Just under ten percent of babies born in the UK last year were to parents who live at different addresses.
The Office for National Statistics released figures which illustrate that out of the 706,248 births in England and Wales during 2009, 68,251 had parents who lived at different addresses.
There has been a long-running increased trend in babies being born out of wedlock, but the majority had been born to cohabiting parents. This latest disclosure has led experts to suggest that the rise in the number of babies born to parents living apart could lead to problems for the children.
Studies have suggested that children brought up in a single person household, especially one without a father figure, are more likely to struggle at school and suffer from mental health issues.
The Centre for Social Justice has blamed the working families tax credit system as one of the key reasons why many parents decide not to live together. It calculated that approximately 1.8 million low-earning couples were materially worse off than their single parent counterparts.
Samantha Callan of the centre said "Children need to know their fathers. It can't be right that one in ten will grow up with only a precarious chance of doing so."
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