For many decades, the number of households has been growing much more quickly than the number of people. Since 1971, the number of households in Great Britain has risen 35%, from 181/2 million to 25 million in 2006. Over the same period, the population has risen just 8%, from 541/2 million to 581/2 million. These trends are forecast by the Government to continue. These very different rates of growth are due to a big rise in the number of single-adult households, particularly among those of working age. The question of what has happened to the number of households compared with the number of dwellings is at the very heart of housing policy. Over the post-war decades to 1981, the number of dwellings grew a little ahead of household growth. In the 1980s, the rate of new building fell behind household growth.