2 August 2004 - Nearly one million lone parents in work
Minister for Work Jane Kennedy today welcomed figures showing more lone parents are in work than ever before.
There were 971,000 lone parents in work in Spring 2004, up 276,000 since 1997. At the same time the number of lone parents claiming benefits has fallen by a fifth.
Ms Kennedy said: “Fewer lone parents are claiming benefits and more are working, showing the real difference our policies for lone parents are making to people’s lives, lifting families with children out of poverty. The combination of Sure Start, more nursery places, financial support for lone parents and the New Deal for Lone Parents is clearly effective.”
Ms Kennedy added that increased childcare help and new financial packages being piloted, such as the In-Work Credit and Work Search Premium, would build on the work to further improve the lone parent employment rate.
“Employment is now at a record high, and the employment rate for lone parents is 54.3%, compared with 45.3% in 1997 – that’s an increase of nine percentage points,” Ms Kennedy said.
Notes for editors
- “Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS)” figures are published twice a year by the Office for National Statistics. The figures cover the spring (March to May) and autumn (September to November) quarters. All figures are seasonally unadjusted, so comparisons should be made with the same quarter in the previous and earlier years.
- The Office for National Statistics do not directly publish the lone parent employment rate, they release the HLFS and provide statistics on employment rates on request to the general public. The data for Spring 2004 was released on July 28th.
- HLFS data has now been weighted to the post-2001 Census population estimates and revised data has become available for all quarters from Spring 1997 (reweighted data from Spring 1992 will be made available at a later date). Hence, figures for the lone parent employment level and rate in previous quarters may differ from those previously quoted.
- The numbers claiming benefits by statistical group is published in the Client Group Analysis Quarterly Bulletin, available online at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/cga.asp#cga_wa. The latest available data relates to February key 2004.
- The Work Search Premium will give lone parents, who have been on benefit for more than one year, £20 extra a week for up to six months if they agree to undertake more intensive work search activities when looking for work. Pilots start in areas around the country from October 2004. The In-Work Credit will pay lone parents, who get jobs of 16 hours or more a week, an extra £40 a week for the first year they are in work. Pilots started in certain areas from April 2004 and will be extended to further areas in October 2004.
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