§ Mr. Cookasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish in the Official Report a table giving his estimate of the proportion of unemployed at the most recent convenient date who were (a) single men or women, (b) married men, (c) married women, (d) claimant with one dependent child, (e) claimant with two dependent children, (f) claimant with three dependent children and (g) claimant with four or more dependent children.
§ Mrs. Chalker[pursuant to her reply, 16 February 1981, c. 37-38]: The information is not available in the form requested. The table below relates to unemployed claimants in November 1979—the latest available date. The distribution by numbers of children has been estimated on the basis of those claimants—about 80 per cent. of the total—who were receiving benefit at the time of the count; no information is available about the dependants of claimants not receiving benefit, for example because their claim had not been decided on the day of the count.
Great Britain Per cent. of all claimants Single Married Married Claimants with:— men or women (a) men women 1 child 2 children 3 children 4 or more children 56.7 32.0 11.3 7 7 4 3 Note: (a) Includes widowers and widows. Sources: 5 percent. sample of claimants to unemployment benefit or credits and 2 per cent, sample of supplementary benefit recipients, from different sample surveys carried out three weeks apart in November 1979.