Dependent Children (Hansard, 2 December 2003)

§ Ruth Kelly:

This matter falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

Letter from Colin Mowl to Mr. Steve Webb, dated 2 December 2003:

The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking for estimates of the number of families with (a) one, (b) two, (c) three and (d) four or more dependent children in (i) 1973, (ii) 1983, (hi) 1993 and (iv) the latest year for which figures are available. I am replying in his absence. (141497)

Published volumes from the Censuses of 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001 contain information on dependent children, and are the closest years to the periods you requested for which information is available. The information is derived from a 100 per cent count for 2001. For the 1971,1981 and 1991 Censuses, responses to some questions which needed detailed coding and were, therefore, expensive to process were processed for only a 10% sample of forms. The samples were drawn randomly. Guidance given to users for 1971 and 1981 was to gross up the figures to 100% by multiplying the sample figures by 10. In 1991 guidance was different in that users were advised to estimate 100% figures by multiplying the sample count by a sampling factor, slightly over 10 to take account of the numbers of households imputed in the 100% figures but which were not included in the 10% sample. This grossing factor varied from area to area. For households in England and Wales it was 10.2.

It should also be noted that the definition of a dependent child has varied over censuses. 32W

2001 Census
England and Wales	Number
Families with one dependent child	2,715,241
Families with two dependent children	2,530,569
Families with three or more dependent children	1,130,891
Source:
Table S007 Census 2001 National Report for England and Wales

1991 Census
England and Wales	Number
Families with one dependent child	2,542,554
Families with two dependent children	2,437,045
Families with three or more dependent children	1,034,158
Source:
1991 Table 13 Census Household and Family Composition

1981 Census
England and Wales	Number
Families with one dependent child	2,560,060
Families with two dependent children	2,677,460
Families with three dependent children	852,720
Families with four or more dependent children	283,830
Source:
Table 23 Census 1981 Household and Family Composition

1971 Census
England and Wales	Number
Families with one dependent child	2,513,080
Families with two dependent children	2,328,370
Families with three dependent children	983,210
Families with four dependent children	356,500
Families with five or more dependent children	184,270
Source:
Table 35 Census 1971 Household Composition Tables Part III