§ Mr. Alfred Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what proportion of families in (a) England and (b) Manchester consisted of one-parent families at the latest date for which figures are available and three years previously.
§ Mr. NewtonThe latest available information at local authority level is given by the 1981 census and refers to households that contain at least one one-parent family with dependent children as a proportion of all households with dependent children. Though the definitions do not correspond exactly with those used by the Finer committee, the proportions at national level taken from the census are not thought to differ greatly.
Provisional estimates of the percentage of families with dependent children aged under 25 which were one-parent families, based on the 1981 census:
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As a percentage of households with dependent children all households Manchester metropolitan district 25 9 Greater Manchester (Metropolitan County) 16 6 England 14 5 Strictly comparable figures for earlier years are not available, but from other sources it is estimated that for England as a whole the figure in 1978 was some 12 per cent.