NORTHERN Ireland remains the poorest region in the UK and has the most deeply ingrained unemployment problem, according to new British statistics.
Average purchasing power in the North, based on gross domestic product (GDP) per head, is 21 per cent below EU benchmark levels.
More than 67 per cent of the North's unemployed have been out of work or over a year. A quarter of unemployed men and one in nine unemployed women have been jobless for over five years.
Although the birth rate in the North has fallen by 20 per cent since 1981, it remains higher than any region of Britain, and the second highest of any EU region.
Almost 45 per cent of the unemployed in the North have no qualifications. Average household size remains the highest of all the regions compared, and the average household in the North spends more on food and less on housing than the other regions.
Northern Ireland continues to have the youngest population, with proportionately more children and fewer pensioners than any other region. The infant mortality rate has declined more rapidly there since 1971 than in any other region.
Meanwhile, a study by the Northern Ireland Department of Education has demonstrated evidence of a strong association between social deprivation and low educational achievement.
Using entitlement to free school meals as a proxy for social deprivation, the study analysed the performance of pupils in the Transfer Test, the examination which has replaced the 11 Plus.
In the past year, children in schools with the lowest proportion of pupils entitled to free school meals were more than three times as likely to achieve a grade A as those in schools with the highest proportion of such pupils.
A substantially larger proportion of Catholic pupils attend schools in the categories with the highest level of entitlement to free school meals.
Proportionately fewer pupils from schools under Catholic management achieve the highest grade in the test.
However, when comparisons are made between schools with similar socio economic circumstances, a greater proportion of pupils from Catholic managed schools achieve high grades than pupils from other schools.
The SDLP spokesman on education, Mr Tommy Gallagher, said the analysis proved that the selection procedure reinforced division and sustained social inequality. Children from higher income families who could afford practice papers and private tuition for examinations were at a distinct advantage.