Owners, mostly, and not many of them under forty. Seven in ten own the roof over their heads. The typical resident is in their mid-fifties. Only about one in six is aged between twenty-five and forty-four. This is a village people arrive in once and then stop moving, which is lovely if you are already here and quietly frustrating if you are trying to buy in.
On tenure, 72% of households own their homes. Private renting accounts for about 14% and social renting about 13%, which is a more even split between the two than most rural Cornish villages manage, and it means the rental stock here is not purely a landlord market.
The age profile is the defining fact. The median resident is 54, and the 25 to 44 age group makes up about 17% of the population. That is a village weighted toward people who have finished the moving-about part of life. Anyone picturing a young commuter village with a school run at both ends of the day should look at that second number again.
Income sits at about £45,000 a year for a typical household before tax, on modelled figures describing the financial year to March 2023 rather than today. After tax the same modelling puts it nearer £36,000. Both are household figures rather than individual salaries, which matters when you are holding them against a mortgage application.
Household make-up follows from the age profile. About 23% of households are a single person living alone, and around 13% are a pensioner living alone, that second group being part of the first rather than an addition to it. Couples with dependent children account for about 14% of households and lone parents about 11%. All of the population figures on this page come from the 2021 census.
On qualifications, about 26% of residents hold a degree-level qualification and about 20% hold none at all. Full-time students make up roughly 1% of the population, which is the clearest possible signal that nobody is here for a university. It is a mixed rather than a stratified place, and the two ends of that qualification range are living on the same lanes.
Health looks reasonable on the self-reported measure: about 75% describe their health as good or very good, and around 7% as bad or very bad. The wider comparisons are made at Cornwall level rather than village level, and on those, smoking runs at about 12% of adults, which is similar to England, while the preventable mortality rate is also rated similar to England. Neither of those is a statement about Lanivet specifically, and neither should be hung on the people who live here.
One footnote that changes how the other shares read: of the roughly 1,290 residents, 57 live in communal establishments rather than private households. It is a small number, but it means the household figures above describe a slightly smaller population than the headline.
Lanivet's population profile is the least remarkable thing about it, and on the national measures it sits below the middle rather than above it. What you get is a settled, older, owner-occupied village on modest incomes, with very few people in the age band that usually makes a place feel busy.