Survey presentation

The EPIC survey aims to update our knowledge about the lives of people with a partner, in a family or living alone, from youth through to old age.

We have been preparing the survey since 2010 with the aim of tracking changes in couple relationships over a hundred years, from the early twentieth century up to the present day. The EPIC survey follows on from two previous studies on couple formation. The first took place in the late 1950s and concerned persons who married in or after 1914. The second, in the 1980s, focused on persons who were married or in a consensual union. The economic, legal and social context has changed dramatically since these first surveys were conducted: fewer people are in couple relationships, time spent in education has increased, more women are in employment, divorce is more common, and new forms of union - including the PACS civil partnership - have emerged, along with new ways of finding a partner, such as online dating for example.