The old adage of keeping up with the Joneses is set to become a case of keeping up with Bridget Jones as the traditional family unit is replaced by a society of singletons.

According to new research from Abbey National, 2001 marked a turning point for the typical UK family: for the first time in history, people living on their own (or as single parents) outnumbered all other living arrangements in Britain - including the traditional family household.

The findings predict that within five years childless couples living together will also outnumber family residences - yet just 40 years ago the family unit (couples with dependent children) made up half of all households in the UK.

The results are part of ongoing research by the Future Foundation for Abbey National and are designed to help the bank fully understand working families and develop flexible financial products to suit their lifestyles. Researchers quizzed three generations of families on their attitudes to family, finances and parenting.

Although there may be fewer traditional family households in the UK, relationships appear closer than ever before. Families are actually spending significantly more time together than past generations. Excluding time spent eating together, today's parents spend an hour and a half a day with their children compared with only a third of that (31 minutes) in 1961.

More good news for guilt-ridden modern parents is that of the total time spent with children, time spent caring for them has more than doubled from 30 minutes a day in 1961 to 75 minutes today. In addition, conscientious parents now spend an average of 15 minutes a day helping their children with homework compared with virtually no time in 1961.

Interestingly, for such a time-conscious generation, cooking habits have also altered: almost a fifth of all families today sit down to a home-cooked dinner every night of the week (at 5pm) compared with only 12 per cent of families in the 1960s.

Janet Connor, Abbey National Retail Marketing Director, said: "Our findings point to an interesting paradox: as singleton and childfree family units fast become the norm, there are fewer families in the traditional sense of the word. However, the conventional family - albeit there are less of them - is perhaps a closer unit than ever before with more quality time spent on parenting and relationships. The changing shape of the UK family means businesses and society will need to carefully reappraise their understanding of family life."

Despite the increase in time spent with children, parents today have also created more time for themselves with the use of time-saving technologies and by the outsourcing of domestic chores. In 1961 cleaning and laundry took up a whopping 12 hours and 40 minutes of a woman's week. Today this has halved to six hours and 18 minutes.

Parents today are using this extra time to enrich their life with an ever-increasing variety of activities: time spent on sport and exercise is up from a mere 10 minutes a week 40 years ago to an hour a week today. Time spent cooking has decreased for Mums, down from more than one hour and forty minutes in 1961 to just over an hour (73 minutes) today. At the same time, Dads have actually marginally increased their time in the kitchen from 26 to 27 minutes per day. And time spent entertaining friends and family at home has doubled from 25 minutes a week in 1961 to close to an hour (55 minutes) today.

The above findings are taken from a report - Complicated Lives II - The Price of Complexity - commissioned by Abbey National from the Future Foundation. The report pulls together new quantitative and qualitative research with extensive analysis of a range of trends affecting families and their finances. NOP conducted more than 965 interviews with adults aged 18 and above between May 18th and May 21st 2001. The NOP sample was designed to be representative of adults in Great Britain. Additionally, in seven national focus groups, Future Foundation researchers quizzed three generations of families on their attitudes to family, finances and parenting.

Covering four key areas of the modern life - and its complexities - the report looks at financial support for adult children, the cost of bringing up younger children, families in the sixties compared to today and financial arrangements between couples. The findings, a mix of serious and light-hearted trends, are being released to the media in six-weekly tranches.