Over 180,000 children grow up in jobless homes - survey

More than 180,000 children are growing up in households where no one is in employment, according to new figures.

A breakdown of Quarterly National Household Survey figures for the second quarter of this year shows the number of people living in jobless households has been falling in recent years and is approaching levels last seen in 2009.

The numbers, however, remain significantly higher than pre-recession years.

A total of just under 15 per cent of children live in jobless households, latest figures show. This compares with just over 20 per cent recorded in 2012, a drop of about 55,000 children.

Employment in the survey is defined as a person who worked in the week before the survey for one hour or more for payment or profit.

Overall, a total of 13 per cent of people were living households where no one was employed . This compares with 17 per cent in 2012, or a drop of about 100,000 people.

When broken down by region, the mid-east area had the lower proportion of those living in jobless households (11 per cent), while the midlands had the highest (15 per cent).

The same pattern was evident in figures for 2009, when the mid-east had the lowers numbers (10 per cent), while the midlands had the highest (18 per cent).

The overall unemployment rate when the survey was conducted in the second quarter of this year was 9.8 per cent.

When broken down by family type, the unemployment rate among lone parents was the highest (15 per cent).

It was more than half that rate among couples with children (7 per cent), and lower again among couples without children (6 per cent).

The most common family type recorded in the survey were couples with children (645,300).

They were followed by couples without children (365,300) and single-person households (384,400). In addition, there were just over 190,000 lone parent family households.