§ Sir Brandon Rhys Williamsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish a table showing for 1971, 1981 and the latest date for which estimates are available the number of households in the United Kingdom, with the figures broken down to distinguish between no family, one family and two or more family households, as in Social Trends No. 15 table 2.5 for Great Britain, but also showing whether the married couples and lone parents have one, two, three or more dependent children, with the latter defined as children aged under 16 years or 16 to 18 years in full-time education.
§ Mr. WhitneyInformation on the number of dependent children in families is only readily available for Great Britain in 1981 and 1983 as follows.
I shall let my hon. Friend have further information as soon as it is available.
Following is the information:
543W
Households* 1981 census Numbers (thousands) Percentages 1983 general household survey† Percentages One family households Married couple only 4,989 26 27 Married couple with one dependent child 2,251 12 11 Married couple with two dependent children 2,600 13 13 Married couple with three or more dependent children 1,100 6 6 Married couple with non-dependent child(ren) only 1,586 8 8 Lone parent with one dependent child 471 2 2 Lone parent with two dependent children 302 2 2 Lone parent with three or more dependent children 143 1 1 Lone parent with non-dependent child(ren) only 720 4 4 Two or more family households 170 1 1 No family households 5,126 26 26 Total households 19,493 100 *100 * Households may contain other persons in addition to a family. A family is defined as a married couple with or without dependent children or a lone parent with children. Dependent children are those aged under 16 or 16–18 and in full-time education. † The relatively small sample size of the General Household Survey—in 1983 it covered 10,000 households—means that results cannot be up-rated to give reliable estimates of actual numbers comparable in detail to those given by the Census. Percentages may not total 100 because of rounding.