§ Mr. McMahonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is his estimate of the number of households containing children where at least one adult member is unemployed.
§ Mr. NewtonThe readily available information covers the parents, or lone parent, of dependent children, but not any other adult members of the household. It is estimated on the basis of the general household survey that there were on average in 1981 about 800,000 families with dependent children in which the father and/or mother was unemployed. Those counted as unemployed for this purpose were people, other than full-time students, who in the week before their participation in the survey were looking for work, or intending to look for work but prevented by temporary sickness, or waiting to take up a job already obtained.