999 were amongst the profes-
sional (33%) and semi-professional (35%) groups,
compared with figures of around a quarter in the
early 1980s. Gender plays a key role (Kaufmann,
2001). There were important increases in the
numbers of women of working age living alone,
matching those of men, during the 1980s and
1990s, but perhaps the clearest social change of
all was the increase in the numbers of younger
women in professional jobs living alone, as noted
for the other major French cities during the same
period (Ogden & Hall, 2000, 2004). The combi-
nation of changing demographic behaviour, a
changing economy (providing the jobs and there-
fore the means to live alone) and changing social
mores (making living alone feasible and accept-
able) has proved very powerful. The City of Paris
is the only department in France where the ratio
of economically active women to men who live
alone is over 100. It is worth noting that students,
whilst important in the Paris case where the tra-
dition of living alone is strong, account for only
a small part of the population living alone.
Small Households in Paris 261
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
%livingalone
age groups
15­190 20­24 25­29 30­49 50­59 75­7960­74 80+
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Females
Paris
1999
Males
France 1999
Figure 5. Percentage living alone by age in France, and by age and sex for the City of Paris, 1999.
Sources: Published sources and special tabulations from the 1990 and 1999 censuses.
262 P. E. Ogden and F. Schnoebelen
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
0
50000
100000
150000
200000
250000
0-4 5-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74 75-79 80-84 85+
1982
1999
1962
Total
0
50000
100000
150000
200000
250000
0-4 5-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74 75-79 80-84 85+
1982
1962
Females
1999
0
50000
100000
150000
200000
250000
0-4 5-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74 75-79 80-84 85+
1982
Males
1962
1999
Figure 6. Population of the City of Paris by age and sex, 1962, 1982 and 1999.
As we noted above, one hypothesis links the
changing occupational structure of large cities
to the highly mobile population that chooses to
live there. Young, professional adults with good
prospects are both more able and more likely to
migrate in order to obtain better jobs offered
by a global city (Coombes and Charlton, 1992).
Couples with children or nearing retirement have
different priorities and are more likely to move
out, although there is some evidence to suggest
movement of retirees in from the suburbs too.
Bonvalet and Lelivre (1991: 1167­8; and see
Courgeau, 1987; Bonvalet and Lelivre, 1989;
Lelivre and Bonvalet, 1994; Bonvalet, 1994;
Jacquot, 1994) have recently sketched out
the relationship between demographic trends,
increasing mobility for some groups, and the rise
in demographic spatial segregation. Increasing
rates of household transitions and the changing
structure of households have a clear relationship
with rates of mobility. Bonvalet (1994: 57; and see
also Moore and Clark, 1990; Frey and Kobrin,
1982) makes two points. Firstly, the break-up
of families into smaller units results in greater
mobility through the processes of leaving the
parental home, formation of couples, separation
and divorce, and retirement. And secondly, that
family break-up may indeed lead to spatial
demographic segregation, with more single and
divorced people in the cores of urban areas. By
1999, 7.6% of Parisians aged over 15 living in the
City of Paris were divorced and 38.4% married,
compared with 6.2% and 51% nationally.
However, the evidence of the 1999 census pre-
sented here suggests that it may also be that
the force of demographic change throughout the
population is such that it produces widespread
geographical change in household structure, as
indicated earlier in this paper for the agglomera-
tion as a whole.
Migration is highly age-specific (Le Jeannic,
1993; Simon, 1995). Results from the 1999 census
migration tables indicate that some 43% of resi-
dents in the City of Paris were living in the same
dwelling in 1999 as in 1990, compared with 50%
nationally. However, this figure falls to 14%
amongst 25­29 year olds (22% nationally). The
most mobile occupational group were those in
managerial and professional jobs: only 30% were
living in the same dwelling in 1999 as in 1990.
Almost 30% of the total population had moved
into the City from beyond its borders since 1990,
and this figure rises to 52% for adults aged 25­40.
Elsewhere (Ogden and Hall, 1998; Hall et al.,
1999), we have elaborated this picture by using
longitudinal data from the Echantillon Démo-
graphique Permanent, demonstrating in particular
the high levels of mobility amongst those living
alone. By tracing the same groups through time,
we were able to relate household transitions to
mobility more precisely, our results showing the
crucial role of the migration of young, profes-
sional men and women to live alone in the heart
of the capital. However, there is also evidence
to suggest a relative immobility of one-person
households in Paris, especially those in their
forties and fifties, reflecting the fact that once
individuals are well settled in the city they tend
increasingly to stay put.
Case Study: La Roquette
In order to illustrate in more detail the mecha-
nisms of change, the quarter of La Roquette has
been selected as a brief case study. The 11th
arrondissement, to the east of the Bastille and in
which the quarter is located, showed the largest
increase in one-person households of any of the
20 arondissements in the City during the 1980s
and 1990s. By 1999, all four quarters of the
Small Households in Paris 263
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
Table 4. Changes in the total population and persons living alone by age, City of Paris, 1990­1999 (%).
Total Males Females
Age group Total Living alone Total Living alone Total Living alone
All -1.13 +6.55 -0.07 +13.58 -2.15 +2.02
0­14 -1.82 ­ -1.13 ­ -2.52 ­
15­19 -6.86 +28.17 -8.67 +21.39 -5.03 +34.89
20­24 -10.31 +5.40 -11.53 +3.52 -9.26 +6.93
25­29 +1.38 +10.36 +2.13 +10.48 +0.69 +10.24
30­49 -0.20 +12.32 -0.69 +12.56 +0.26 +12.05
50­59 +15.38 +26.81 +15.00 +31.24 +15.72 +23.50
60­74 -5.88 -2.50 +1.08 +20.10 -10.45 -10.12
75­79 +2.80 -3.18 +10.00 +12.35 -0.55 -6.53
80+ -15.53 -14.11 +10.61 -3.81 -17.61 -16.16
arrondissement were well above the city average,
with La Roquette the highest at 56%.2
During the
1980s the area had become a classic newly-
gentrifying district, fashionable and with a
considerable diversity of housing types and
properties that could be converted from indus-
trial to residential use. Its location adjacent to the
third and fourth arrondissements, which had
become classic areas of gentrification from the
1970s and where property prices were now high,
was an important factor in attracting a new gen-
eration of residents. Simon's (1995) classification
of the Parisian quarters characterised the area as
dominated by the `new tertiary middle classes'.
A revived social and cultural climate in the
streets surrounding the Bastille made the area
particularly attractive for young adults. Table 3
shows the distinctiveness of the quarter's house-
hold structure. Only 60% of the population is
classified as belonging to a family, with an addi-
tional third of the population living alone, and
over 7% in households of unrelated adults. In this
last category, although the census itself does not
permit an exact analysis, were an increasing
number of gay singles and cohabiting couples
who were attracted to the area's location adjacent
to the Marais, which had become the focus of the
Parisian gay community. A very small proportion
of the population (under a third) are heterosex-
ual couples or children of those couples, com-
pared with 36% in the City of Paris and 53%
nationally. The proportion of one-parent families
has increased substantially.
Table 5 presents a summary of the principal
demographic and associated socio-economic
changes. Firstly, in terms of demographic factors,
household growth outstripped that of the popu-
lation. Mean household size, therefore, declined
to well under two persons per household. There
was a sharp increase in both the young adult
population and in the contribution of women to
that population, indicating their role in gentri-
fication in an area very much at the leading
edge during the 1980s and consistent with the
ideas presented by Bondi (1991). This is further
reflected in the structure of one-person house-
holds, with three-quarters of those in La Roquette
being under 60 in 1999. Secondly, the proportion
of professionals rose very sharply too. Here the
role of gender is again evident, as Table 5 shows.
The increase in the proportion of women in
professional jobs was from 10% to 32% in La
Roquette, and more than half of women in
professional jobs in 1999 were aged between 25
and 40. Moreover, if we were to include semi-
professional jobs as well as professional, the
overall increase is from 34% in 1982 to 59% in
1999. The numbers of women in such jobs rose
from 3600 in 1982 to almost 8000 by 1999,
although the total economically active popula-
tion grew by under 10%.
Thirdly, the housing market was diverse.
While there was a sharp increase in owner-occu-
pation, there was also a strong privately-rented
sector, mainly of unfurnished property. Public
sector housing accounted for 14% of the stock in
La Roquette, often in new or newly-refurbished
blocks. Some 10% of dwellings were constructed
after 1982, and of these 90% were inhabited by
those under 60 years old. Fourthly, there was
clear evidence of increased population mobility:
the proportion of people in 1999 who had
changed dwelling during the previous inter-
censal period was considerably higher than it
had been for the population in 1982 (Table 5).
264 P. E. Ogden and F. Schnoebelen
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
Table 5. Profiles of the sample quarter of La Roquette,
1982­1999.
Variable 1982 1999
(A) Demography
Total population 46,364 47,520
% aged 0­14 13.9 12.5
% aged 20­49 48.2 54.6
% females in 20­49 population 45.0 51.6
Number of households 24,656 26,760
% one-person households 49.9 56.9
Mean household size 1.88 1.76
(B) Housing
% of dwellings owner-occupied 24.7 28.8
(C) Employment
% active population in
professional jobsa
Total 13.4 34.9
Male 16.2 38.3
Female 10.1 31.6
(D) Migrationb
% living in same dwelling as 51.3 41.6
in 1975/1990
a
Managers and intellectual professions.
b
Intercensal rates, i.e. for 1982, place of residence in 1975; for
1999, place of residence in 1990.
The importance of age-related migration is also
clearly seen at this local scale, and the data give
a good impression of the rate of population
turnover. Thus, only 12% of the 25­29 year-olds
and 18% of the 30­39 year-olds were living in the
same dwelling in 1999 as in 1990. While only
30% of the 25­29 year-olds had been living in the
City of Paris at the beginning of the decade, the
figure rises to 57% for those in their thirties. This
illustrates both the attractiveness of the central
city for young people of working age, and the
high degree of mobility within the city. We
should also note the high turnover in the small-
est dwellings. In Paris as a whole, some 76% of
dwellings consisting of just one principal room
had changed hands since 1990, indicating the
high mobility of the smallest households. As
elsewhere in the City, the dominance of small
flats in the quarter's housing stock is very impor-
tant in explaining the geography of household
types. Some 50% of all dwellings in La Roquette
were of less than 40m2
, compared with 38% in
the City as a whole.
CONCLUSIONS
As far as the wider debates referred to at the start
of this paper are concerned, there are two princi-
pal conclusions from the evidence presented
here. Firstly, the Paris case has shown the local
effects of a number of demographic changes
known together as the second demographic tran-
sition (whose national effects have been analysed
by Ogden and Hall, 2004). The City of Paris is an
`extreme' case of a demographic structure domi-
nated by adults, many of whom live alone, and
where `conventional' families of couple and
children are in a small minority. Trends observed
during the 1980s and before have been further
reinforced during the 1990s. Secondly, the data
for the wider agglomeration suggests that demo-
graphic structures are evolving rapidly in the
suburbs too, modifying to a degree the contrasts
in geography between the central city and
suburbia. One of the major consequences of the
increasing rates of household transitions, which
deserves greater attention from geographers, is
a greater variety of household types and more
complex ties of kin and friendship throughout
the agglomeration. More and more people are
spending at least a part of their life course living
alone. The trend towards individualisation,
where the interests and wishes of the individual
are paramount, is matched by a pluralisation
of household structures and lifestyles as social
norms have relaxed and as patterns of partner-
ship and living arrangements have become more
fluid (Kuijsten, 1996; Ogden and Hall, 2004).
It is important for future work to recognise that
new household forms are having a profound
effect not just on central cities (where they are
perhaps most visible) but on populations as a
whole. Thus, as Buzar et al. (2005) argue, the
rise of the small household and of more flexible
living arrangements may be one of the keys to the
revitalisation of historic urban cores, but there
is also a need to recognise, and to research, the
impact of the second demographic transition on
the suburbs. While there is certainly a strong
spatial dimension to the impact of this transition,
the changes in human relationships and behav-
iour summarised in the bare statistical data are
very widespread. The experiences of both chil-
dren and adults during the life course are pro-
foundly influenced by these changing processes
of household formation and dissolution.
For the City of Paris, we have shown that one-
person households among adults of working age
have increased rapidly during the 1990s as they
did during the 1980s (Hall et al., 1999). Younger
women as well as younger men are increasingly
living alone and, in both cases, large numbers are
in higher socio-economic groups and therefore
have the means to live as they choose. Tenure
changes show that one-person households are
moving away from their traditional pattern of
renting and that owner-occupation is common.
There are significant geographical variations
within the city, but the evidence supports the
contention of Jobse and Musterd (1993: 311) that,
through their increasing diversity and affluence,
one-person households `have gained access to
the housing market. They are no longer relegated
to those segments of the housing stock that
stronger contenders reject'. Housing structures
within the City of Paris have indeed long been
suited to the growth of small households. The
data presented here, not least in relation to
the case study of La Roquette, tend to support
Lefancheur's (1989) portrait of the distinctive-
ness of the city: `a young population living alone,
more often in work than in the provinces and
more often in high-status jobs'. Changes affecting
all adults of working age are amplified by the
Small Households in Paris 265
Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place 11, 251­268 (2005)
generational effects of the baby-boom cohorts of
the post-war years. The ageing of the post-war
generations means that older adults under 60 are
also of increasing importance, providing a well-
heeled population attracted to the cultural and
social life of the central city. While insisting on
the importance of small households, we need,
though, to take care not to indulge too far in the
`reification of co-residence' (Kobrin, 1976: 137) or
to confuse the fact of living alone with any nec-
essary social isolation. Indeed, as Léridon and
Villeneuve-Gokalp (1988) pointed out, of people
living alone aged 21­44, a quarter of men and a
third of women were in `stable, loving relation-
ships' and there are many questions to be asked
about family and social networks within the
capital (Bonvalet, 2003). Louise of Les nuits de la
pleine lune may not have been untypical: a desire
to live independently was matched by a wide
circle of friends and confidants.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks are due to Patricia Bardoux and Françoise
Desmier-Moreau of the INSEE (Institut National
de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques) in
Paris for help in preparing special tabulations
from the French censuses; to ESRC (grant
L31553011 to Ray Hall and Philip Ogden);
and to the Nuffield Foundation and the British
Academy for financial assistance.
NOTES
(1) The geography of the Paris region is divided as
follows. At the core is the City of Paris (Ville de
Paris) made up of 20 arrondissements and 80
quarters. The agglomeration is the continuously
built-up area whose boundaries are revised at
the time of each census. By 1999, the agglomera-
tion consisted of 396 communes including the
City of Paris (which counts as one commune), all
123 communes in the `inner crown' of the three
departments and a further 272 communes in
the four departments which make up the `outer
crown' in the rest of the Ile de France region. See
Fig. 1a.
(2) The selected quarter is in the top decile of quarters
(out of 80) whose percentage point increase in
the proportion of one-person households between
1982 and 1999 exceeded 6.9%, compared with the
City average of 4.2%. For location, see Fig. 4a.
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